WordPress MU

This is the exact same question posted in the regular WP forums but a mod suggested to post here for better guidance.
-----
I am trying to find out which bloggin software is capable of provinding a stable and easy multi user environment. There will be a few blogs from different people e.g. 5 or 6 blogs and there will be one blog which will have 5 authors i.e. a multiple author blog.

Is Wordpress MU advanced and stable enough to give those features? What about the themes for the blogs in Wordpress MU? Can users set up their own themes themselves?

Bloxxom seems to be capable of doing this but the only problem is that it is not as easy to use as Wordpress for authors.

Sort of. Each user can have their own blog and then you can add them into the main blog as well.

Only issue though is that the themes are installed to a common pool and any of your blog owners can use them but not modify them.

Hope this helps,
-drmike

regarding themes: But can the users have different themes for their blogs? Does installing to common pool mean that they can choose one of those and different users can have different themes from the pool?

Would this be a better approach: use sub-domains for each user and install WP (regular WP) for each of them than installing WP-MU?

Themes: admin uploads them, set permissions on which ones the users can use, and then they pick one.

Advantages of WP-MU: Single install, convenient once done, single or multiple site-admins can administrate all blogs easily.

Disadvantages: Install is not as easy, but not too advnaced. Only specific plugins work. Not as many plugins available. Not as up-to-date as regular wordpress.

If your sites have fairly basic features without any overly complicated plugins needs a WP-MU install will save hassles over time. I have tried administering multiple regular wordpress blogs and it becomes a bit of a hassle.

marsbt: Perhaps if you tell use more about specific needs and requirement we can make a better suggestion.

Not as up-to-date as regular wordpress.

Gotta disagree on that statement. We're running 2.1alpha here and I see most of the work Donncha is doing is the same stuff going into the code there. (All those WP Murge updates.)

pumpkinslayer: the requirement is to have one blog which will have multiple authors(5 authors). Plus there will be a few more users with their personal blogs (about 3-5 users). Thats it. The website will not allow self registration for a blog as we are providing the service to a select group and blogs on a need basis.

Why not just setup multiple WordPress blogs, one for each user, and then a final blog and add those users in? Sounds like overkill to me to install WPMU. That way you're users would also have complete control over their own setups.

drmike</strong: yup, thats what I thought too! But was double minded. multiple WordPress blogs --> does that imply multiple installations? Its not too much work but just making sure.

Hi.
I know it's late to join your discussion, but i am in kind of same situation.
did marsbt find the solution?
I want to start a new site where EVERYBODY can post articles (upon registration).
Which means that as soon as they register, they can post on the main blog.
The author should be able to review the articles before publishing.

there is not gonna be a blog for user A neither for user B, but just one big container for everybody.
Of course USER A can only edit his own posts, and cannot EDIT other's post but comment them.
But i want a big container only for all.
Each author will also have his profile public.

I dont mind doing hardcore customization if necessary, but i want to be sure i start with the closest solution as possible.

Is mu.wordpress the right place to be? or should i better look into something different? any suggestion?

thanks

Best bet then would be a CMS like phpNuke or phpSlash.

WPMu is multiple blogs for multiple users.

It "could" be done with standard WordPress as well.

Although I'm always personally leery about letting just "anyone" put content on my site without being reviewed.

Hey Jalabiso,
I would say you should go with standard WP, as Lunabyte has said.

Most CMSes have a submit function as well for visitors to submit articles without having to create an account. Regular wordpress would require an account and that means giving them access to the backend. Granted it's limited but it's still access.

True, but at least there would be some sort of control and identity verification.

It's a sticky topic, really. One I'm on the side of caution of, and have "trust nobody" mindset for.

I wouldn't recommend a nuke flavor though. To me it's kind of the phpbb of portals, way too many people find way too many holes.

This interests me too. We really want to allow anyone at our Univ to be able to get their own blog, and in addition, we want multiple people to access a single blog. So say for example, Joe Student has his own blog and then he takes American Lit with Prof. Faculty, who has a blog, and wants all 30 students to have write access to it. Is the way it would work that the Prof. has to invite all 30 people via email? Or can all 30 sign up for it and then be approved by the Prof?

And I don't want to use standard WP, because this happens many times and I don't want to be installing it over and over again for each time a prof wants a blog.

Thanks!

The "prof" would add the users he would like from the mu users at large.

Once they have an account in mu, they can be added as a user or whatever to any blog in addition to their own.

Working on an importer I hope later this afternoon.

I guess now I'm trying to see how to add the users. I'm the admin on my system and I have my own user blog, so I'm able to see things from that point of view. So I log in with my non-admin account, click on the Users tab, and there's a search box. I enter the username of someone else who has their own blog, but it is not found. What is the search supposed to look for? Not username? Or is my search just not working properly?

Thanks.

Looking forward to the importer, drmike.

Gotta be an admin of the individual blog to add users. Note, Site Admin and Blog Admin are 2 different things.

Site Admin is global, across MU. Blog Admin is for the individual blog only.

Dealing with the Blogger importer right now as I've got open tickets. :(

IS there an option for a global blog for MU? where users can post on a group blog?

I have added users from the other blogs in my mu account, and set their role as author, and contributor. But, I'm still not getting their posts to the main blog when they post.

Hope that makes sense.

main blog - is a collection of posts from the sub blogs.

sub blog has an author that posts to his/her own blog in this same MU setup, and these posts also show on the main(root) blog.

Am I missing a step, role, permission, or is there another plugin that I need?

-Vince

They need to be posting on the main blog for it to show up there, otherwise it's probably showing up on the blog they are administrator of. Just because a user is an author of your main blog, doesn't mean any blog post they make on your site will show up in the root blog. You'd need a plugin for that.

"main blog - is a collection of posts from the sub blogs.
Am I missing a step, role, permission, or is there another plugin that I need?"

Yeah, you're missing a huge step. the main blog is just that - a blog. you want to aggregate the posts across the network to the main blog. you can do this a variety of ways, here's one:
http://wpmututorials.com/plugins/how-to-display-users-blog-posts-feed-on-your-main-page/