Hi,
I chair a "self-help" group (it's more about social aspects than self-help, but, I guess, calling it "self-help" needs less explanation) and am looking into setting up a CMS/Forum system. Given the nature of the group it is important that confidentiality and who can see what is guaranteed.
That is - the CMS frontend is meant to be used to present the group to regular visitors (as we are also engaged in lobbying), but would also need to be able to allow registered users to use hidden features (for example calendars, private blogs, whatever). Likewise, the forum is there for both public use and queries and a private section (where people can plan social functions and the like).
In terms of forums I am most familiar with PHPBB, but there are a number of issues with version 3. That is, its settings on what guests and certain usergroups can see is somewhat limited. For example, the who's online list cannot be hidden only for certain usergroups. It is of course possible to remove it from the theme(s) used completly, or to have the default setting switched to having users hidden, but I'd much prefer if the members in the group could elect to have their online status displayed to others in the group or not. The same goes for the birthday function of phpbb3 (i.e. I like it for the social dynamics it could create, but I absolutely do not want that information to leak out to non-members).
With all that there's the possibility to "hack" and "modify" code, but given this is a university student and self-lead society we will have a somewhat high turn-over rate. While I have some basic coding knowledge - it's not guaranteed someone else will, down the road.
(That's why the whole CMS part is included here - the more out of the box, and the less touching code is necessary, the more useful longterm).
Has anyone any experience with websoftware particularly suited to groups/societies that require a high amount of security/confidentiality? If yes, recommendations?
Thanks,
-C.
I chair a "self-help" group (it's more about social aspects than self-help, but, I guess, calling it "self-help" needs less explanation) and am looking into setting up a CMS/Forum system. Given the nature of the group it is important that confidentiality and who can see what is guaranteed.
That is - the CMS frontend is meant to be used to present the group to regular visitors (as we are also engaged in lobbying), but would also need to be able to allow registered users to use hidden features (for example calendars, private blogs, whatever). Likewise, the forum is there for both public use and queries and a private section (where people can plan social functions and the like).
In terms of forums I am most familiar with PHPBB, but there are a number of issues with version 3. That is, its settings on what guests and certain usergroups can see is somewhat limited. For example, the who's online list cannot be hidden only for certain usergroups. It is of course possible to remove it from the theme(s) used completly, or to have the default setting switched to having users hidden, but I'd much prefer if the members in the group could elect to have their online status displayed to others in the group or not. The same goes for the birthday function of phpbb3 (i.e. I like it for the social dynamics it could create, but I absolutely do not want that information to leak out to non-members).
With all that there's the possibility to "hack" and "modify" code, but given this is a university student and self-lead society we will have a somewhat high turn-over rate. While I have some basic coding knowledge - it's not guaranteed someone else will, down the road.
(That's why the whole CMS part is included here - the more out of the box, and the less touching code is necessary, the more useful longterm).
Has anyone any experience with websoftware particularly suited to groups/societies that require a high amount of security/confidentiality? If yes, recommendations?
Thanks,
-C.