Talk:Content management

Please, no links to specific systems. There's over 1800 of them and they won't all fit on this page.

Translation and localization
I was just wondering why in Content Management translation and localization is under editing. I understand that this classification means that we are using regarding editing as a sort of enrichment of the content but I would argue that localization of the content is a separate stage of content management including sub steps like terminology management, translation, cultural adaptation, quality management and publishing strategy. As the amount of localized content and number of languages and other aspects of content management become more and more automated localization and related activities become the final frontier of content management. Happy to work with anyone on this. Let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kajetan (talk • contribs) 13:52, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

definition
The acronym CM is currently in use and defined by the technology industry as Configuration Management". Please avoid proliferation and confusion and do not          hghjgj create an additional definition.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.205.247.76 (talk) 16:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Also note that ISI refers to the Information Sciences Institute and NOT to Pakistan's notorious Inter Service Intelligence agency. And AI is Artificial Insemination not Intelligence. My point is that it's impossible to stake out unique acronyms in an encyclopedia that is trying to more or less document the whole universe. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

definition
No offense to the unsigned person above, but to imply that one acronym takes precendence over another when they happen to be identical, is a bit ridiculous - I've worked with content management all my life, and to me, "CM" means "Content Management" - and nothing else. If I want to talk about "Configuration Management", I would say "Configuration Management". The problem is, if you look up each acronym that you run across in your life, you will find that there are generally at least two, if not many more, definitions; and just because people who work in "Configuration Management" think that CM means "Configuration Management" - well, I disagree, in my chosen field, for fifteen years, it means "Content Management" and absolutely nothing else. The problem is, though, applying the principle of grace, here, is that we are BOTH wrong. "CM" means neither "Content Management" nor "Configuration Management". It means what it means, to each human being, depending on the environment in which they work and life. So to blindly accuse "Content Management" of somehow, allegedly, misappropriating the acronym "CM" from the obviously "more worthy" "Configuration Management" - no, it doesn't wash, does it? The person who worked on the "Content Management" section absolutely did not "create an additional definition" - what he or she did was, they added another acronym that happens to be the same as one you relate to a different concept. And, I really hate to break this to you, but if you look up "CM" on the Internet (which I just did - and it returned no less than 232 possible meanings - this is my point) you will find that there are hundreds of different "meanings" for "CM". So it's ridiculous to say, firstly, that this person is creating a confusing, additional version of "CM" when you yourself have not considered the reality - which is, there are at least 232 acroynms for "CM".

Now, I agree that we want to avoid confusion, but I think that if people get confused, then we need to take the time to explain to them, that there is not just one, there is not just two, there are not just three, there are not just 232 meanings of "CM" - so when they search for "CM", they had better at least know if they are looking for Career Management, Court Martial, Critical Mass, C Minor (musical scale), or Consequence Management - which we could use a little more of here. So I propose that the abbreviation "CM" can stand in any of the hundreds of cases where we might use it, any confusion caused by the undeniable fact that there are a lot more than two versions of what "CM" means out there, created by the world - not by the poor editor who happened to put "CM" as a perfectly valid acronym for "Content Management" - as valid, equally as valid as, "Configuration Management" and the other 230 definitions. Just do a search for "return all acroynms for CM" if you don't believe me. Now - I hope I have shown that in any case, in any article, it is never "confusing" to use acknowledged acronyms for companies, processes or concepts - for the simple reason that none of these acronyms take precedence over one another, therefore, they should either all be denied, or all be allowed to exist. I vote for the latter idea - use them, and if people get confused, they will need to go out and gain a basic understanding of how acronyms work, i.e. the acronym is not the exclusive property of the concept "Configuration Management", but rather, that concept need to share the acronym with it's 231 other concepts that it represents.

I therefore say, putting "CM" in both pages, one for "Content Management" and one for "Configuration Management" is not wrong, it is not confusing, and editors should not be taken to task for doing so - it's not the editors fault that over the last couple hundred years, people have invented 232 different meanings for the acronym "CM". It really isn't, and it is ridiculous to suggest so. Data out there in the real world is not pretty, it would be NICE, if each acronym meant something unique, but that ship sailed a long, long time ago - 232 is a small number, there are other terms with thousands of possible meanings. So any one meaning cannot, cannot be held up "above" another one as more valid, or more important - they must share the acronym fairly and without conflict - since they do share it. We can only reflect what is out there in the world, and in this case, a simple search returned more than 230 instances of the acronym CM - that is the reality, and no amount of denial or favouring one term over another, will ever stop that fact from being real and true - and, we must follow the reality of acronym sharing, no matter how abhorrent it may be to us personally. Pureambient (talk) 13:29, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

"Content management, or CM, is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary life cycle of digital information" is very confusing as the definition at the beginning fo the article. Especially "evolutionary life cycle" is bewildering. After I read the article, this sentence was clear and concise. But I wonder how many peopel reading that first sentence simply give up? The word "digital information" is very confusing. It can be interpreted in many ways.

definition
Since I work with Content Management every day of my life, I do not find this opening sentence to be "bewildering" or confusing at all, and I didn't need to read the rest of the article to understand it. But let's look at this paragraph line by line>

"Content management, or CM, is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary life cycle of digital information"

Here is what the editor contends about this opening sentence

1) It is very confusing as the definition at the beginning of the article. 2) Especially the "evolutionary life cycle" is bewildering. 3) After he/she read the article, this sentence was clear and concise. 4) But I wonder how many people reading that first sentence simply give up?

He/she goes on to comment: "The word "digital information" is very confusing. It can be interpreted in many ways.

As I said in my previous edit of the other editor's definition concerns, I really feel this is a matter of personal perception. To me, the sentence is:

1) Not confusing at all, because it deals with terminology I have been using for fifteen years - utterly clear. 2) The "life cycle" of a document is well known, there are several different interpretations, but basically, it's something like "Creation & Style, Management & Use, Security & Sharing, Preservation & Destruction" - four distinct stages that every document, paper or electronic, go through. 3) I am glad that after reading the article, the sentence suddenly became crystal clear, however, for me, it was quite clear, although not perfect, from the very beginning, without needing to read the article to be able to then understand the first sentence. 4) Well, if they have got to the topic "Content Management", I doubt very much that they are the quitting type. Most people reading a topic like this are probably already in a profession that relates to Content Management, which is a whole range of professions.

But I take the point, for some people, this could be confusing. I am a brand new editor with 0 hours of experience, and I have yet to edit and article, and in fact, this is my first entry into a talk page. Perhaps there is a better way to re-state the opening sentence so it's more user-friendly, and so it is easily understandable by all readers, and not just folk with experience in these areas as I have. What can we do to improve the sentence? Instead of criticising, let's find a way to make it better.

CURRENT STATE, 20140417 14:19 GMT

"Content management, or CM, is a set of processes and technologies that support the evolutionary life cycle of digital information"

Suggestion from editor Pureambient, as a way to re-state this sentence to make it more user-friendly:

"Content management, or CM, is a set of processes and technologies that support the life cycle of electronic documents, otherwise known as digital information."

By removing the somewhat confusing term "evolutionary" and leaving just the simpler term, "life cycle" that hopefully removes what this editor found "bewildering". By introducing a more generally acceptable term to replace "digital information", namely "electronic documents", and then stating that electronic documents are "also known as "digital information" - this educates the user to the fact that electronic documents are also called "digital information".

I am not sure that these changes are sufficient to make the sentence "perfect", but I think it makes it a little clearer. We absolutely though, need to create a page about the Information Lifecycle, and then link from where it says "information lifecycle" to that new topic (or perhaps, it already exists - I have not yet looked) - and that way, the one remaining "confusing" term would be defined - so readers can hit the link at "information lifecycle" and quickly return to the main article after gaining a basic understanding of the life cycle.

So, I am suggesting the sentence be changed as I have noted above, and, that the term "information lifecycle" be linked to information describing this. The only information that I know of, is an article that I myself authored, in the United Kingdom Records Management Society Bulletin (to which I am a regular contributor, but I am avoiding referencing that as a source, since it would be a "self-reference" - unless, this is a case where a self-reference could be used, in which case, I would be happy to provide a link to the online version of the article, which could be used as a source until a better one comes along.

For some of us, then, the terms "information lifecycle" and "digital information" are not in any way confusing or bewildering, and we use them on an almost daily basis in the work we do. I hope this helps - and if I have done anything wrong, here, please be gentle, as I am incredibly new, just a couple of hours old - but I've been using the Content Management section and it's related topics as research tools for a paper I am building for a colleague, and in doing so, I noticed a lot of problems with the content in these pages about content - so I plan to visit many talk pages over the coming weeks, to see if I can help. Thank you for listening Pureambient (talk) 13:29, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

(The following is a response to the post above.) As someone who worked in the IT industry as a developer, architect, planner and product owner throughout the evolution of CM systems to what they are today, "digital information" is indeed a correct term. All the data is in fact in digital form even if it was analog data prior to being digitized for storage on computer peripherals. I would agree that "evolutionary life cycle" could be confusing, but it allows that an object could change during its life cycle. (Bobbear43 (talk) 04:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC))

vandalism?
"It is never as difficult as the VP of Technology would like." That sentence doesn't sound very "right" to me... --Zondran 22:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC) PS! Sorry if my formatting and stuff isn't right, I'm new to the Discussions:)

Literature with definitions

 * ECM Enterprise Content Management, Ulrich Kampffmeyer. Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-936534-09-8. Definition, history, architecture, components and ECM suites. Publication in English, French, and German. Free access PDF 213.39.199.199 10:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

More vandalism?
Someone took out a huge chunk of information and replaced it with the name of a call center in India and presumably a contact name. It's not the typical vandalism but it certainly wasn't a constructive attempt at contribution, so I reverted to the earlier vandalism fix. If anyone disagrees, please let me AncientBrit 17:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

CM Process
Oct 3/07 RBrigante@sympatico.ca

I would like to suggest the following to be considered as a process for Content Management:

1 Create/Update: 1.1 analysis and gathering of materials on which the topic is based 1.2 producing documents or multimedia files related to topic (in any laguage or format required) 1.3 subjecting content for review by subject matter experts and making appropriate revisions 1.4 obtaining approval for publication

2 Catalogue/Security: 2.1 establish key references associated with content 2.2 establish security requirements for content 2.3 fine tune catalogue and security requirements

3 Prototype/Verify 3.1 load content to controlled environment 3.2 verify output and security for expected results

4 Publish/Archive: 4.1 load content to public medium 4.2 confirm output and security 4.3 archive published version

5 Revisions: 5.1 review and qualify recommendations 5.2 update content accordingly 5.3 subject changes for review and approval 5.4 review potential changes to catalogue and security requirements 5.5 verify prototype for expected results 5.6 publish and archive —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbrigante (talk • contribs) 19:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * This is good, but it seems to be "original content," rather than being derived from existing publications. What's the source for this?

GuiderBob (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Online Content Management Systems

 * HotChalk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.177.121.235 (talk) 15:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't see this as being germane here. I don't even see it as being a CMS, but rather a commercial plug for a company.

GuiderBob (talk) 02:57, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Better Definition
I found this article while doing research for some CMS cleanups: CMS, GCMS, GMS, and TMS — Content Management, Translation, and Globalization Terms Explained. The specific statement I think is most useful is:
 * “Content management” refers to the business processes and system software used to capture, store, manage, and distribute text, images, and other digitized information. Specialized CMS software supports these aspects of content publishing, while “enterprise content management” or ECM seeks to solve all problems on a single platform. Content management software does workflow, version control for document check-in and check-out, and other functions that let users concurrently manipulate content and publish it to a variety of devices and audiences.

Since it's an archived article, that should help as a valid citation. If I don't get there first, feel free to massage the intro paragraph with this quote.

The fact that there are sooooo many existing (and many dead) CMSs implies that we're still at the beginning of this development. Definitions, standards, practices and marketing will be the winnowing forces. Most of the CMSs will die off, just as with most other technologies. In the meantime, we need to look for the most appropriate explanations and categorizations on an ongoing basis. (My $.02) GuiderBob (talk) 02:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Strange box from Content management system
I removed the box to the right (above in wikitext) from Content management system. It seemed more appropriate as a list of topics that this article might or might not cover, but it's a bit scattered. -- Beland (talk) 02:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Implementation
The Implementation section of the article is basically unsourced conjecture, advice, and musing. Is it better to let it stand, and continue to hope that someone eventually fixes it up? Or is Wikipedia better served by just scrapping it and trying again with sources? I have a lot of info that I could provide (sourced) on implementation of content management systems, but personally, I'd rather start from scratch; but I don't know if that's bad form to delete and replace so much text in a Wikipedia article. Gogo Rulez (talk) 12:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Merge CM with CMS discussion
I noticed there is a merge discussion tag for this article and Content management system but I didn't see a section for the actual discussion so I'm creating it here. I'm not yet sure what I think so I'm going to create this section then come back and vote. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)


 * hi 2601:98B:C281:9E0:15BF:288C:2B83:18B0 (talk) 10:37, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

*Oppose I think this is an example of a very common type of merge discussion. Do we want an article both for the concept of content management as well as that of CM software? I actually think there should be policies to answer these kinds of discussions but I've never found one. Assuming there is no policy in this case my recomendation is to keep the two articles. They really are subtly different topics, the process of content management is different than the software to support that process. And since there are two articles that do have that difference in orientation right now. Some times in these discussions the two articles cover the same ideas but that isn't the case here and both articles are fairly good. Changing my vote. See below. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Now that I've looked more closely at the two articles I support the merge. The content management system article really isn't very good. It's mostly a link to these two articles: Enterprise Content Management and this one: List_of_content_management_systems I hate the list article. I was almost going to nominate it for AFD but decided to hold off for now. I don't think those articles really belong in Wikipedia at all. Unless you have someone really dedicated they end up being out of date very quickly and also they are seldom well sourced, although that one does have lots of refs but I haven't checked to see if they really support the text. But in any case there are too many CM articles and merging these two would IMO be a step in the right direction --MadScientistX11 (talk) 14:19, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Support A major problem with the content management article is that, like so many other articles within fields related to technical writing, a subject matter expert seems to have basically performed their own original research and written an unsourced article. Now a violation of WP:OR isn't grounds for deletion or merging but here's the thing: this article, in its current form, doesn't deserve to exist yet the topic is notable and significant. The sub-topic of systems for content management itself warrants - at most - a section here within this article but not an article in and of itself. Merging it here would not only be appropriate but would also help us to improve this article. MezzoMezzo (talk) 12:24, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose Writing an article to explain "Content Management" to an organization for which I developed a website, I found myself linking to this Wikipedia article to disambiguate their content management needs and current activities (which involves printouts, bulletin boards, and public announcements) from the specific solution under consideration (a website using CMS software on a remote host). First, having worked in corporate marketing for some years before the web, I recall when content management flowed through a loose configuration of independent software applications structured by policies which were dictated by managers with degrees in English. Which is to say, I don't think of CM and CMS as equivalent--even if the content is all digital. Secondly, as I looked to describe the benefits of the selected CMS, I found myself wanting to use the two terms to separate the issues of functional "roles and responsibilities" from my selected CMS's implementation of "roles and responsibilities". While the distinction between the latter and former may for all intents and purposes be identical (which I don't belive), what is most certainly not identical is the communication of these concepts (eg. when some CMSs documentation blows). Xtian (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Support Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and certainly not supposed to be a bad quality dictionary. Let alone a bad dictionary used to hawk uncited distinctions that a general user would never care about. FeatherPluma (talk) 01:33, 3 June 2015 (UTC)