Domino-based Wikis and BulletinBoards
April 10 2006 11:00:00 AM
Add/Read Comments [14]
Since Domino was first introduced over
a decade ago, it has helped enable people to easily and securely share
information. Thinking "outside of the inbox" customers
created content in discussion databases, document libraries, and TeamRooms.
This freed up the information from the constraints of individual
inboxes, and made it easier to share information not only with those inside
your company, but with your customers, partners, suppliers, and other external
communities. In the last few years we've witnessed collaboration
expand with the adoption of blogs, wikis, and other "social networking"
tools. Did you know that as a Domino customer, you already have everything
you need to adopt these new forms of information sharing?
While many people (but still not enough!) are aware of Domino-based blogging templates such as DominoBlog (just acquired by Lotus!) and BlogSphere, I'd like to help promote two other Domino based applications: DomBulletin and Domino Wiki. Both applications are available free (open-sourced) on OpenNTF. The primary authors of these two templates, Ben Poole for Domino Wiki, and Michael Bourak for domBulletin, have done some astounding work.
domBulletin is a web discussion template mixing standard Domino discussion capabilities with features found in web bulletin boards. What I like the most about bulletin boards compared to standard discussion databases is that you can read all the responses to a thread on a single page, you don't have to move from document to document.
Domino Wiki is a Domino-based wiki implementation. With blogs, users just append comments as responses to the original document. With a Wiki all users become editors of the document, forming a powerful collaborative pool of expertise.
I thought we, the Domino community, should keep a repository of sites designed with these two templates so that future customers can view the references. I've set up wiki pages here: domBulletin sites and here Domino Wiki sites. Please surf over to those two pages and add any reference you know of.
I hope you and your company take advantage of these excellent Domino based tools.
While many people (but still not enough!) are aware of Domino-based blogging templates such as DominoBlog (just acquired by Lotus!) and BlogSphere, I'd like to help promote two other Domino based applications: DomBulletin and Domino Wiki. Both applications are available free (open-sourced) on OpenNTF. The primary authors of these two templates, Ben Poole for Domino Wiki, and Michael Bourak for domBulletin, have done some astounding work.
domBulletin is a web discussion template mixing standard Domino discussion capabilities with features found in web bulletin boards. What I like the most about bulletin boards compared to standard discussion databases is that you can read all the responses to a thread on a single page, you don't have to move from document to document.
Domino Wiki is a Domino-based wiki implementation. With blogs, users just append comments as responses to the original document. With a Wiki all users become editors of the document, forming a powerful collaborative pool of expertise.
I thought we, the Domino community, should keep a repository of sites designed with these two templates so that future customers can view the references. I've set up wiki pages here: domBulletin sites and here Domino Wiki sites. Please surf over to those two pages and add any reference you know of.
I hope you and your company take advantage of these excellent Domino based tools.
Alan,
I know of several implementations of Domino Wiki (because I implemented them!) but they are all run on intranets, I suspect that will be the case for the majority of Wiki's using Domino but would certainly be interested to hear how they are being used. Personally I think Wikis make great application documentation repositories, they encourage the developer to keep things up to date rather than just writing some monolithic Word document that noone ever reads again.
Matt
I think it's time for IBM to "aquire" a wiki and a domino discussion board template, don't you think so Ben ? ;)
Alan, a problem - at least as I understand it - is that the Domino license prevents customers from using DomBulletin and DominoWiki in a setting where the users are authenticated. This may not be as critical for a Wiki, but for a bulletin board it kills the deal.
I've had numerous conversations with Prominic and Bruce Elgort about this and we've not been able to find a suitable solution for a small shop that does not want to shell out for the enterprise license. This is a shame, as DomBulletin and DominoWiki are outstanding products and they could easily provide better value than many alternatives, which we are forced to recommend to clients.
I hope I'm way off here. Can you think of a way that an IBM customer can deploy a DomBulletin site with authenticated web users on a basic Domino server license?
Eric
You're definitely right for a typical bulletin board model... needing to log-in and have customized views etc. Wikis and blogs, though, typically just rely on simple 'personalization' data, as opposed to full authentication.
The Domino Utility Server model gets away from individual authentication requirements. I realize that US$20,000 is too big a pricetag for a bulletin board server.
Ed Wrote: "I realize that US$20,000 is too big a pricetag for a bulletin board server."
Precisely, which is why it is difficult to showcase true value of Domino's Web capability for SMBs. Domino shines, but when a customer is told he has to spend $20K just to play with basic web apps, you know what they say? "Microsoft Internet Infor....."
It seems like there needs to be a solution that allows for applications such as a web authenticated discussion forum to run on Domino without breaking the bank.
Ed, I'm facing this myself - I'd like to deploy a Domino forum for a project. I may end up using a php app ($200) instead. Not my first choice. Hopefully you have an alternative solution.
Domino Utility Server Express is $2500 USD first year cost ($650 renewal), so a bit better than $20,000, but not as good as $200. I'm curious what service you'd use for the php version. I've been doing some competitive scouting, and many of the hosting sites appear to charge around $200, but that is always per forum. So if you had more than one forum, the costs go up. Where as Domino is a single price independent on the # of forums. Also, looking at something like SocialText for Wikis, they charge $2500 PER MONTH for 500+ user access!
Well, $2500 is certainly better than $20,000 for a smaller organization or Notes guy who wants to create a Notes community that would require authenticated users.
The express offering, at $133 is a great value to allow people to get a taste of what Notes/Domino has to offer. Web access is no longer considered an "Add-on" and most people (myself included) now consider basic web services to be standard.
My dilemma is this: I'd really like to set up a DomBulletin community. It seems like the thing that kills DomBulletin - at least for small users - is the now $2500 startup cost for the Utility server.
Surely, I'm not the first to bring up this concern.
What are people who run DomBulletin doing for licenses?
Is the $2500 utility server the best (read: only) option for someone who simply wants to run DomBulletin with authenticated users (web only)? What do Notes communities use? Or, is there another way to provide authenticated web access to such a community for a very low cost?
Thanks,
Eric
Hey folks,
can you tell me, whether there have been new bulletin boards-softwares for domino, that can handle these authentification problems?
I am urgently looking for a bulletin board software and domBulletin doesn't work!
Thanks for your answer!
Have you contacted the developer of DomBulletin with your concerns? I bet he'd be happy to help try and help out.
I'm looking for a manual or 'Howto' document to get started with DomBulletin skins. I found for example that it doesn't show any of the skin elements in Firefox - they work fine in IE though.
David, try asking here:
http://www.openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectView?ReadForm&CollapseView&Query=domBulletin~Discussion
The Domino Wikia is for tracking the history, development and evolution of Lotus Notes/Domino. This software is a service for collaboration in the business ...
www.wikia.com/wiki/Domino
We have loaded DomBulletin V 1.2 on Domino server 8.0.2 on 20/Feb/2009. we are facing following problems :
1) Authentication - everyday we have to authenticate this dombulletin database to start. It changes to hide more after night 12:00 O'clock.
2) While saving, it gives error : 'Done, but with error on page'
3) RSS feed - hot to get the information about who (user), when (Date, time) , what changes (topic name & link) after logging by user.
your support will help us a lot...
Regards, Vijay Prabhu
Thanks a lot for sharing. I have recently downloaded a couple of tutorials on Domino-based Wikis from { Link } and they helped me much! Best regards!