Hello SWNI server pals, this blurb is to document and continue our discussion on the pros and cons of letting neighborhoods use the SWNI server as their host, but then they use something other than Drupal to maintain their pages.
I recall there were some concerns about security access to the site so they could maintain their pages, outside of Drupal. And there was a suggestion that the neighborhood webmaster might need to come into the SWNI office to maintain their pages, rather than remote log in.
I also recall a comment months back where there was a concern over the support needs for this. We have a rather thin support team at present, and we are just about able to support what we currently have, with a lot of volunteer hours. If we add another method of maintaining web pages, what level of support is needed and can we provide it? Or do we just say, you're welcome to use our site, and we've provided a nice tool to do it. End of story. Is that sufficient to meet the needs of the community? Maybe so.
I strongly oppose
The more i ponder this issue, the more opposed i become to supporting anything but Drupal. As Mike astutely observes, we barely have the resources to support what we have; we don’t need to add more work.
And the security issues are far greater than the average person realizes.
Can we do it? Well, we have the technology.
Should we do it? I don’t think so.
We provide a good tool. If people don’t like it, they are free to host elsewhere. Each hosting provider offers a certain set of features. And for the cost of hosting on the SWNI server, people should not complain.