[Cialug] ? Open Source Group Software

[Derek Etnyre]

Have wanted to try Members Gear - is on my list :)

http://membersgear.com/index.php

Derek

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 24, 2015, at 12:03 PM, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org> wrote:
> 
> Three things to consider:
> 
> Drupal - not really a resource hog by most standards, but it is an
> amazingly flexible system that will happily let you shoot yourself in the
> foot. Think of it as a tool like MS Access. You start out with something
> that looks like an ultra basic CMS but what you really have is a a database
> and development framework that is mostly controlled using a web based UI.
> 
> Wordpress - try this before anything else to see if it will work for you.
> BuddyPress is a great plugin and is the foundation for a lot of other great
> plugins for collaboration. wpmudev.org is a website focused on tutorials
> and plugins for people doing this stuff. The reason why I suggest WP as
> first choice is because it's about the easiest to try, has some of the best
> documentation and community support. As far as security and performance
> concerns, is very well understood. Yes, it's a bigger target, but the
> update system for security updates is very mature and there are numerous
> people in the community and on this list who know how to deal with it.
> 
> Another one to look into is a slightly different beast: Zentyal is more
> like an open source Exchange replacement, but it does focus on helping
> groups communicate. You would use your e-mail/calendar/notes applications
> on your computer or phone to access the data, but it also has a web
> interface. Compared to the two above, it is a resource hog. I think you may
> be able to install it on a VM with 1GB of RAM if you enable swap. Once you
> give it enough resources it's not a crazy-hard installation.
> 
>> On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 10:52 AM, jim kraai <jimgkraai at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Looking for your suggestions and experience ...
>> 
>> I know it's come up before, but am hoping some of the answers have changed
>> over time.
>> 
>> I'm in a couple of non-technical nonprofits that don't really want to
>> budget any $ on anything that's not 1960s level tech.  There's good
>> pressure from within to update that.
>> 
>> They each need a web site, member/mailing list management, and more modern
>> features.  I don't know what more modern features are or should be--maybe
>> self-management of annual dues, event management, forums, publish photo
>> galleries or link to external photo gallery site.  I'm keeping the
>> 'required features' list fluid as I'll go with whatever a suite offers.  A
>> member forum would be nice.  Per-member blogs would be OK, but I'd prefer
>> to link to something external for that.
>> 
>> Each club has 50 < members < 100, so that puts us out of the free range of
>> most online places.
>> 
>> Low/mid level technical skill in maintenance is important.  I'll host at my
>> expense for life, but I don't wish to be web master for life on the
>> day-to-day content and member management fiddling, if you get my drift.
>> 
>> Things that are off the table are:
>> - Yahoo Groups--rotting from within
>> - G+:  cost and lack of features
>> - Facebook:  guessing it'll cost plenty soon and lack of features
>> 
>> It's my impression that:
>> - Drupal is a resource hog
>> - Joomla is a resource hog and has been hacked every way imaginable
>> - WP is less of a hog, but suffers continuous popularity-hacking
>> 
>> I don't quite understand Google for Nonprofits, it seems like little more
>> than a self-promotion tool--a way to put ads out there.
>> 
>> There are things that look almost nice like:
>> - http://www.memberplanet.com/nonprofit.aspx
>> - http://www.clubmaster.org/
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Matthew Nuzum
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> 
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