Hello Ming! Thanks so much for your reply and pro help! I really appreciate it! :)
Have you done an analysis of your current blog presentation and how you want the new presentation to be?
I am in the process of doing that now... Unfortunately, deadlines dictate that I do several things at once here.
Taxonomy? What is your ideal taxonomy going forward? Categories, sub-categories, tags, etc.
Great questions!
Each blogger should have their own set of categories. We don't want one big pile of categories/subcategories shared by everyone.
Tags, maybe, but that's not something we're banking on (some of our bloggers have a hard enough time categorizing posts).
Media strategy? Do you want readers to be isolated into "columns/bogs" or do you want more of a free flow of information and cross navigation?
Hmm, well, currently each blogger has their own section. I'm pretty sure we want to maintain this type of structure.
We would want a homepage that has everyone's posts (or, depending on how we set things up and the limitations of the WP system) we'll just have a static landing homepage that has links to each blogger's blog (like you see now with our ExpressionEngine setup).
In terms of navigation, I want to keep it simple. We'll probably want one main horizontal nav across the top that links to each blog, and/or a sidebar tease that links to each blogger's blog (with avatars).
Our goal is to keep it simple without trying to push the boundries (in terms of custom code and mods) of the theme we have chosen.
Itemized features? About Author, widgets, feeds, etc. What do you need, what is shared, what is custom per column/blog.
For each blog, we'll want widgets that relate to that blog (in terms of most popular/commented/emails/other). As it stands currently, there's not much connection between our bloggers except for the "Most Popular" box in the sidebar. We're good with this type of separation.
Really, the only time we would want everyone in one pile is on the homepage (and this is not even a requirement).
Publishing workflow? What is your publishing workflow? Authors and Editors? Comment moderation, etc?
Authors, admins and Guest bloggers.
We don't want our guest bloggers to have access to much other than an entry form, and their stuff will be moderated.
Admins should have access to and will be able to post to any blog (we're talking WPMS here) and authors will be limited to their own blog (i.e. we don't want bloggers posting to other blogs unless they are specifically allowed to do so).
We're planning on using Disqus for comments and we would like to use a Disqus plugin to import comments into the page for SEO reasons. I am hoping that this is not going to be a tedious setup if we use MS (in other words, a global Disqus setup would be nice).
Comments will be allowed without initial moderation.
These are just some high level questions off the top of my head that should be considered before determining the blog platform/configuration. Based on what information you have presented so far, I'm not sure I would be able to make determination as to use Multisite or not.
This has been very helpful! Thanks so much for the help.
Based on my answers, I am leaning towards a MS setup.
On top of what I said above, I am realizing that I will want each blogger to have the ability to create Links, Pages, Features, Boxes and Banners without having to see other blogger's Links, Pages, Features, Boxes and Banners.
Additionally, I also like the thought of each blogger having their own Media section.
The more I play with MS, the more I think it's going to be the right choice for us.
The only major drawback I can see is having to export/import theme settings from blog to blog. Also, it looks like author management might get a bit tricky; but with ExpressionEngine we have to jump through similar hoops, so there's not a lot of surprise here.
Hehe, it sounds like I talked myself into WPMS! I hope I don't have a bad case of tunnel vision. :(
Thoughts?
Thanks again Ming and Ipstenu! I really appreciate it!
Cheers,
Micky
mhulse
Ming Sheu