Drupal: content types

Introduction

One of the first decision to make when setting a new Drupal web site, is to decide which content types to set up.

The content types define what kind of content will be added to the web site: blog entries, forum topics, images, book reviews, etc.

By default, Drupal comes with two content types: page and story. A 'page' can be used for simple, static web pages like an about page. In a single user web site, a 'story' can be used as a blog entry.

Since Drupal 5, the administrative interface allows the webmaster to easily create as many content types as required. In Drupal 5 and 6, such content types are basically composed of a title and a body. However, contrib modules allow for more specific content types like event, image or image gallery. In addition, the popular CCK module allows the webmaster to create content types with additional and more specialized fields.

Many settings throughout Drupal are node type specific. Thus, many features can be enabled or disabled at will for any node types that you wish. E.g.:

• Taxonomy: create different vocabularies for different node types.
• User access: for each node type, you can state which user roles can create and edit them. With a contrib node access module, you can also define who can see the content of specified node types.
• In particular, content types can be set to be editable by the original author only (this would be appropriate for a blog), or by all members (this would be appropriate for a wiki page).
• User name and date: you can display or not the user name and the date a node was posted. E.g. a blog entry can display the name and date, but a wiki entry can be made more anonymous/collective by removing such information.
• etc.

A few content types considered

Here are a few content types:

Forum topic: this content type is provided by the forum.module. The concept of a forum is well known on the web today so I don't need to explain it. What I want to say however, is that I would advise to reconsider using a forum at all. The internet today is plagued by a very poor signal to noise ratio (a whole topic that I would like to address in a future article). In my mind, useful information contained in forums - especially in forums in popular web sites - is most of the time drowned in the ambient noise. Useful information posted a month ago (in a very active forum) can be considered as almost non-existent.

The only up side of setting up a forum is that most if not all netizens are familiar with a forum format, with its main page listing all existing forums. You don't need to explain people how to use it: they already know. As long as the site has few users and little traffic, a forum is a good way to present information. But then, if the traffic picks up, the webmaster should consider alternative means to place relevant and useful information in a more permanent place where it won't be drowned in the noise.

Wiki: Obviously, the solution to increase signal, is to create a wiki where the most up to date information can be posted. Anyone can edit and improve the node. No comments can be posted on wiki nodes. wiki nodes are a must for any collaborative work. They tend to improve the signal/noise ratio.

Blog entry: Up to Drupal 6, you don't need to enable the blog module to use on a single user blogging web site. It might be confusing, and that's why there are talks about removing the blog module from core, and create a contrib multi-user blog module instead. In a multi-blogger web site, the blog module is useful: it creates a convivial space with each user having their own blog where they can post their own articles according to the web site content policies.

I like to combine blogs with wikis, emphasizing the latter. The members of the community can work together to keep the wiki up to date where most of the useful information should be found.

But as nice as collaborative work on wikis is, people do need a sense of ownership. They are often more likely to get involved and post regularly if they have the sense that this is their "home". For example, at reuniting.info, users could only post forum nodes for a long while. People would come and go, but none seemed to stay for very long. I urged Marnia to enable blogs at least for a few selected users at first. Technically, there is no real difference between a forum node and a blog node. They look the same, they both have a title and a body, etc. There are only two differences: the name ('blog' vs. 'forum') and the listing: in the forum, we have the typical forum listing page (which I described in another issue), each forum covering a specific topic, etc. In the blog, we have a reverse chronological order list of blog nodes by a single author, which represents the blog of that person. The difference is mostly psychological, but blogs are the 'in thing' of the decade. People tend more to come back again and again to give an update on "their" blog. The result at reuniting.info has been tremendous. We were lucky to get a couple of bloggers interested early on, and what used to be a moribond forum turned into an active community.

Other highly specific node types: depending on the web site and its purpose, additional, more complex or specific node types can be added, either with the help of CCK or with a purposefully made module. For example, at minguo.info, the main raison d'etre of the web site is to use specialized, alternative polls. Thus, a special module was developed which defined a new content type with advanced polling capabilities (E.g. see the poll: 2008 U.S. Presidential Poll
).

At Activist Solutions, the needs were different. The whole site is designed to promote the best solution to existing problems. Thus, two content types were created, aptly named respectively problem and solution. Both node types are linked with each other so the user can easily navigate from a problem to its solutions proposed by the members.

Which node types to start with?

In a single user web site (designed to be a personal blog), the two default node types should suffice. Use the page node type for static information explaining what the web site is about. Use the story for everything else: use it as a personal blog.

In community web sites, I would advise most webmasters to start with the following node types:

Administrative page: simply rename the default page node type to administrative page to emphasize the fact that only a selected few can create and edit such pages. Use such pages to introduce the whole web site, its policies, etc.

Wiki: in an information rich, community web site, a wiki is a must and its use should be heavily promoted among the site members.

Blog: for the more convivial/personal content of the web site, consider using a multi-user blog rather than a forum. See argumentation above.

Add to those any required, specialized content types.