On Definitions

A source of confusion in any industry is the lack of common definitions. CMS is no different – people use the same words to mean different things.

• Four years ago, I solicited opinions in a CMS LinkedIn group about what “archiving” meant. I compiled the responses and found that the range of understanding is vast.

• Real Story Group has pointed out that people often conflate “versioning” and “version control.”

• John Girard has compiled about a hundred definitions of “knowledge management,” and even made a word cloud out of them.

• The National Information and Standards Organization has specified that "metadata” could mean one of three different types, and I’ve extended that argument a bit in concrete CMS terms and even indicted the concept of metadata as a label.

I’ve put together a glossary for web content management, but it can’t claim any consensus. What we need is a CMS standards organization, but that’s another conversation entirely.