On Definitions
- Date
- From
- Issue #13
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.