Implementing a Wordpress Multisite as a faculty / staff / student platform within Temple University. The Challenges we faced, and the problems it solved. Presentation given at Wordcamp Philly 2011, presentation put together by Paul Paire

1. Multisite WP in Education
Implementing Wordpress MultiSite
at Temple University through
crowdsourcing

2. Speakers
• Paul Muller, Senior Technical Support
• Paul Paire, Exec Director Special Projects
• Sheri Stahler, AVP for Computer Services

3. About Temple
9 5,000
39,000

4. How things were
• Home grown web pages
– No standards/policies
– Difficult for the standard user to create/update
– Static Web
• Google Sites
– Not on a ‘temple.edu’ domain
– Limited functionality/restricted features

5. What we needed
• Easy to use
• Policies
• LDAP authentication
• Moderation of comments
• Target audience
– Faculty
– Staff

6. Why Crowdsourcing?
• Beyond the buzzword
• Quicker with help
• Play to people’s strengths
• Different points of view

7. What we created
http://sites.temple.edu

8. Any problems?
wp-includes/wp-db.php
• Change mysql_connect() to
mysql_pconnect()
• Added a one time check to see if the
connection is established, if not try one
more time
if ( !$this->dbh ) {
if ( WP_DEBUG ) {
$this->dbh = mysql_pconnect( $this->dbhost, $this->dbuser, $this->dbpas
} else {
$this->dbh = @mysql_pconnect( $this->dbhost, $this->dbuser, $this->dbp
}

9. Alternate solution
HyperDB
• HyperDB is an advanced database class
that supports replication, failover, load
balancing, and partitioning.

10. User Management
• LDAP Integration
– Automatically add users when they login
• Site administrators add users from our
LDAP, or existing users
• Read-only if not affiliated with Temple

11. Plugins
• Not all users should have access to all
plugins
• Some plugins are site specific

12. Challenges of Control
• All comments must be moderated
• Users cannot change their passwords
through profile, or standard WP process
• Temple Branding on Personal Sites?
• Sign up process changed significantly

13. Customized Plugins
• More Privacy Options
• Site Creation Wizard
• Sidebar login
• Superb Slideshow Gallery
• LDAP
• Custom plugin to avoid hacking core

14. Accessibility
• Themes (i.e. Search boxes)
• Plugins (i.e. Alt-Tags for images)
• Wordpress core (i.e. Login forms)
• User education (i.e. closed captioning for
embedded videos)

15. Governance
• Request process for Plugins/Themes
• Policies
• Central Advisory Group

16. Bonus slides

17. Plugins available to all end users
• amr events calendar or lists with ical files
• Authors Widget
• Blubrry PowerPress
• Collapsing Categories
• FD Feedburner Plugin
• FeedWordPress
• Galleria Galleria
• Google Calendar Events
• Gravity Forms
• Importers (Wordpress, Blogger, etc.)
• LaTex for Wordpress
• Members
• My Category Order
• Peter’s Collaboration Emails
• Sidebar Login
• Sociable
• WordPress SEO

18. Plugins we use (but not the public)
• Exploit Scanner
• Health Check
• Login Logo
• More Privacy Options
• Restrict MultiSite Plugins
• Simple LDAP Login
• Site Creation Wizard
• Superb slideshow gallery
• Theme Info
• Plugin Stats
• WP Touch
• YD WPMU Bloglist Widget
• Custom written plugins (to avoid hacking core)

19. Functions of custom written plugin
• Replace Add User functions with Add LDAP User
• Users cannot change password in profile
• Password change requests go to our site
• Hide Simple LDAP settings from site administrators
• Site Admins cannot enable unmoderated or unauthenticated
comments
• Encode variables being passed through wp-login.php to wp-
signup.php
• Change ‘username’ to ‘AccessNet username’ on wp-
login.php
• Change styling & wording for the wp-signup.php steps