Top ten plugins for WordPressMU site admins
Posted by andrea in .. at least the ones I tend to use the most often. 
Depending on the site, I may use a different combination of plugins, as not all site need all the same plugins, but there are a few I use consistently. I’ve limited this post to just plugins that Site Admins use or need – not ones users might use.
Plugin Commander – control the auto-activation and deactivation of your plugins sitewide. Great plugin, everyone needs it. In fact, it’s so handy, the same feature (not the same code) will be showing up in future MU releases.
Limit Revisions – limit the amount of post revisions allowed and saved. Sure, you can do this via the config file as well, but this puts up an option in Site Admin.
Menus – add a long list with checkboxes to enable or disable menus for everyone but the site admin. Or even them.
New Blog defaults – does what it says on the tin. Has a handy admin menu to set up just about everything except plugins. Pick a default theme & settings.
Farm’s Comment spam pack – I mentioned this before and I’ll do it again.
Sitewide Tags – can get a huge tag cloud, repost everything to the main blog, pretty flexible for sitewide content.
Multi DB – on larger sites, multiple databases are a must. This does it.
AHP Sitewide Recent Posts for WPMU – put the function in your home page template and presto – a list of recent sitewide posts.
WPMU for Dummies: Part Deux – overlooked, but extremely useful for new sites admins. this puts a whole pile of useful information in the backend under a rarely used menu item.
Think I missed any? Got a list of your own? Let me and everyone else know. 
I left out number ten to see what YOU would put.
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Random Posts
I’m gonna be a complete ho and throw these into the ring
http://wpmu.org/latest-global-posts-comments-blogs-and-users-as-widgets/
That last “WPMU for Dummies: Part Deux” link’s broken; should go here, I guess: http://wpmudev.org/project/WPMU-for-Dummies:-Part-Deux
Hi, the last link to “WPMU for Dummies: Part Deux” is invalid (http:///).
Hi Andrea,
Is there a Google Sitemap generator plugin that you would recommend for WPMU?
Actually, I recommend you *not* use any sitemaps plugin on WPMU. at least not at the start. For one, they can be a drain on the system. For another, Google crawl MU-based sites pretty well. I’ve had to block them from crawling my own site so much.
I only recommend you use them if you can prove Google is skipping particular posts – and even them, interlinking may help.
I think my clients, especially the *cough* video business ones, would have a revolt if I suggested removing the sitemap plugins.
To be honest though, even with the plugins available, we still suggest using an outside one every so often. The one I like is here:
http://www.auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp
In addition to being offsite, it will also check for broken links, which is always a plus.
Have to do some trickery to get it readable by google on a wpmu install though.
Thanks Andrea and Mike!
How about traffic monitoring? Is there a site wide Google Analytics plugin that you would recommend please?
See this entry for google analytics in the footer.
Anyone have a recommendation for a ’subscribe by email’ plugin other than Subscribe2 (which I’m having a couple of small issues with on MU)…
It wouldn’t pass as a ‘need’ for anyone running an externally based site, obviously everyone will use RSS… But in a tightly controlled corporate environment where an RSS reader might not exist at all, subscribing by email is a necessity!
Thanks,
John
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@john, Have you tried using mailpress? It works for me.
.-= scott´s last blog ..A good book. Traits of a good technology class part one =-.
thanks alot andrea. i am new to the mu version of wordpress and these will help me get some good start.
Andrea,
Is there a good plugin or method for aggregating certain post categories from across MU blogs onto other MU blogs (i.e. not just the main blog)? I want to duplicate the Facebook fan page idea of having the ability for posts from one or more blogs to be placed within another blog. Does that make sense?
Thanks, Joe.