Confucianism has long been a predominant philosophy in China, but it was opposed by Legalism, which held that individual opinion meant little in the face of the interest of the state.

In the web content management world, it is the public website that commands our exclusive attention. The only relevant question is: Is the site meeting its objectives and delivering required information and services to its visitors?

Adequate governance needs to be put in place to ensure that it is impossible to break what makes the website successful. If you allow people too much flexibility, they’ll make self-interested decisions rather than good decisions.

When a sage governs a state, he does not rely on the people to do good out of their own will. Instead, he sees to it that they are not allowed to do what is not good. If he relies on people to do good out of their own will, within the borders of the state not even ten persons can be counted on.

So, if you’ve accepted that your templates are well-designed, why would you enable people to move content around? Just give them a web-based form to enter content. It’s less glamorous for the content editor, but much more likely to produce the right effect. Similarly, provide people with enforced structures in which to classify content. This will ensure consistency and a better end-user experience. Otherwise, people will simply drop content into new website sections that they think might be more relevant, rather than those that everyone is used to getting the information from. If you decide your food is spicy, don’t give people an option to make it Mexican or Chinese or Indian. It’s spicy.

Clearly, this command-and-control approach may be difficult for some organisations to implement. But remember what Han Fei tells us: “An enlightened ruler holds up facts and discards all that is without practical value.” If your design and approach can be proven, no one in your team should be allowed to break your website by undermining these principles.

More on China and WCM to follow.