Multiple Authors On A WordPress Blog
There may be situations when you want to allow other people to post on your WordPress blog but you may want to moderate or approve the posts before they are actually published and live on the blog. This WordPress guide will show how simple it is to do with just the built in WordPress options.
The first option to consider is if you want to allow people to register to use the blog on their own. Otherwise you would need to add them manually and send them the login information. From the dashboard click Options and the General subpanel will open first by default.
If you want people to register on their own, next to Membership click the box next to Anyone can register. Now below that is a drop-down box to choose the type of role the new member on the blog will have.
The roles of new users and their permissions are as follows:
- Administrator – Has access to all the administration features.
- Editor – Can publish posts, manage posts as well as manage other people’s posts, etc.
- Author – Can publish and manage their own posts
- Contributor – Can write and manage their posts but not publish post.
- Subscriber – Can read comments/comment/receive news letters, etc.
For more specific details on the capabilities of user roles visit: http://codex.wordpress.org/
If you want to approve each new post, choose the role of new users as a Contributor, this will allow them to write a post and submit it for approval by an administrator. This is what I recommend.
If you want to allow the new users to publish a post without approval from an administrator then chose Editor as the new users default role. Not recommended unless you want a free for all on your blog!
As the administrator you will get an email notification with each new registered user but you will not get notified of any new posts that need moderated and approved. So it will be up to the administrator of the blog to check periodically for unpublished posts.
To approve and publish posts by a Contributor click Manage and click Edit next to the post that is Unpublished. Edit the post if needed and click publish.
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- WordPress General Options Guide
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- Increasing Interactivity on Your WordPress Blog
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Sorry but due to the spamming of a few all comments are moderated and will appear when approved and all drive-by comments will be deleted!
Comments
I liked your theme and content. I give you 10 points
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Ok, yeah this is what I’ve been looking for for the last 2 hours. Even wordpress couldn’t explain themselves as clearly as this, can you believe it? All I wanted to know is if I’m having a guest post what role should I let the person register as.
Thanks, man.
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Thanks for your great post! I was searching for this and was worried if I had to change my blogging platform!!!
Keep up the good work.
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This is helpful info thank you.
I just wish that Wordpress would build in email notification when a Contributor adds a post. I have a site that I share with my coworkers and I don’t always have time to check the admin panel to manage their posts.
If I received an email, then maybe it will be easier for us all to contribute to the website.
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how would you actually do this?
Would you create a link to your login / register page – then users wuold register.
An email would be sent to them.
Then they would login again on this same page – where they would be taken to the Wordpress main menu where they could add their contributions?
is that right?
Simon
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Simon that is correct.
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Sounds perfect – the only trouble is though when contributors want to upload images.
I know there’s a plugin that lets contributors do this – but it also allows them to delete everyone elses image.
Any ideas about how to get around this?
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Simon I don’t know. I suggest you test it out by registering as a contributor on your blog. You can’t really break anything by testing out different settings on your blog. Most times the best way to learn is to just do it.
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This is exactily what I've been wanting to do! Thank you!
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Sounds perfect – the only trouble is though when contributors want to upload images.
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choosing a good webhosting is important to make a site. I just hear webhost especially for wordpress, hmm…maybe it can be an alternative for me to know more about it.
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Yes. This is why I like wordpress very much. I have a movie review site and I have a co-author. We both add contents to the blog. It is a hassle-free maintaining of the blog.
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For professional blogs or companies websites built on wordpress themes, this is very useful, where different levels of content editors is very common.
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This is one feature that I love with WP. Everyone just can build a site that can allow multiple people to contribute to the site. It just so convenient specially if the site is a magazine type.
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this is one of the best feature WD has introduced. thanks the article.
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Hmm…interesting, I always wonder how people does that. Saw it on couple of wordpress-based classified ads sites. It might be a bit time consuming though, to manage user generated contents.
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I’ve set up my blog to take advantage of this, however, there isn’t a sign in location that I can see. I thought it might appear in the sidebar when I made the changes. Could you explain how to activate or setup a sign in spot on the blog? Sorry… new to Wordpress, but loving it.
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Jeff Replied:
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Your question was asked by another person, that’s sort of why the comments are shown. Basically you offer a link to your blogs wp-login.php.
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I am just learning with wordpress. I had login trouble with one of my client’s blog and then found it to be a plugin problem. I found the solution in codex.wordpress.org. Wordpress support is great!
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sweet i can think of several ways to use this multiple author blog… thanks for the tips
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I think it’s important from a security point of view to create a new admin user once you have setup your WordPress blog initially (instead of using the default username).
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I’d been using wordpress for a while but couldn’t figure this out. Thanks for the guide.
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This feature is also available on Blogger but Wordpress has many advanced features regarding Multiple author blogs.
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You know I have often thought about using this feature. I probably will now because I have seen it on a blog that allowed you to post your own press release in their blog.
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There are many free and premium plugins available for managing roles on multiple author wordpress blogs. Our clients favourite is the membership plugin as they are able to monetize their site’s content
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this is one of the best feature WD has introduced. thanks the article.
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I tried plugin called gocodes, in that the no follow option is not working, is this a bug? let me know if any other plugin similiar to this is available.
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Great stuff, finally some conscise information on permissions. Very useful.
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I use the function in Wordpress WPpress themes to make a multi author blog, the posting form was in the frontpage, it’s very useful.
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Wow I have been trying to work out how to do this for a while, thanks for the handy tips!
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Thank you for taking time to explain those WP options. It will be useful for some people, as one does not want to make mistake here.
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It’s amazing that anyone uses any other blogging platform.
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Good stuff, this is one of those things that you know is useful but never learn to use it cos it doesn’t really stop you from doing what youre doing. Now that you do, ideas start running wild on your head.
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Thanks for the great article. I’ve been wondering how to do this for a while.
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just stated using Wordpress, this is what i love about it real answers from real people I have been wondering how to do this for the past hour! pls take a look at my rapidiq training course site.
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It is nice to setup multiple authors if you are away as well but you need to trust them if you give them full rights. Great article though!
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Nice tip. Thanks for the post. I wish I had seen this when I started my first blog.
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Amazing, I have been looking for something like this sometime ago, and no I stumble upon it while looking for some other plugin. Thank you!
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Great stuff, finally some conscise information on permissions. Very useful.
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Great info , should be read by anyone looking to get into starting a blog. Thanks for sharing.
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I was looking for that information for a long time. I have idea how to do this on Blogger, but implying this on Wordpress is equally easy after reading this post.
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I find it great that the WP user system allows up to 10 levels of users, with different levels having configurable privileges with regard to publishing, editing, options, and other users.
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