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 So it will be up to the administrator of the blog to check periodically for unpublished posts.
To approve and publish posts by a Contributor click Manage and click Edit next to the post that is Unpublished.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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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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Leave a comment
Drive-By comments will be deleted! Like "Thanks for sharing", "Nice post", or any other text that doesn't contribute to the discussion. If you ask a very specific question about your particular WordPress theme's code, it will probably be deleted. I can fix your WordPress site but for a price. If you ask a question like "Why don't my blog work right", it will be deleted. If you ask a question about your WordPress site without a leaving a link to it, it will be deleted. The point is to ask questions and or comment on the the actual content of the post, and to please use some common sense. All comments are moderated. Thank you.