Know The Proper Roles Of WordPress Users
Knowing the roles and capabilities of the WordPress users is a must if you plan on allowing users to register, or password protect your WordPress site. Make sure you don’t give the wrong people access to your vital WordPress dashboard settings.
For most WordPress bloggers there is probably only one user which is you the sole owner and blogger. Recently a client asked if they could keep the entire WordPress site password protected only allowing those with the password access to the content. There are several ways to do that and in that case a plugin was used called Registered Users Only. The plugin is used to allow only registered users access to the entire site including the front, or content area. But this post is not really about the Registered Users Only plugin but choosing the correct user role.
It is very important not to give just anyone complete access to the entire WordPress dashboard which is the role of the Administrator. In the case mentioned above I suggested that one user be created as a Subscriber which only gives access to view comments in the dashboard and then give full access to the traditional public view of the front side of the blog if it were not password protected with the Registered Users Only plugin.
From the WordPress Codex the Roles and Capabilities of the WordPress users are as follows:
Summary of Roles
- Administrator – Somebody who has access to all the administration features
- Editor – Somebody who can publish posts, manage posts as well as manage other people’s posts, etc.
- Author – Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts
- Contributor – Somebody who can write and manage their posts but not publish posts
- Subscriber – Somebody who can read comments/comment/receive news letters, etc.
Under general Settings you can setup a WordPress blog to allow anyone to register. If you choose to do so keep your WordPress blog safe by setting up your users in the proper context.
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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!
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I haven’t had to really use these roles yet, as all of my blogs are run just by me. But this will definately be handy as my blogs grow and I look at letting other people post from them!
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Hi
Very iseful information. I am considering giving access to my blog so that people can create guest posts so this will help me to restrict them to only what they need to see!
Neil
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It’s important to know the roles of the users. I’ve noticed at my company that people tend to ignore this and just do as the please.
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This is actually really important, especially in a business environment.
You don’t want disgruntled ex-employees wreaking havock on your corporate blog (I’ve seen more than one hard drive formatted by an employee who went back to their desk after being fired and firing up the C prompt.)
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Thanks for the advise about proper roles of WordPress users. I was once an editor of a WordPress blog and I can publish posts but I can’t access the admin features.
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I think that its important to designate these roles and allow certain priveleges. I use guest blogging from time to time. You have to protect your features and your content.
-Matt
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I agree! This is a really useful post. For some businesses who employ below the belt tactics, their employees could use their administrator access to tamper with the company’s site. Thanks!
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The roles is a great useful feature.
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Very useful information. The possibility of expanding the project with more helpers and with more control is an excellent feature.
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I’ve never used ‘roles’ before on my blogs but looking at this information maybe it is something I should seriously consider.
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Great article. Great set of roles mentioned their. Appreciate the effort taken. Cheers
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Interesting indeed. I only started blogging recently. And i didn’t know all those types of users. except for admin who I automatically assumed was the author or vice versa. thanks for the information.Cheers
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Very iseful information. I am considering giving access to my blog so that people can create guest posts so this will help me to restrict them to only what they need to see!
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Thanks. I’ve been thinking of enlisting help to man some of my blogs lately (i have so many now that it’s impossible to do alone), this is exactly what I was looking for.
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Appreciate you taking the time to post the options in allowing others to have access to the site functionality. Most, if not all my sites are moderated by myself or the site owner, so I don’t have a use for others to access back end of the site at this time. It is good to know what to do when that situation arises.
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User roles provide bloggers with an easy and flexible way to control access to various WordPress feature. Unfortunately the user role system can be confusing to new bloggers. Even experienced WordPress users are frequently baffled by the role system and the permissions that are associated with each role.
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If you have a small blog then you actually don’t need these features as you usually are working alone, but with time if your blog are growing, then these features become a must.
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Great Post.
I think if your site becomes bigger and more popular you should install some kind of plugin like registered users only, so that yuo don’t get much spam and because it will feel like a little community.
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Blogs have really changed the internet. I’m still sort of partial to my old web 1.0 websites, but I think they’re going to get rarer and rarer, because people love to be able to interact with others.
Social blogs are really what made the internet mainstream
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It is extremely important to make sure of things like this involving permissions… after all, you wouldn’t want to wake up one morning and find that all your posts are just gone…deleted! deleted by someone you don’t know… who was just being mischievous…!
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You have to protect your features and your content.
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loved your “money making from blogging” link, will use your blogg again, you have done a marvelous job, see you real soon!
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I think it can be really a problem if a wrong user hasn’t the right rule So this needs to be monitored quite well.
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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, 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 and will appear when approved. Thank you.