Let’s face it: not everybody can be in the driver’s seat. When it comes to administering a WordPress site, assigning different levels of responsibility is important, especially in larger organizations. Back in August, Nancy wrote a brief post explaining how to add a new user to your WordPress site. This week, we’re going to look at the different user roles in WordPress, and how to fit people along the scale.
When creating and assigning roles in WordPress, there are two important things to keep in mind:
Everyone needs a co-pilot – add a second administrator. It’s usually a good idea to have at least two top-level administrators on your WordPress site. If someone gets sick, or has their e-mail hacked, it can be a real pain in the ASCII to regain full access to the site.
Roles and ranks are not the same thing. It’s easy to think of WordPress roles in terms of organizational seniority. But not so! Instead, WordPress roles reflect different levels of responsibility on the website. Your role on the site should only reflect the level of responsibility that you intend to have. It’s likely that most of the Fortune 500 CEOs lack direct administrative powers over their own websites – so don’t feel left out if you only have editorial power.
Being a WordPress administrator is exactly like being Spider-Man! OK, not really.
Subscriber
The most basic of the roles in WordPress. A subscriber can edit their profile – and that’s it! This is a good role for people who will only comment on posts. As well, some WordPress plug-ins allow you to limit the visibility of certain parts of your site – like a members-only blog. To access secure parts of the site, users may need to be logged in (at the very least) as subscribers.
Contributor
This is where it starts to get interesting. The contributor can write and manage their own posts, but needs someone else to publish them. Contributors are unable to upload files. If you have someone blogging on your site, but want to proof their work before they publish, this is the role for them.
Author
Someone who can publish and manage their own posts, but cannot touch posts created by other users. Authors can also upload pictures and other files to the site’s media library. If you have someone blogging on a long-term basis, but they don’t need to touch your website’s pages, the author role is perfect.
Editor
Managing posts, pages, categories, links, comments, and media – this is the glamorous life of a WordPress editor. Someone holding this role is able to change virtually all of the content on the site.
Administrator
This is the highest level for a single WordPress site (although you can have Super Admins for a network of sites). Administrators have access to all of the administrative features on the website, including managing users, plug-ins, themes, and CSS. But with great power comes great responsibility. Your site administrator should have a good understanding of WordPress – at least enough to know what parts not to touch!
So those are the WordPress user roles. Use them carefully, and you can make sure that people in your organization don’t step on each other’s toes when editing your site.
Image credits: Marvel Comics, via Wikipedia; Bob Dunn
About Nancy Bain
WpTouch Pro
