Understanding the WordPress User roles

When it comes to using WordPress, whether as a simple blog or as a full-scale content management system, it is important that the user functionality is fully understood in order to get the most from the platform. The basic premise of WordPress users is the same as most platforms, they can be used to allow visitors to comment, access member-only areas or perform WordPress functions limited to certain user types, such as editing posts.

Adding users to WordPress

The process of adding a new user to your WordPress site is actually very simple; this can be done in one of two ways:

• Allow visitors to register themselves – All they have to do is fill out their email and password, and ‘voila!’ just like that they have created a user on your website.
• Add users using the WordPress Dashboard – As long as you have ‘Administrator’ privileges (more on this shortly), you will be able to manually add users yourself.

The former way of adding users is obviously preferred if you simply want to build a community of users, who will comment and posts and the like. However, when it comes to adding new users who can actually contribute to the content of the website by adding posts and pages,  you will need to add these manually (or at least upgraded existing user accounts).

Assigning roles to users

WordPress controls the access privileges of users by using ‘roles’. When editing or adding a user on the Dashboard, one of the options is to choose a ‘Role’ for the user. These will determine whether that user can simply comment on a post or has the ability to edit and delete content from the website. Below is a list of the roles available by default on WordPress, along with a brief explanation of what each role entails.

• Subscriber
  The most basic user level is a subscriber. These don’t have any access to the websites management functionality, except the ability to leave comments and edit their own profile.
• Contributor
  A contributor is able to write and submit their own posts and pages, but they must be approved by an Editor or Administrator before they go live.
• Author
  As the name suggests, ‘Authors’ can write and publish their own material and attach their own media to posts.
• Editor
  Users with the role ‘Editor’ are able to perform all the available functions related to managing posts, pages and uploaded media – even if they aren’t their own. This includes approving content submitted by contributors. They can also maintain the comments; approving, deleting or editing them if necessary.
• Administrator
  This is the highest user level you can have on WordPress. As administrator you have full control over everything from the WordPress configuration settings to managing users.
• Super Administrator
  Alright, so an Administrator isn’t technically the highest user role available. However, Super Administrators are only used in multi-site WordPress installations, so this option isn’t even visible to the majority of WordPress website owners. Super Admins have full administrator control over all the websites in the network.

Depending on the needs of the website, it is important to delegate the proper roles to users depending on what they are required to do. For example, if you have writers and you want them to only be able to edit their own posts, it is a good idea to give them Author roles. If you have writers, but don’t mind them managing each other’s posts then give them Editor roles.

Stefan Crowe
Content Developer