Managing a Multi-Author Site

You may love running a multi-author site, but it has its challenges. The
minute you become the owner of a multi-author site, you immediately
assume the role of manager for the authors you invited into your space.
At times, those authors look to you for support and guidance, not only on
their content management, but also for tips and advice about how to use
the WordPress interface — it’s a good thing you have this book at the ready
so that you can offer up the gems of information you’re finding within these
pages!
You can find many tools available to assist you in managing a multi-author site, as well as making your site more interactive by adding some features, which can make it a more rewarding and satisfying experience not only for you and your readers, but for your authors, as well.

The tools we list in the following sections come by way of plugins, which are

add-ons that extend the scope of WordPress by adding different function-
ality and features. You can find information on the use and installation of
plugins in Book VII.

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Editing User Details

After users register and settle into their accounts on your site, you, as the
site Administrator, have the ability to edit their accounts. You may never
have to edit user accounts at all; however, you have the option if you need
it. Most often, users can access the details of their own accounts and change
e-mail addresses, names, passwords, and so on; however, circumstances
under which a site administrator may need to edit user accounts would be
to do things such as

✦ Edit user roles. When a user registers, you may want to increase
her role, or level of access, to your site; promote an existing user to Administrator; or conversely, demote an existing Administrator or Editor down a notch or two.
✦ Edit user e-mails. If a user loses access to the e-mail account that she
registered with, she may ask you to change his account e-mail address
so that she can access her account notifications again.
✦ Edit user passwords. If a user loses access to the e-mail account with
which she registered, she can’t use WordPress’s Lost Password feature, which allows users to gain access to their account password through e-mail recovery. In that case, a user may ask you to reset her password for her so that she can log in and access her account again.
In any of these circumstances, you can make the necessary changes by clicking the Users link in the Users menu on your WordPress Dashboard, which loads the Users page shown in Figure 4-3.
Figure 4-3 shows you the Users page on a site that has multiple users who have different levels of access, or roles (we blurred out the usernames and e-mail addresses in Figure 4-3 to protect the users’ privacy).
When you hover over the name of the user, an Edit link appears below the user listing. Click that Edit link to access the Edit User page, where you can edit different pieces of information for that user, including
✦ Personal Options: These options include Visual Editor and Color
Scheme preferences.
✦ Name: Specify a user’s role, first and last name, and nickname.
✦ Contact Info: Includes users’ e-mail addresses; Web sites; and AIM,
Yahoo IM, and Google Talk IDs.
✦ Biographical Info: A few lines of biographical info for the user (optional,
but some WordPress themes display authors’ biographies).
✦ New Password: Change the password for the user.

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Adding New Users

Allowing new users to register by using the WordPress registration interface is only one way to add users to your site. As the site Administrator, you have the ability to add new users manually by following these steps:
1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard by inputting your username and
password in the form at http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
2. Click the Add New link in the Users menu on the Dashboard.
The Add New User page, shown in Figure 4-2, loads.
3. Enter the username in the Username text box.
You can’t skip this text box. The new user types in this username when he’s prompted to log in to your site.
4. Enter the user’s e-mail address in the E-Mail text box.
You can’t skip this text box, either. The user receives notifications from you and your site at this e-mail address.

5. Enter the user’s first name in the First Name text box.

6. Enter the user’s last name in the Last Name text box.
7. Enter the URL for the user’s Web site in the Website text box.
8. Enter the desired password in the Password text box.
WordPress asks you to type the password twice as a way of authenticat-
ing the password (making sure that you typed it correctly the first time).
WordPress provides a strength indicator that gives you an idea of how
strong, or secure, your chosen password is. You want secure passwords
so that no one can easily guess them, so make the password at least
seven characters long and use a combination of letters, numbers, and
symbols (such as @, #, $, and ^).
9. If you want the user to receive his password by e-mail, select the Send
This Password to the New User by Email check box.
10. Select Subscriber, Contributor, Author, Editor, or Administrator from
the Role drop-down list.
11. Click the Add User button.
The Add New User page loads and the e-mail notification is sent to the user you just added. When the page loads, all the fields are cleared, allowing you to add another new user, if you want.

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Allowing New User Registration

As you can see in Table 4-1, each user level has a different set of capabili-
ties. In Book III, Chapter 3, we discuss the General Settings in the WordPress
Dashboard, in which you set the default role for users who register on your
Web site. Keep the default role set to Subscriber because when you open
registration to the public, you don’t always know who’s registering until
after they register — and you don’t want to arbitrarily hand out higher
levels of access to the settings of your Web site unless you know and trust
the user.
When users register on your Web site, you, as the Administrator, get an
e-mail notification (sent to the e-mail address you set on the General Settings
page), so you always know when new users register, and you can then go
into your Dashboard and edit the user to set his role any way you see fit.
New users can register on your site only after you enable the Anyone Can
Register option on the General Settings page within your Dashboard (Book
III, Chapter 3). If you don’t have it enabled, then users see a message on
the Registration page that tells them registration isn’t allowed.

By the way, the direct URL for registration on a blog that has registration
enabled is http://yourdomain.com/wp-register.php. With registra-
tion enabled (in the General Settings), a user sees a form inviting her to
input her desired username and e-mail address. After she does, she gets a confirmation notice in her inbox that includes an authorization link that she must click in order to authenticate her registration

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Allowing New User Registration

Super          Administrator        Editor      Author       Contributor      Subscriber

Admin

 

Publish posts                 Yes             Yes                      Yes          Yes            No (moder-          No

ated)

 

Edit published posts          Yes             Yes                      Yes          No             No                  No

 

 

Edit others’ posts     Yes             Yes                      Yes          No             No                  No

 

Edit own posts                Yes             Yes                      Yes          Yes            Yes                 No

 

Publish pages                Yes             Yes                      Yes          No             No                  No

 

Read                          Yes             Yes                      Yes          Yes            Yes                 Yes

 

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WordPress User Roles and Capabilities

WordPress User Roles and Capabilities
Super Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber
Admin
Manage Multisite        Yes No No No No No

features

Add/edit users        Yes Yes No No No No

Add/edit/install     Yes Yes No No No No
plugins

Add/edit/install      Yes Yes No No No No
themes

Manage comments  Yes Yes Yes No No No

Manage categories,    Yes Yes Yes No No No
tags, and links

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Understanding User Roles and Capabilities

Before you start adding new users to your site, you need to understand the
differences among the user roles because each user role is assigned a differ-
ent level of access and grouping of capabilities to your blog, as follows:
✦ Subscriber: The default role. Maintain this role as the one assigned to
new users, particularly if you don’t know who’s registering. Subscribers
get access to the Dashboard page, and they can view and change the
options in their profiles on the Your Profile and Personal Options page.

(They don’t have access to your account settings, however — only to

their own.) Each user can change her username, e-mail address, pass-
word, bio, and other descriptors in her user profile. The WordPress
database stores subscribers’ profile information, and your blog remem-
bers them each time they visit, so they don’t have to complete the pro-
file information each time they leave comments on your blog.
✦ Contributor: In addition to the access Subscribers have, Contributors
can upload files and write, edit, and manage their own posts. Contributors
can write posts, but they can’t publish the posts; the administrator
reviews all Contributor posts and decides whether to publish them. This
setting is a nice way to moderate content written by new authors.
✦ Author: In addition to the access Contributors have, Authors can pub-
lish and edit their own posts.
✦ Editor: In addition to the access Authors have, Editors can moderate
comments, manage categories, manage links, edit pages, and edit other Authors’ posts.
✦ Administrator: Administrators can edit all the options and settings in
the WordPress blog.
✦ Super Admin: This role exists only when you have the Multisite feature
activated in WordPress — see Book VIII for more about the Multisite
feature.

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Tools

The last item in the navigation menu (and subsequently in this chapter!) is
Tools. Click Tools to open a drop-down list of links that includes Book III
Chapter 3
✦ Tools: Opens the Tools page in your Dashboard. WordPress comes pack-
aged with two extra features that you can use on your blog, if needed.
They’re Press This and Category/Tag Conversion.
✦ Import: Clicking this link opens the Import page in your Dashboard.
WordPress gives you the ability to import from a different blog platform. This feature is covered in depth in Book II, Chapter 7.
✦ Export: Clicking this menu item opens the Export page in your
Dashboard. WordPress allows you to export your content from
WordPress so that you can import it into a different platform or to another WordPress blog.

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Users

The Users drop-down list has three links:

✦ Users: Go to the Users page, where you can view, edit, and delete users
on your WordPress blog. Each user has a unique login name and pass-
word, as well as an e-mail address assigned to his account. You can view
and edit a user’s information on the Users page.
✦ Add New: Opens the Add New User page, where you can add new users
to your WordPress blog. Simply type the user’s username, first name,
last name, e-mail (required), Web site, and a password in the fields pro-
vided and click the Add User button. You can also select whether you
want WordPress to send login information to the new user by e-mail. If
you want, you can also assign a new role for the new user. Turn to the
section “Configuring the Settings,” earlier in this chapter, for more info
about user roles.
✦ Your Profile: Turn to the “Creating Your Personal Profile” section, ear-
lier in this chapter, for more information about creating a profile page.

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Plugins

The next item in the navigation menu is Plugins. Click Plugins to expand the drop-down list:
✦ Plugins: Opens the Plugins page, where you can view all the plugins cur-
rently installed on your blog. On this page, you also have the ability to
activate, deactivate, and delete plugins on your blog (see Book VII).
✦ Add New: Opens the Install Plugins page, where you can search for
plugins from the official WordPress Plugin Directory by keyword,
author, or tag. You can also install plugins directly to your blog from the WordPress Plugin Directory — you can find out all about this exciting feature in Book VII, Chapter 1.
✦ Editor: Opens the Edit Plugins page, where you can edit the plugin files
in a text editor. We very strongly advise against editing plugin files
unless you know what you’re doing (meaning that you’re familiar with
PHP and WordPress functions). Head over to Book VII, Chapter 4 to read
more information on editing plugin files.

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Appearance

When you click Appearance in the navigation menu, a drop-down list opens,
displaying the following links:
✦ Themes: Opens the Manage Themes page, where you can manage the
themes available on your blog. Check out Book VI, Chapter 2 to find out
about using themes on your WordPress blog and managing themes on
this page.
✦ Widgets: Opens the Widgets page, where you can add, delete, edit, and
manage the widgets that you use on your blog.
✦ Menus: Opens the Menus page, where you can build navigation menus
that will appear on your site. Book VI, Chapter 1 provides information
on creating menus by using this feature.
✦ Background: Opens the Custom Background page, where you can
upload an image to use as the background of your WordPress blog
design. Like the Custom Header option (discussed in the next bullet),
the Custom Background option exists in the Appearances menu only
if you have a theme that has activated the custom background feature

✦ Header: Opens the Your Header Image page, where you can upload an
image to use in the header (or top) of your WordPress blog; however,
this menu item and page exist only if you are using a theme that has acti-
vated the custom header feature (covered in Book VI). The Twenty Ten
theme is activated by default on all new WordPress blogs, which is why
we include this menu item in this list. Not all WordPress themes use the
Customize Header feature, so you don’t see this menu item if your theme
doesn’t take advantage of that feature.
✦ Editor: Opens the Theme Editor page, where you can edit your theme
templates. Book VI has extensive information on themes and templates.
Uploading custom header and background images helps you individualize
the visual design of your blog or Web site. You can find more information
on tweaking and customizing your WordPress theme in Book VI, as well as
a great deal of information about how to use WordPress themes (includ-
ing where to find, install, and activate them in your WordPress blog) and
detailed information about using WordPress widgets to display the content
you want.
The previous posts provides information about WordPress themes and templates. You
can dig deep into WordPress template tags and tweak an existing WordPress
theme by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to customize your theme a bit
more to your liking.

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Comments

Comments in the navigation menu don’t have a drop-down list of links. You simply click Comments to open the Comments page, where WordPress gives you the options to view
✦ All: Shows all comments that currently exist on your blog, including
approved, pending, and spam comments
✦ Pending: Shows comments that you haven’t yet approved but are
pending in the moderation queue
✦ Approved: Shows all comments that you previously approved ✦ Spam: Shows all the comments that are marked as spam
✦ Trash: Shows comments that you marked as Trash but haven’t deleted
permanently from your blog
In Book III, Chapter 5, we give you details on how to use the Comments section of your WordPress Dashboard.

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Pages

People use this feature to create pages on their sites such as an About Me or Contact Me page. Flip to Book IV, Chapter 2 for more information on pages. Click Pages to reveal the drop-down list:
✦ Pages: Opens the Pages page, where you can search, view, edit, and
delete pages in your WordPress blog.
✦ Add New: Opens the Add New Page page, where you can compose, save,
and publish a new page on your blog. Book IV, Chapter 2 describes the
difference between a post and a page — it’s subtle, but posts and pages
are very different from one another!
You can also get to the Add New Page page by clicking the Add New button on the Pages page.

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Links

The next item in the navigation menu is Links. Expand the Links drop-down list by clicking the down arrow to the right of Links:

✦ Links: Opens the Links page, where you can view, search, edit, and
delete existing links in your WordPress blog. Book III, Chapter 6 gives you detailed information about links, link lists, and blogrolls.
✦ Add New: Opens the Add New Link page, where you can add new links
to your link lists. (You can find more information about creating and
managing link lists in Book III, Chapter 6.)
You can also get to the Add New Link page by clicking the Links menu.
✦ Link Categories: Opens the Link Categories page, where you can add
new and view, edit, and delete existing link categories

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Media

Click Media to expand the drop-down list of links for this section:

✦ Library: Opens the Media Library page. On this page, you can view,
search, and manage all the media files you’ve ever uploaded to your
WordPress blog.

✦ Add New: Opens the Upload New Media page, where you can use the
built-in uploader to transfer media files from your computer to the
media directory in WordPress. Book IV, Chapters 3 and 4 take you
through the details of how to upload images, videos, and audio files
by using the WordPress upload feature.
You can also get to the Upload New Media page by clicking Add New button on the Media Library page.

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