Creating content collaboratively

I’ve been aware of the ‘Users’ option in the WordPress settings for many years. I looked into the facility when setting up the Multiphasic Phylarological University (a site that, unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find enough other interested parties to actually get off the ground). But, although I’ve added other users as ‘Contributors’ to Wibble in the past — and have even hosted a guest post by Patricia — I’ve never been given such access to another’s site so I could see it from that side.

Until recently, that is, when Bella of thoughtsnlifeblog invited me to be interviewed for her own blog. We discussed how to allow me to proofread the post prior to it being published (I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to eliminating typos; it’s the pendant in me, you see). And I realised that the ideal way to do this would be for her to add me, temporarily, as a ‘Contributor’ to her site so that I could check through the post. And so, that’s what we did. And it worked (almost) flawlessly. Bella added me (via Users > Add New > Contributor); I got an email inviting me to accept, and, once I did, I could then visit https://thoughtsnlifeblog.com/wp-admin/^§ and create draft posts on her site.

So, naturally, being a blogger and all, it occurred to me to create a blog post about my experience, in the hope that it might be of interest to those who aren’t familiar with the WordPress ‘Users’ facility. It’s my impression that there are a great many of folk in that situation. Although, of course, there are those who already use it to create content collaboratively, the vast majority of WordPress blogs I’ve visited over the years have each clearly been created by just one person.

There’s a wonderful community here, and the ‘Users’ feature enables us to work together. I suspect that the only thing stopping us may simply be an unfamiliarity with this useful feature.

More information

All WordPress bloggers already have experience of the ‘Administrator’ user role (that’s what we all have by default), and almost certainly the ‘Follower’ role, too. But the other three (‘Editor’, ‘Author’ and ‘Contributor’) are, I suspect, pretty much unknown territory for many of us.

• Administrator:
  There Can Should Be Only One
• Editor:
  Has access to all posts and pages
• Author:
  Can write, edit, and publish their own posts, and can upload media
• Contributor:
  Can create and edit their own posts but can’t publish them, nor upload media
• Follower:
  Can read and comment on posts and pages

For more details on user roles, visit ‘Invite People to Your Site‘.

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Would You Like to Play a Game?

If you would like to have a play with this feature yourself, just let me know using the form below, and I’ll set you up as a ‘Contributor’ here on Wibble. And who knows; maybe you’ll create a post that I’ll beg you to let me publish!

Name/ nickname(required)

Email(required)

Send

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^§ If you follow this link you’ll almost certainly see a page that tells you “User [your username] Cannot Access the Dashboard Requested” (unless of course you do happen to be a user on Bella’s site!) — I left that link in there to let you see what happens when you try to access the admin section of a site you don’t have permission to use, just in case you might be interested.