Let Others Post To Your Wordpress Blog Safely

Did you know that you create a new WordPress user, and set them to ‘contributor’ rather than to author or editor? When you do that, their option after writing a post automatically changes to ‘submit for review’ rather than ‘publish’. It’s pretty slick, and seems like it would be a good way to encourage guest authors on the blog…

I added a new user, then logged in to post as that new user, and here’s what I saw at the “Write” screen –

Unfortunately, this option then prevents those “Contributors” from being able to add photos to a post, which is a shame.. After hitting the “Submit for Review button, I logged out, then back in as the Admin, and I see that there is a post pending for review – Nice 😉

There was also no email notification to me as the Admin that a contributor had posted, but I guess you can’t have everything.

If anyone knows how to allow for photo uploads or add email notifications, please let me know here…

4 Comments

raffi on February 24, 2008 at 7:14 am

Use the ‘Role Manager’-Plugin! I just had the same problem and this will solve it. You got a list of things you can allow/disallow for each user type.

Next problem is to control the image size of the uploads so they don’t break your design: Get the ‘flexible upload’-plugin to define fixed heights/widths and a zillion other things.

If you know of a solution for the email notification, please let me know …

cheers
r.

raffi on February 24, 2008 at 7:45 am

just solved the 2nd problem too (email notification):

1) get Plugin ‘draft-notification’
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/draft-notification-plugin-for-wordpress/

2) change the following:

old:
if ($result->post_status == “draft”)
new:
if ($result->post_status == “pending”)

optional changes:
-add a from email to the mail function so the email looks better
-change text elements to fit your needs

mail me if you got a question
cheers again
r.