Unless you’re the sole user on your WordPress site, chances are that you want to limit the permissions that other users have, so that you can use WordPress as a fully functional Content Management System (CMS). As the administrator, you essentially have access to everything, however, you may have users that you only want to be able to write articles. And that’s where WordPress user roles come in.
In WordPress, there are six user levels by default (if these don’t meet your needs, you can create custom user roles with a plugin like User Role Editor). By name, they are Super Admin, Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor and Subscriber.
In summary, Subscribers are merely members – they can read articles and that’s it. Contributors have the added ability to create, edit and delete their own posts – understand that they can create posts, but not publish them (they need to be reviewed and published by an Author or higher).
Authors can publish posts, upload files and edit or delete published posts. Editors have much more expanded capabilities including all permissions regarding publishing and editing posts and pages, comment moderation and managing categories and links.
Admins of course have a much more expanded capability including the ability to install, edit and manage themes and plugins, manage users, manage the site settings and update the core WordPress files. Obviously, with such unrestricted ability, you want to truly consider who you grant Admin access to.
Then there’s the Super Admin, which is a new user role as of WordPress 3.0, which addresses the multisite component of WordPress. Super Admin is the person in charge of a network of WordPress sites and has the ability to manage the network and its sites, including the users, themes and options.
The WordPress Codex has a very detailed list of exactly what each user role is permitted to do, but this article should give you a good idea. Have you got a site which makes good use of several of the user roles?
November 3, 2011 at 3:59 am
Hello, I think user roles in WordPress is a very useful thing, I’m a webmaster, and I can build a blog for my customers and set it with all the necessary, while I can give a limited role to my customer like write and publish articles or moderate comments, but not the ability to change other parameters.
November 3, 2011 at 9:18 am
It’s extremely useful, especially as a web designer, building sites for clients who need different levels of control over their users. Just one of the many reasons I love WordPress!
February 5, 2012 at 1:59 pm
If I, as the blog owner, add someone as admin, will that person be able to delete me and seize control over my blog?
February 6, 2012 at 10:36 am
Yes. You only want to add people as admins that you fully trust. They will have complete control over your site, including the ability to add and delete users (including yourself).