Understanding User Roles and Capabilities

Posted on Dec 18, 2012 in Content

For most sites, content managers will be responsible for creating and publishing their own content.  In this setup, the default WordPress roles are a sufficient solution for such a simple workflow.  The user-base would typically consist of one Administrator and many Editors.

Default WordPress Roles

  • Super Admin: Someone with access to the blog network administration features controlling the entire network.
  • Administrator: Somebody who has access to all the administration features.
  • Editor: Somebody who can publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users’ posts, etc.
  • Author: Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts.
  • Contributor: Somebody who can write and manage their posts but not publish them.
  • Subscriber: Somebody who can only manage their profile.

Additional Roles

  • Extended Contributor: Somebody who can write and manage their posts/pages but not publish them.  Granted extended ability for pages.
  • Extended Author: Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts/pages.  Granted extended ability for pages.
  • Extended Editor: Somebody who can publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users’ posts, etc.  Granted extended ability to modify site appearances (menus, widgets, theme options) and site settings (site and available plugin settings).

Depending on your website needs, these roles can be added in addition to the default roles.  The use of these additional roles generally imply that there is a need for some sort of workflow process in publishing content.