So, you have a wesite, it is in WordPress and the site administrator has sent you your user name and password.
What will you see?
You will be taken to the WordPress ‘backstage’. It looks like this:
Scary? Yes, there is too much at once, very confusing!
Don’t worry you will only see something like this if you are the site administrator. As an administrator you will have access to all tools.
If you are a site author, you will see a much simpler picture:
This is a good level to start with, not very confusing and you can’t destroy much on the site, only your own posts and pictures.
And if you think that being an author is too restrictive – look at the subscriber level, they can only manage their profile. And add comments to posts if the site allows this kind of behaviour.
Some User Levels in WordPress:
- Administrator (slug: ‘administrator’) – somebody who has access to all the administration features within a single site.
- Editor (slug: ‘editor’) – somebody who can publish and manage posts including the posts of other users, add and edit site pages.
- Author (slug: ‘author’) – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts, can use all the media in the media library and upload their own pictures.
- Contributor (slug: ‘contributor’) – somebody who can write and manage their own posts but cannot publish them.
- Subscriber (slug: ‘subscriber’) – somebody who can only manage their profile.
There can be more levels depending on the theme and plugins the site is using. Also a clever admin can change user permissions on their site and complicate things a bit more. Should we worry about it here?
Perhaps not. Enjoy your editing!