Roles and Capabilities

WordPress uses a concept of Roles, designed to give the site owner the ability to control what users can and cannot do within the site. A site owner can manage the user access to such tasks as writing and editing posts, creating Pages, creating categories, moderating comments, managing plugins, managing themes, and managing other users, by assigning a specific role to each of the users.. WordPress has six pre-defined roles: Super Admin, Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor and Subscriber. Each role is allowed to perform a set of tasks called Capabilities. There are many capabilities including “publish_posts“, “moderate_comments“, and “edit_users“. A default set of capabilities is pre-assigned to each role, but other capabilities can be assigned or removed using the add_cap() and remove_cap() functions. New roles can be introduced or removed using the add_role() and remove_role() functions.. The Super Admin role allows a user to perform all possible capabilities. Each of the other roles has a decreasing number of allowed capabilities. For instance, the Subscriber role has just the “read” capability. One particular role should not be considered to be senior to another role. Rather, consider that roles define the user’s responsibilities within the site.. Summary of Roles #Summary of Roles. Super Admin – somebody with access to the site network administration features and all other features. See the Create a Network article. 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. Author (slug: ‘author’) – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts. 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. Upon installing WordPress, an Administrator account is automatically created.. The default role for new users can be set in Administration Screens > Settings > General.. Roles. A Role defines a set of tasks a user assigned the role is allowed to perform. For instance, the Super Admin role encompasses every possible task that can be performed within a Network of virtual WordPress sites. The Administrator role limits the allowed tasks only to those which affect a single site. On the other hand, the Author role allows the execution of just a small subset of tasks.. The following sections list the default Roles and their capabilities:. Super Admin. Multisite Super Admins have, by default, all capabilities. The following Multisite-only capabilities are therefore only available to Super Admins:. create_sites delete_sites manage_network manage_sites manage_network_users manage_network_plugins manage_network_themes manage_network_options upgrade_network setup_network In the case of single site WordPress installation, Administrators are, in effect, Super Admins. As such, they are the only ones to have access to additional admin capabilities.. Administrator. All administrators have the following capabilities:. activate_plugins delete_others_pages delete_others_posts delete_pages delete_posts delete_private_pages delete_private_posts delete_published_pages delete_published_posts edit_dashboard edit_others_pages edit_others_posts edit_pages edit_posts edit_private_pages edit_private_posts edit_published_pages edit_published_posts edit_theme_options export import list_users manage_categories manage_links manage_options moderate_comments promote_users publish_pages publish_posts read_private_pages read_private_posts read remove_users upload_files customize delete_site Additional Admin Capabilities. Only Administrators of single site installations have the following capabilities.. install_plugins edit_users add_users create_users delete_users Editor. delete_others_pages delete_others_posts delete_pages delete_posts delete_private_pages delete_private_posts delete_published_pages delete_published_posts delete Reusable Blocks edit_others_pages edit_others_posts edit_pages edit_posts edit_private_pages edit_private_posts edit_published_pages edit_published_posts manage_categories manage_links moderate_comments publish_pages publish_posts read read_private_pages read_private_posts upload_files Top ↑. Author. delete_posts delete_published_posts edit_posts edit_published_posts publish_posts read upload_files Contributor. delete_posts edit_posts read Subscriber. read Capability vs. Role Table. . Capability Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber activate_plugins Y (single site or enabled by network setting) create_users Y (single site) delete_users Y (single site) edit_files Y (single site) edit_users Y (single site) export Y import Y Capability Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber list_users Y manage_options Y promote_users Y remove_users Y edit_dashboard Y customize Y delete_site Y Capability Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber moderate_comments Y Y manage_categories Y Y manage_links Y Y edit_others_posts Y Y edit_pages Y Y edit_others_pages Y Y edit_published_pages Y Y publish_pages Y Y delete_pages Y Y delete_others_pages Y Y delete_published_pages Y Y delete_others_posts Y Y delete_private_posts Y Y edit_private_posts Y Y read_private_posts Y Y delete_private_pages Y Y edit_private_pages Y Y read_private_pages Y Y unfiltered_html Y (single site) Y (single site) unfiltered_html Y Y Capability Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber edit_published_posts Y Y Y upload_files Y Y Y publish_posts Y Y Y delete_published_posts Y Y Y edit_posts Y Y Y Y delete_posts Y Y Y Y Capability Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber read Y Y Y Y Y . Capabilities. edit_theme_options. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Appearance > Widgets Appearance > Menus Appearance > Customize if they are supported by the current theme Appearance > Header activate_plugins #>span class="screen-reader-text">activate_plugins. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Plugins edit_users. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Users manage_options. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Settings > General Settings > Writing Settings > Reading Settings > Discussion Settings > Permalinks Settings > Miscellaneous moderate_comments #moderate_comments. Allows users to moderate comments from the Comments Screen (although a user needs the edit_posts Capability in order to access this) manage_categories. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Posts > Categories Links > Categories manage_links. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Links Links > Add New upload_files. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Media Media > Add New import. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Tools > Import Tools > Export edit_posts. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Posts Posts > Add New Comments Comments > Awaiting Moderation edit_others_posts. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Manage > Comments (Lets user delete and edit every comment, see edit_posts above) user can edit other users’ posts through function get_others_drafts() user can see other users’ images in inline-uploading [no? see inline-uploading.php] See Exceptions edit_published_posts. User can edit their published posts. This capability is off by default. The core checks the capability edit_posts, but on demand this check is changed to edit_published_posts. If you don’t want a user to be able to edit their published posts, remove this capability. publish_posts. See and use the “publish” button when editing their post (otherwise they can only save drafts) Can use XML-RPC to publish (otherwise they get a “Sorry, you can not post on this weblog or category.”) edit_pages. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Pages Pages > Add New read. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Dashboard Users > Your Profile publish_pages. edit_others_pages. edit_published_pages. delete_pages. delete_others_pages. delete_published_pages. delete_posts. delete_others_posts. delete_published_posts. delete_private_posts. edit_private_posts. read_private_posts. delete_private_pages. edit_private_pages. read_private_pages. delete_users. create_users. Allows creating new users. Without other capabilities, created users will have your blog’s New User Default Role. unfiltered_upload. edit_dashboard. customize. Allows access to the Customizer. delete_site. Allows the user to delete the current site. list_users. Allows access to Administration Screens options: Users remove_users. promote_users. Enables the “Change role to…” dropdown in the admin user list. This does not depend on ‘edit_users‘ capability. export. edit_comment. create_sites. Allows user to create sites on the network delete_sites. Allows user to delete sites on the network Resources. Information. WordPress Capabilities WordPress Roles and Capabilities at a Glance – A simplified visual representation of WordPress roles and capabilities

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