Recently, one of our readers asked us if it was possible to allow contributors to edit their approved articles? WordPress user roles allow you to set different permissions for each user on your site. By default, a WordPress user with a contributor role cannot edit their posts. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to let contributors edit their posts after they've been approved.
How to allow contributors to edit their articles after being approved
Contributors or guest authors with a Contributing User role write articles and submit them for review on WordPress. A user with the role of Administrator or Publisher User can view and publish it. Once published, contributors cannot edit their own articles. It is a generalized hierarchy in WordPress that distributes the role and status of the user.
However, you can add or remove features from user roles in WordPress. Let's see how to let contributors edit their posts.
1 Method: Allow contributors to edit their articles (plugin)
This method is easier and recommended for most users. This method also allows you to change other user roles and permissions immediately.
The first thing to do is to install and activate the plugin Capability Manager Enhanced . For more details, see our step-by-step guide to way to install a plugin in WordPress.
After activating the plugin, you need to visit the section Users »Capacities from your WordPress dashboard to change the functionality of the contributing user role.
On this page, you must select the role of collaborator on the right side in order to be able to modify their authorization level.
Once selected, you will see a lot of options in this section. In the zone Editing Capabilities, you must select the option Edit Published and scroll down to click the button Save Changes.
After that you can test the permissions by switching to a contributor role on WordPress and going to the page Articles You will now see the option to edit published posts. Tip: You can instantly switch between user accounts while testing roles and permissions on WordPress.
2 Method: Manually Allow Contributors to Edit Items
This method requires you to add code to your WordPress files. If you haven't done it before, then please take a look at our guide on to copy and paste code in WordPress .
You will need to add the following code to your functions.php file WordPress theme or a site-specific plugin.
// get the "contributor" ojbet $ obj_existing_role = get_role ('contributor'); // Add the "Edit published posts" capability $ obj_existing_role-> add_cap ('edit_published_posts');
Although we've shown you how to allow contributors to edit their posts, we believe it's not a good practice to let contributors or authors edit their posted content.
If the content needs to be changed or corrected, the author should ask an administrator or editor to update it. This allows you to maintain editorial integrity.
Before publish an article, an editor checks several necessary elements, such as keywords, images, meta description, URL, etc. These things are important for getting better rankings in search results. A user with a contributor user role may not be fully aware of your editorial best practices and may make mistakes that would not go unnoticed if not reviewed by an editor or administrator.
One way to handle this is to share a blog checklist with your contributors and authors. This checklist will help them cover all the tasks before submitting an article for review. It will also help an editor to quickly review an article.
