Adding Members to Private Premium Site

  • Unknown's avatar
    lapd12083 · Member ·

    I have been running a premium blog for several years now for a group of retirees from my prior employer, a law enforcement agency. It serves over 2,000 members and we are continually adding new ones. This is maintained as a private site requiring me and my staff to grant access to each member. When we first started using WordPress, it allowed our prospective members to simply register for a username only and then request access to our private site which was fairly straightforward and relatively easy to negotiate. The registration process has now become rather convoluted requiring the prospective members to obtain a domain name, etc. Since the majority of our members are relatively techno-challenged due to the age range, mostly late 50’s into their 90’s, it has become quite a challenge to get them registered. I even prepared specific directions, replete with graphics, to take the prospective members through the registration process step-by-step. Due to the continually changing WordPress procedure, I have had to constantly revise the instructions I send out to the prospective members. Many of them give up out of frustration.

    Is there any way to simplify the process if we just need to have our prospective members obtain a WordPress username so they can view our site?

    Thank you in advance for any assistance or direction you can provide to enable our site to continue providing vital information to our membership.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    I’m going to post the full process for adding users here at wordpress.COM below.

    You can have either a public or a private WordPress.COM hosted blog and there is no limitation on the total number of contributors to any blog. If you’d like to invite others to publish posts or help approve comments on your blog, you can invite them to be a Contributor, Editor, or Author. Contributors cannot upload images. If you want users to receive updates each time you publish new content you can invite them to be a follower/viewer.

    To change blog visibility to Private go to > Settings > Reading scroll to Blog Visibility and choose option 3. See the guide here http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings

    Then see:
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#adding-users-to-your-site
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#adding-viewers-to-a-private-site

    The invitees will have to register a WordPress.COM username account which requires an email address only, but does not need to register a blog. That requirement is because the software has to be able to differentiate between hackers and official users and allow access only to those with username accounts and official roles on the blog.

    Username accounts are required but registering blogs under them is not required.

    If the person being invited to contribute to your blog does not already have one, he or she will have to register a WordPress.COM username account. He or she does not need to register a blog. There is a just a username please option. The invitees who lack username accounts select the “username only” option here: https://signup.wordpress.com/signup/?user=1

    NOTE that as you have an account you would have to log out and clear your browser cache https://en.support.wordpress.com/browser-issues/#clearing-your-browser-cache and cookies https://en.support.wordpress.com/browser-issues/#clearing-wordpress-com-cookies to witness the process as the invitees without accounts would experience it.

    Upon receipt of the invitation, the invitee will need to click the “Accept Invitation” button in the invitation email. If the invitee is logged into their WordPress.com username account, he or she will be taken directly to your blog. If not, he or she will be taken to the log-in screen, where he or she can either log in, or can register a new WordPress.COM user account.

    Note that invitees who do create a new WordPress.com account at that point will still need to log into wordpress.com, return to the invitation email and click the “Accept Invitation” button after doing so.

    Lastly, there is a built-in spammer prevention so send out only 10 invitations at one point in time and then wait and manage those before sending out 10 more.

    See here:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/adding-users/ and here http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/
    https://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/#changing-user-roles

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