How do I set up a group blog?
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I am planning to set up a group blog. I have a few authors interested, although I will probably start off with it on my own and see how it settles in. But I definitely want it to have group functionality right from the start. WordPress claims that it has group functionality, and there are tantalising snippets here and there mentioning it, but I have been all over the site for quite a while this morning and still have not found a nice, simple page explaining how to set up a group blog. I looked first at WordPress as I’ve set up a blog here before, but I am getting very tempted to go for the unknown territory of Blogger, where it has a link on how to set up group blogs on the first page you go to.
So could someone walk me through how you do this? I don’t want to set up a blog and then find that I’ve done it wrong in some way, or find that I’ve set the group blog name as my personal blogging name or vice versa. I do like the look of the admin/authors/contributors distinction that was mentioned on the Roles page http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities/ but I don’t know if that applies to WordPress.com or if it’s just for WordPress.org. I’m rather fuzzy on the exact differences between them, to be honest, and whether I’m limited to using WordPress.org if I want a group blog. My current blog is on WordPress.com and I am perfectly happy with that, if it’s possible.
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There isn’t much to explain. You add the people that you want to be on the group blog as a contributor or author and once you do that, they can start creating posts. Users either have to have an existing wordpress username and password, or they have to sign up for one before they can post on the group blog. Contributor content has to be approved by the administrator or an editor and they cannot upload images or insert videos. Authors can insert videos and images and they can publish and edit their own posts. Read through the following support page to get a clear idea on roles and to learn how to add users.
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You can add the “authors grid” or “authors” widget to the sidebar and it will show all users on the blog.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/authors-widget/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/author-grid-widget/ -
Thanks for the help. That sorts out the second stage, but what about the first stage? How do I set it up as a group blog to begin with? How will I, as an individual, be distinguished from the group blog? For instance, let’s say the group blog will be called feministweightloss (which it actually will), and then those of us who are writing for it will be called various other things. I haven’t worked out my individual name just yet, but let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m called feministuser1 (which I definitely won’t be!). What do I do first? Set up a blog called feministuser1, then set up a second blog called feministweightloss? Set up feministweightloss, classify it as a group blog to begin with, and input my own name somewhere? Another question: will my individual name have to be completely unique to WordPress, or could I just pick any name, call myself Helen or something, and it’ll be OK because the only one that counts is the group blog name?
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The “set up” for a group blog is no different from the set up for an individual blog.
Pick a theme that displays the author name. Not all of them do. That will distinguish you from the others. If you’re signed in to WordPress.com, the blog can tell who you are, so it will automatically list your name.
You can call yourself anything you like, but it’s a good idea to make it unique because if you’re popular, people WILL google your name.
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So the author name is nothing to do with the blog name? (It’s so long since I set up insearchofmornings that I can’t remember if I was given two choices there.) And I just set up the blog as normal, make sure I pick an appropriate theme, and add other people to the blog? I presume we all have different passwords, and sign in under our “author” name rather than the blog name? How exactly does that work?
Out of curiosity, do I have to pick an author name right at the start, or can I just set up feministweightloss.wordpress.com and spend a while tinkering with the layout while I think of an author name?
As for picking a theme which allows the author to be listed separately, I assume that comes up under the feature filters with themes. Is it the “editor style” one?
In terms of calling myself anything I like and being googled, are you talking about the blog name or the author name? I was considering just using my middle name for the author name, but perhaps I should come up with a more interesting nom de plume.
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The author name is nothing to do with the blog name AFTER the initial setup. When you first register an account, the blog name is automatically the same as your username. You can change your displayed username later, on your Profile page, under Users.
You’d better pick a username, otherwise things are going to get complicated very quickly. Trust me on this.
I don’t know what you mean by “the editor style one”. Narrow it down to a handful of themes you can live with and then pick the one that displays the author name. You’ll see it in the previews.
And yes, you should come up with something unique for your username. What if your middle name is Sue, and someone wants to find an awesome piece you wrote about weight loss. There are 10,500,000 results for that in a Google Search. Change that username to, say, Turdblossom, and you have a lot fewer results. You are therefore more likely to be found.
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*falls over laughing* My middle name is marginally more interesting than Sue, but point taken, people may remember the author’s name rather than the blog’s name. You get a big gold star for Turdblossom, especially since I was vaguely thinking about Hermia (short character in Shakespeare, I’m fairly short myself and always sympathised with her about that), and both Hermia and a random fairy named Peaseblossom turn up in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Peaseblossom was a bad enough name to begin with, and it will forever have new associations for me now. Although googling “Hermia” with “weight” doesn’t bring up any competitors, but it does bring up “hernia” rather a lot. Hmm. Possibly that wouldn’t be the case once there were blog posts to come up in searches? Anyway, I will make an effort to come up with a username before I set up the blog, thank you for warning me about that.
Theme business – if you browse the themes by filters, it gives you a choice of terms to filter by, which I had assumed was what you meant. You can filter by “one column”, “flexible width”, and various other things. I was looking for something which suggested that it would allow you to have multiple authors listed, and the only filter I could see which looked appropriate was “editor style”. I tried filtering for “editor style” and also “custom colors” and it came up with three themes, of which Chateau is one example. What should I be looking for, where will it show me whether it can display the author names or not?
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Hermia would be good not just because it’s unique but also because you’d get all those poor spellers.
Peaseblossom would make a great name for a pony.
Turdblossom is actually a friend of mine over at Gawker.
Never mind using the Theme Search. I found an index! http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/author-displayed-or-not/
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I’d get all the poor spellers in what way? You mean that I’d pick up all the people who had meant to type “hernia” and pressed the wrong key? “Hi, I was actually looking up groin hernias and came across your site by mistake, but it seems great!” It wasn’t <i>quite</i> how I’d envisaged picking up readers… Back to the drawing board for that one, I think.
Now I have images of Titania calling, “Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! And Mustardseed!” and instead of four fairies (optionally played by annoying small children, and occasionally by genuinely cute small children), a pony would troop in. Well, I’ve probably seen odder versions of Shakespeare.
Thanks for the link about authors being displayed. It’s not making quite as much sense to me as I’d hoped, but I have severe ME/CFS and my brain is a bit fried this afternoon, so hopefully it will make more sense if I look at it later. Right now it seems like my main priority is to come up with a respectable user name, set up the blog, and then spend a few days faffing around with different themes until I find one which suits me. I am starting to find that various things are sounding more familiar by now, at least.
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That is exactly right. Just be sure not to spend too much faffing time. Actually blogging teaches you lots.
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Yes, good point.
I had decided “to hell with the hernia thing, I like the name”, but now I am stuck at the username vs. display name stuff, and the support sections on WordPress are not helping me out. Although I do at least know now that you can create a username without creating a blog, which explains what the other authors on a group blog do.
Anyway, the username needs to be unique, it seems, and it can’t include spaces. Hermia is already taken. If I add my year of birth or something just to make it unique, does it ever actually show up? Or do people just see the display name?
And more importantly, does the display name need to be unique?
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