Private area/category
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I’d like to have an area or category on my blog where only the members of our volunteer fire department can see and reply to the posts. This area would be used for discussing issues and events that relate to the fire department and are not for public consumption at all. I don’t want non-department members to even be able to see post titles, so password protecting each post won’t work. And I’m under the impression that if I make individual posts private, either anybody that is signed into their wordpress.com account could see it or nobody else could see it. Either of those options wouldn’t work.
I searched on the support pages and here on the forum pages and from what I’m seeing, it isn’t possible with a wordpress.com blog. Is that right?
If I am right, what I’m wondering about doing then is setting up another wordprss.com blog, making that a private blog for department members only, and then making a page on the public blog with a link to the private blog.
Does that sound like it would work? I’m not sure because I’m not exactly sure if there is a way to pick who gets to see a private blog.
Sorry for the long question. But know I truely appreciate any input you can offer in this area.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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I can’t think of anyway to make part of a blog invisible to the general public. Password protected posts show titles so even if people couldn’t read the posts they would know they were there. Posts marked private rather than password protected would be invisible to everyone except administrators, editors, authors.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/With a private blog (rather than private posts) the administrator invites people to read the blog.
The readers sign up for a WordPress.com account but they do not have to sign up for a blog. The administrator then sends an invitation to the same email address that the reader used to begin the account. -
So I should be ok if I set up a second blog and make it private.
The only question then is if I’ll be able to set up a page on the public blog that will link to the new private blog, so it’ll show up as a page at the top of the public blog. Like I did when I created pages on the public blog that link to the categories on the blog. (Does that make sense? Sounds confusing and I’m the one thinking it! Lol)
That should work, shouldn’t it?
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Not confusing. Of course you could make an actual page with a link to the second blog and that page would appear in your navigation bar.
You could also make a link to the second blog with a text widget in the sidebar.
But I’m thinking you don’t really want the general public clicking on an obvious navigation link to the private blog?
I don’t know if you have chosen a theme for your site, but if you want a link in the nav bar that goes directly to the second blog, then you might look at this trick which works in some themes but not others:
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gak, cut and paste paragraphs out of order:
1. Not confusing…
4. You could…
3. But I’m thinking…
2. I don’t know…≥^!^≤
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You could do it with password protected posts with titles such as Post 1, Post 2, etc. You don’t even need to title the posts, if you don’t care about search engine visibility for those posts. They will still come up in order, but nobody will be able to read them without the password.
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I chose Vigilance theme for both blogs. I don’t want to confuse department members too much. So the page-tabs-as-external-links trick is what I was hoping will work. I’ll be trying it out in a little while but am guessing it’ll work ok. Sounds like it should anyway.
I was a little concerned about having a link that goes to a private blog accessible to everyone too. But decided on doing it anyway. People on the department all want the private blog, but it has to be easy for them to find it. Doing something as simple as looking for a link in a sidebar widget might be more than some are willing to do. That’s why I’m thinking a page link will work best. And for the people that aren’t on the department, hopefully they’ll get the idea from the title I’ll put on the page that they won’t have access to the page/blog.
I guess it’s time to go give it a try. I’ve been working on the new blog, just getting it started, and am almost at the point where I think it’ll be ok to give it a test.
Thank you again for you help!
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Vigilance will work just fine with the tab. Be sure to include a space in the title (if it’s one word, type the word then a space—if it’s 2 or more words, then no problem).
You are welcome and happy blogging…
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Good grief. What in the world is going on with my fingers? Look at the last line of my last reply. It’s supposed to say “for [strong]your[strong] help.” Not “for you help.” My fingers are doing what they want. And I don’t catch it even tho I read the reply before clicking the submit button…
I tell ya, this gett’n old stuff ain’t no ride in the park… :-)
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@manvelfireblog
LOL.
No worries. We read through them because we can’t edit our comments. I’ve done some doozies that I hope are well buried…It’s the backtick displayed under the comment box which allows a little markup. and you don’t want [ and ] but you do want < and / > (no spaces)
‘for <strong]your help.`
“I tell ya, this gett’n old stuff ain’t no ride in the park”
that would be a 10-4 buddy… -
Oh, so that’s what I did wrong with the “strong” thing. Now if I only understood it.
Think I’m gonna have to go to that web site I found in the support pages where they teach what the codes are and how to use them.
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Yup.
This is beyond what you asked about html coding, but you may find it useflul?
try this for some extra help:
http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/category/fonts/
http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/category/font-size/
http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/category/font-color/
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