Question regarding user roles and rights

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  treesschepens · Member · Apr 28, 2026 at 5:03 pm

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  I have a question regarding creating new users and which user roles and rights exist. Briefly summarised, according to the help I found on this site, these roles exist to give to new users:

  a quick summary of each role, with detailed descriptions further down this page:

  • Administrator: The highest level of permission. Admins have the power to access almost everything.
  • Editor: Has access to all posts, pages, comments, categories, and tags, and can upload media.
  • Author: Can write, upload media, edit, and publish their own posts.
  • Contributor: Has no publishing or uploading capability but can write and edit their own posts until they are published.
  • Viewer: Viewers can read and comment on posts and pages on private sites.
  • Subscriber: People who subscribe to your site’s updates.

  Now, I want my own site to be entirely my own. Visitors leaving a comment as a guest is fine, or even as a subscriber, but I do not want anyone to be able to add own posts or pages, edit posts/pages or delete post/pages. The content of the site must be entirely my own.

  I am a bit afraid that I would assign editing rights to someone per accident. But can you tell me: do you explicitly have to invite someone to become a user before he/she can add/edit/delete pages and posts? Or can people wishing to become a user just register at my site/blog?

  If someone leaves a comment on a blog post and I approve that comment (regardless if a commenter can then, once a first comment has been approved, post new comments without approval or not) , is there an option that a person leaving a comment is granted roles and user rights that allow him/her to add/edit/delete posts and pages?

  I’ve considered wordpress.org as well, but I was scared off a bit by the options to assign such rights to visitors. After all, a missclick with the mouse (pressing a wrong option per accident) can happen rapidly. I would like to exclude such worries. I was hoping wordpress.com would not have the option to assign editing roles to someone, or at least make it that hard that accidently missclicking the wrong option is extremely unlikely.

  Is wordpress.com a better option for me than wordpress.org for not having to worry about accidently assigning editing rights to people? I just want to have my own site and blog, I’m fine with visitors leaving comments as a subscriber or guest, but I don’t want anyone to be able to add/edit/delete posts and pages.

  Thanks for any feedback.

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  james3265166 · Member · Apr 28, 2026 at 5:46 pm

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  To put your mind at ease: it is virtually impossible to accidentally grant someone editing rights just by approving a comment. In WordPress, ‘Commenters’ and ‘Users’ are kept in two entirely different databases; a visitor leaving a comment remains a guest (or a Subscriber) and never gains access to your dashboard or the ability to change your posts. Furthermore, WordPress.com does not allow open registration for editing roles by default—someone can only become an Editor or Author if you explicitly send them an invitation via email and they manually accept it. You are in total control, and as long as you are the only one with the Administrator password, your site will remain entirely your own.

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  treesschepens · Member · Apr 30, 2026 at 12:44 pm

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  Thanks @james3265166 for the clear answer!

  Is wordpress.com a safer bet than wordpress.org if I want to avoid accidently granting someone a role and user rights? I just want to avoid anyone else adding/editing/deleting posts and pages, and I’m concerned that a simple missclick could activate an option I don’t want.

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  themagicrobot · Member · Apr 30, 2026 at 2:28 pm

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  Then just don’t click on “Add New User” in the lefthand menu. Allowing comments on your site is a completely different thing.

  

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