Where's the 'VIEWER' option for a private blog?
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Hi there.
I am trying to invite only certain people to view certain posts on my private blog. These posts I have ticked as public.
When I follow your guide to invite followers, the drop down box for the invitation doesn’t give me the ‘follower’ option – only administrator, editor, author, contributor and viewer. I don’t know why this is, or where I am going wrong. Are there other settings I need to change somewhere?
None of the people I want to invite have a WP account, and it seems like a lot of admin to get them to register, etc just to read my stuff.
I appreciate your advice.
Thanks,
RobynThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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“Viewer” is what you need to invite them as, and, yes, they will need to register for WordPress.com. This is how WordPress.com limits access to your Private site.
Additionally, if you want those invited viewers to see only certain posts on your site, you’ll have to password protected your posts as well. Otherwise site viewer will see the entire site. Passwords are only as safe as the people you give them to.
Can you explain a little about why you are doing this in the first place?
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Hi there.
Thanks for your response. I still don’t understand why there is no ‘follower’ option when I want to invite people to see my stuff. It doesn’t come up as an option in the drop down box.
I have made only certain posts ‘public’. Any I don’t want people to see, I’ve marked as ‘private’. So, my understanding is that if I give access to viewers, they can see the public posts only and nothing else. The guide doesn’t say anything about ‘followers’ having to sign up for accounts.
It’s a trail running blog. -
A Private blog means that when I, an uninvited person, click on your blog’s link above, it should lead me to a notice that the site is marked private by its owner and I can opt to send you a request to gain access. Indeed, that is how your site currently works.
In order for someone to access your Private site, you have to invite them as a VIEWER and they have to accept your invitation and create a WordPress.com account if they don’t already have one in order to log in.
Once they have their account set up and are able to access your site, they can then choose to FOLLOW your site, which means they will receive a notice of any newly published posts marked as Public.
When you publish a post as Private, it means only Admins and Editors will see those posts. Notices of Privately published posts will not be sent to any Follower.
Hope that was clearer. Perhaps a quick look at the Support doc on User Roles will help as well. Check out the Support Site by clicking the link at the top of the page and searching for “User Roles”.
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Thanks Robyn for asking the same question that I have.
I’m a teacher and my blog is private for the privacy of our school and students. I am trying to invite parents to join the blog as a follower but only viewer, admin, author and editor are options. It seems that they have to create a wordpress account to follow my blog. Is there anyway they can receive email notifications when there are posts or just be a follower instead of having to create a blog for the sole purpose of following their child’s class page?
Thanks,
Amanda -
Hi Amanda.
As far as I could determine, there is no other way for people to view a private blog unless they have a WP account. I spammed my colleague with endless mails trying all the options, but the only one that ended up working is for you to invite only those you want to allow to view your blog.
In the box where you can put a message, I gave a quick instruction on what to do, with the explanation that it is for privacy purposes – since, as a new user, you have to create an account and then go back to the invitation email (sent by you). It was all a bit complicated, but easy enough to follow the steps if you lay them out in a clear manner.
To receive mail notifications of new posts – there must be a box to tick – I don’t know if anyone following my blog did so. I have the blogs I follow ticked for notifications – so it must be reciprocal.
I hope this helps….
Maybe there is another explanation – otherwise there is an error in the instructions that you can download off the main WP blog site, as the instructions don’t seem to match up with what you see on screen.
Best of luck,
Robyn -
Viewer=Follower. They are the same thing. Sometimes the terminology changes and the support documents don’t use the same words as the dashboard, but in this particular case, they are the same thing. Anyone who can read a private blog can Follow it in their reader or by email.
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