Post Control

I have setup a bunch of WordPress blogs for family and friends and have actually had several people abandon these blogs because they could not control who sees them. Some might be a little paranoid but still. They would like to be able to control who can see which posts. I know it is possible to make a blog private by requiring a user account and make it all or nothing but I would like to see more control than that.

When you write a post, on the right you have a checkbox to make the post private. That is great but I think we should add several more checkboxes such as Everyone (anyone visiting can see that post without having to log in), Family (Only logged in users that have been marked as family can read these posts), Friends (Only logged in users that have been marked as friends can read these posts), Co-Workers (Only logged in users that have been marked as Co-Workes can read these posts), etc. The group names could be customizable but you get the point. You should be able to mark a post for multiple groups unless one of those groups is Everyone or Private. These two would trump anything else. Private posts would remain visible to the author of that post and admins only.

These groups are completely different than the user rights currently in WordPress as these would only control who could READ individual posts. The ones currently in Wordress control user rights and what they can DO in Worpress.

For me, I don’t care who reads what, but I have been asked about setting something like this up for several users and have not found any plugin that can do this. It seems very simple but I am no code guy and I actually do not think this should be a plugin but actually part of the WordPress core. Although I personally wouldn’t really have a need for it. I can definitely see the benefits of such abilities and can see how some of my clients and family and friends could utilize it.

For example, if you have a WordPress blog setup in a business environment, you could allow only certain departments to read certain posts. You may want to setup your groups as Accounting, HR, PR, Manufacturing, Sales, etc. That way, each department head can write things specific to their department and only their department would be able to read it when they were logged in (saves other departments having to wade through a bunch of irrelevant info to find info pertaining to them too). Any post aimed at everyone in the company would be marked with all the departments checked. They could mark anything they want the general public to be able to see as Everyone. So, it could be used for both internal and external visibility.

I guess this is more of a post control wish than user control. Each user in WordPress would then have to be put into one or more post category group. Users could be in more than one post category group but typically they would probably be in just one. A CEO would probably be in every post category group.

Anyway, if anyone knows of an existing plugin that can do this, let me know. I have tried a few and none of them give this kind of functionality when it comes to posts. Otherwise, those of you that know how to create plugins, this is my wish plugin. Although, I would prefer to see this integrated into the core of WordPress.