New WordPress Feature: Pending Review
WordPress has had support for “Contributor” users since version 1.3 (an unreleased development version in late 2004 that turned into version 1.5). Contributors could save drafts, but not publish their entries. Combined with open registration (default role: “Contributor”), this had a lot of potential for opening up blog contributions to the public. Or, with closed registration, it could provide for mandatory editorial review before posts were published.
Unfortunately, the idea wasn’t fleshed out. Contributors had two options: “Save and Continue Editing” or “Save.” Both saved their post as a draft. There was no way to tell the difference between an in-progress draft and a “ready for review” draft. People hacked their way around it, doing things like adding HTML comments in the body of the entry: <!--publish_me--> … but that was cumbersome for both Contributors and Editors.
Starting with WordPress 2.3 (and maybe even sooner for WP.com users), this process is a lot more natural. Contributors will now have a new button. It acts as a counterpart to the “Publish” button that Authors (and above) get. The button says “Submit for Review.” It leverages a new post_status called “pending.” Pending posts show up as links above the Write Post screen for Editors and Administrators, along with the “nags” for your own drafts and others’ drafts. These links hooks into the new Manage Posts screen coming in WP 2.3 (and already on WP.com) that Mike Adams did such a good job creating.
Here is an example of what an Editor or Administrator might see above their Write Post screen:
If there are one or two posts in any of these categories (pending, drafts, others’ drafts), it will show a link to each. If there are three or more, it will tell you how many there are, and display a link to the respective Manage Posts view. For Pending posts, an Editor or Administrator can click “View” to get an in-theme preview of the post. If it looks good, it’s only two clicks to Publish: “Edit” then “Publish.” If it still needs work, the Editor or Administrator can edit the post and make it a draft again, and maybe send an e-mail to the author informing them of the problems that are preventing its publishing.
There are obviously a lot more “editorial process” types of features that we could implement, but we’ll wait to see what the demand is for those sorts of things. The “Pending Review” feature is something that has been half-implemented for two-and-a-half years, and has been an itch that I’ve long wanted to scratch. Let me know how you like it, how it could be improved, and what sorts of cool contribution-driven sites you can build with it!
Update: WordPress.com users can now use this feature!
Great! This is an important function in my opinion. With all the fancy ajaxy “widget” stuff lately I was getting afraid wordpress was going in the wrong direction (sorry, my opinion).
This function again focuses on what it’s all about: managing content and the process of writing and publishing content.
Excellent!! Job well done!
[...] is a new feature in WordPress 2.3 Called Pending Review. This feature adds a “Submit for Review” Button for people logged in as Contributors on a [...]
This sounds like a great feature. Although I’ve always solved it in multi-authored projects before, an actual pending functionality is of course preferred. Great!
This is great news, I’ve been waiting for this !
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[...] lo explica Mark Jaquith han agregado un nuevo estado a los post: pendiente de revisión. Dentro de WordPress existe el tipo de usuario [...]
Definitely a nice feature. Does this link to the three drafts mean that there’s a dedicated management page for drafts? That’s something I’ve wanted for a while, especially for the ability to delete drafts in the same AJAX-y way that you can do it for published posts and comments.
Olly,
There isn’t a dedicated tab, but there is a dedicated view within the Manage » Posts screen. You have a bunch of dropdowns for picking different post criteria. “Status” is one of them. So if you pick “Draft,” you get all the drafts. And then, yes, you can click “delete” and get a nice asynchronous deletion. The links in the “nag” area just go to pre-configured views of the Manage » posts screen.
Cool, that sounds excellent. It’s a feature that I’ve been wanting for a while, since I’m terrible for making drafts and not finishing them
[...] obstante, aquí se explica (en inglés) como debe funcionar. Algo así te debe aparecer en la ventana de Redacción cuando [...]
This feature is a dream come true, since we have an editor network reviewing 94 writers.
[...] more details, see this writeup from Mark [...]
Hmm. I’m confused. I’m happy to be reviewed but friends have already seen my blog–so doesn’t that mean it’s published? They have not, however, been able to leave comments–something about enabling cookies. I’ve tried to figure out what to tell them but I have no clue. Thanks.
[...] I read the following article ‘New WordPress.com Feature: Pending Review‘ too fast due to my impatient nature of having to read the many words despite the well [...]
[...] be done at least as well, or probably better, in WordPress. And now they’re introducing a proper workflow element, the middle market may be up for grabs too. Starting with WordPress 2.3… contributors [...]
[...] this option will notify the administrator so they can review the document before publishing. Mark Jaquith has more information on this new [...]
So when will this be available????
I have two clients who will greatly benefit from this.
[...] info By Alphonse Yu Categories: Uncategorized Pending Review is a new post feature for Contributors using WordPress, where posts can be submitted for review to [...]
[...] New WordPress feature: Pending review [...]
Jermayn,
This will be availible in WordPress 2.3, which will be released around the end of September. It is availble now on WordPress.com
[...] more details, see this writeup from Mark [...]
That really help, guys!
[...] Which means that drafts can be of two types now: posts still under editing(Draft) and posts that are ready to be published(Pending Review); there was no good way to differentiate like this earlier. An efficient way to immediately inform the contributor that the Pending Review post has been pushed back to Draft state by the editor, perhaps with a custom message attached explaining the reason for it, is however absent. EMail/IM etc are the alternate options for now. (More info) [...]
Thanks for this feature. It’s going to prove very useful for some of our remotely-authored sites.
Is there a way to authorize contributors to post without a review by the administrator?
This feature puts WP in a new league. Expect new users to come on board.
Hi, I have a strange little problem; when one of my contributers hits Submit for Review, their post gets published instantly! Wow! (But it breaks my editorial process.) I’ve verified that the Contributer role, using a different plugin, does not have publishing access. What’s going on? I’m on the latest WordPress…
I.S. - You are right on… “Submit for Review” officially does not work. Contributers who used to only be able to “Save” a post, can now “Submit for Review,” unfortunately that feature does publish the post directly.
This new feature is great but two things are missing for it to get perfect:
1) Warn admins that there are pending review posts via email.
2) Send an email to the contributing author telling him what’s been changed from his original post after publishing. I’m always doing this manually via email and it takes a lot of time. I want to make my contributors editors like me, but for that they need to understand what are my site’s defaults, schemes etc., you know what I mean? I want them to know exactly what have I changed and updated from their posts so they’ll know how to do them next time.
Thanks a lot!!
[...] Links Postie plugin for wordpress. Draft notification plugin notification for wordpress. Pending Reviews what are they and how can you leverage them. Fix Categories for WordPress 2.3 with Postie This was [...]
I would appreciate allowing contributors to upload images to posts. At present I do not believe they can do this.
Is there a way to have WordPress email a designated editor or administrator when an article is submitted for review?
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