User levels—what are they?
Contributor or Editor
A word about user levels:
Most users of our website start with a Contributor-level account. After some practice, trial and error, and ongoing review/approval by a site admin, you can ask to be elevated to the next level. Users who follow best practices and demonstrate competence will be raised to Editor level.
As a Contributor, any content you create or
update will be staged until approved; at that point it is visible
only to users who are logged in. The site administrators (usually
Karen O. or Rudy) get a notification when approvals are pending.
Once a change has been approved, the content is published and
visible to the public. This is good for beginners, so any errors
can be fixed, materials don’t get deleted, and posts will be put
in the right place.
When you are an Editor, your content goes live
as soon as you publish it. You need to actively publish new
content, since a reviewer is not going to approve it for
you. You also have the power to change posts that maybe you
shouldn’t, and even to delete posts. This can be dangerous if you
don’t know what you’re doing. It’s always best to archive a post
instead of deleting it; then we can restore the content if
you make a mistake. Editors continue to be monitored by site
admins, and will get feedback, encouragement, and suggestions
periodically from the site admins (by email).
For more information, go to the Help page on the login tab. The help you see will be appropriate for users at your level.