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Restricting public access to a whole blog site

  1. littlesophia
    Member

    I currently restrict access to family and friends for posts on a blog about my daughter. But I have to constantly redo this for every single post I make. This is annoying and I have forgotten, only to notice it days or weeks later. Ugh.

    I would like:
    A) a way to make the entire site password protected. Just like I can with posts, but lock down the whole site from casual browsing. Plus, I set it up once and the site remains locked down, and I can change out the password any time I think the password has spread too far. I would LOVE to find out how to do this. Right now, changing the password on hundreds of posts is neigh impossible with the time left to me with two kids.

    B) a way to establish a default post password and have every post default to having the password turned ON instead of having to do this manually every single time. Hey, we use computers. This sort of "defaulting" ought to be easy.

    The reason I want this is because doing it manually every time is laborious and error prone. Plus, it's clunky for visitors to see a page filled with password blanks the first time they visit. Sure, they all go away once a password is accepted, but it's not a pretty sight. Plus it seems to reset itself every couple weeks so they keep seeing this again and again. It reflects poorly on me and I think WordPress can do better than that.

    The second reason is that I have looked at the one option WordPress currently offers to lock down the blog and it is unacceptable. It would require every user to create a WordPress account with a user name and password, have e-mail to receive confirmation, and they they have to remember BOTH things whenever they want to visit the site. Plus I have to manually enter them as users, which then gives them far more capabilities than just reading. It's terribly cumbersome for our older readers, who have trouble remembering the one password we ave now, and getting THAT entered correctly. Forcing them to create accounts to view the blog is not an option.

    How can I lock down my blog with one password?

    The blog I need help with is littlesophia.wordpress.com.

  2. raincoaster
    Member

    Then the short form is, you can't do what you want.

    The reason people have to re-input the password from time to time is, they are clearing the cookies out from their computer. This is a GOOD thing, otherwise anyone on those computers could read your blog. Imagine if somoene's laptop went missing.

    Adding people as Users doesn't give them any extra privileges other than reading.

  3. timethief
    Member

    Please post the url for your blog so we can confirm that it's actually a wordpress.COM blog and to a wordpress.ORG blog or typepad or blogspot blog.

    If you do have a wordpress.COM blog then you will want to bookmark this link to wordpress.com Support Documentation http://en.support.wordpress.com/

    Search "password protect entire blog"
    http://support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/

  4. littlesophia
    Member

    Timethief,
    As I mentioned in my opening (long) post, "I have looked..." and that included searching the forums.

    blockquote
    Search Results for: password protect entire blog
    Forums
    * Password Protect Entire Blog?
    * password protect entire blog for users who aren't logged in?
    * Password protect entire blog
    blockquote

    The fist thread, the questioner was immediately told to "Please link your username to your blog." and the question was never answered. That sucks.

    The second one only elicited one actual "answer" in 9 posts. "The password-protect option works with registered users only. They don't have to sign up for a blog - just a user name." A problem I covered in my question.

    The last one terminates with Devblog saying he answered it elsewhere, which then goes to a thread about self-hosted blogs, which doesn't apply.

    So, as I had already found- there is no useful info there. I try to ensure that I'm not asking redundant or already answered questions, so I had already done a pretty thorough search on various keywords.

    This is my blog: http://littlesophia.wordpress.com

    ----
    Raincoaster,
    I understand the cleared cookies. And I personally like it. But my older guests (60's & 70's) don't. But that's not the big question I asked.

    As to adding users, my question indicates that adding a user gives them far more control than reading. Again, I researched this before I asked.

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/adding-users/
    blockquote
    To add someone who already has a WordPress.com account:
    1. Log in to your dashboard.
    2. Click on the Users -> Authors & Users menu option.
    3. In the Add User From Community section at the bottom, enter the author’s email address in the User E-mail box
    4. Select either Contributor, Author or Editor in the Role list
    5. Click the Add User button
    blockquote

    Even the lowest Role- Contributor- does a lot more than read- they can write posts... see the dashboard, and more! I DON'T want that.

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/user-roles/
    blockquote
    Contributor
    A contributor can edit their posts but cannot publish them. When a contributor creates a post...
    blockquote

    So, my question still stands, how do I lock down my blog with one password...
    without forcing everyone to become a User and then me having to assign them a Role with more privileges than just reading,

  5. raincoaster
    Member

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/

    That specifically uses the term "users" to refer to people invited to read a private blog. Invite them following that procedure.

    As stated above, there is NO way to lock your entire blog with one password, other than to password-protect every post and use the same password each time.

  6. dailylucy
    Member

    Wanting the same thing, can't figure out how to do it, also have small children and not much free time.
    .
    You could try using this:

    http://posterous.com

    and using the "private" function for which you can specify users.

  7. timethief
    Member

    I'm with raincoaster on this:

    As stated above, there is NO way to lock your entire [wordpress.com] blog with one password, other than to password-protect every post and use the same password each time.

  8. raincoaster
    Member

    The Posterous privacy function is no easier to use than the WordPress.com one.

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