[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #35704: Add Groups/Teams functionality to Core

[WordPress Trac]

#35704: Add Groups/Teams functionality to Core
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 Reporter:  catchmyfame      |      Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Users            |    Version:  trunk
 Severity:  normal           |   Keywords:
  Focuses:                   |
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 I'd like to request that WordPress add the ability for a piece of content
 (e.g. page, post, image, etc.) to be associated or owned by a team or
 group, instead of a single user. The ability to create teams or groups
 would greatly enhance the usability, flexibility, and security of
 WordPress, and provide an often used feature in content administration
 that it currently lacks.

 When I learned that WordPress, the most popular blogging/CMS tool on the
 market today, did not have this feature, I was blown away. I scoured the
 far corners of the web to make sure I hadn't missed something obvious,
 only to find information about roles and capabilities, neither of which
 accomplished this basic concept. If we need a group of people to work
 together on the same set of pages or posts, this is currently impossible
 to do, without also giving them access to all content created by anyone in
 the same role (currently editor and above). The small CMS I used previous
 had this functionality baked in, and when I started using WordPress I
 struggled to find a way to accomplish what it allows. Having groups or
 teams allows multiple users to collaborate on content without everyone
 within the same role also having access to such content.

 For example, let's say we need our organization's IT department to update
 the company's operating status page, and everyone in the IT department has
 the Author role. Since Authors don’t have the `edit_other_pages` or
 `edit_others_post` capabilities, right off the bat no one in the IT group
 can edit the operating status page other than the person who created it.
 It would take someone with the privileges of being able to change the
 author to assign it to another user for them to edit. This is an extremely
 tedious, entirely manual, and slow process. However, let’s say everyone in
 the IT department had an Editor role so that they did have
 `edit_other_pages` or `edit_others_post` capabilities. Now everyone in the
 IT group can edit the operating status page -- but now they can also edit
 any other page and post in WordPress! Obviously that’s not desirable.

 This could be solved with the concept of groups or teams. These disposable
 units would allow groups of users to edit any content that was “owned” by
 a group that they belonged to. It could even allow users within different
 roles to collaborate. Pages and post would still have an author or
 creator, but the “owner” would be the group (with the default owner being
 the author). Users should be able to add groups and users as contributors
 when creating content, thereby giving them the ability to collaborate.
 Administrators should be able to manage groups so users are able to easily
 select them like they would another user.

 The good news is that there is a plugin (co-authored by WordPress' own
 Automattic[https://automattic.com/]) called Co-Authors Plus
 ([https://wordpress.org/plugins/co-authors-plus/] and
 [https://github.com/Automattic/Co-Authors-Plus]) that almost completely
 fills this void. The bad news is that this plugin isn't part of the core,
 and that it looks like it's not very actively maintained.

 Please consider making groups/teams a core part of WordPress.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35704>
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