Published By

This plugin records which user actually published a post, which in a multi-author environment may not always be the original post author. This helps to maintain accountability for who was ultimately responsible for a post appearing live on a site.

The admin listing of posts is amended with a new “Published By” column that shows the name of the person who published the post (for those posts that have actually been published). A dropdown above admin post listings allows for the listing to be filtered by a particular publishing user (but only includes posts with a known publishing user).

For posts that were published prior to the use of this plugin (and thus the plugin could not directly record who published those posts), the plugin makes a best guess attempt to ascertain who published the post. After failing to find the publisher of the post as recorded by the plugin, it checks for who last edited the post, then who is responsible for the latest revision of the post, and finally failing those, it assumes it was the post author. In cases where it had to go through this process, the name of the person it deduced as the likely publisher appears italicized and with a question mark at the end. If you’d rather the plugin not make an attempt to guess the publisher, you can disable the checks by including this snippet in your theme’s functions.php (or, ideally, a site-specific mu-plugin):

<?php add_filter( 'c2c_published_by_skip_guessing', '__return_true' ); ?>

Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

1. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or download and unzip published-by.zip inside the plugins directory for your site (typically wp-content/plugins/)
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress

Installation Instructions

1. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or download and unzip published-by.zip inside the plugins directory for your site (typically wp-content/plugins/)
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress

If a post is published, then changed back to a draft, and then published a second time by a different user, who is noted as the publishing user?

The user most recently responsible for a post getting published will be recorded as the publishing user. Editing a published post does not change the publishing user.

How do I see (or hide) the “Published By” column in an admin listing of posts?

In the upper-right of the page is a “Screen Options” link that reveals a panel of options. In the “Columns” section, check (to show) or uncheck (to hide) the “Published By” option.

Why does the person’s name listed as the “Published By” user appear in italics with a question mark at the end?

It’s an indication that for the given post the name shown is a guess by the plugin based on existing post data. For posts that were published prior to the use of this plugin (and thus the plugin could not directly record who published those posts), the plugin makes a best guess attempt to ascertain who published the post. After failing to find the publisher of the post as recorded by the plugin, it checks for who last edited the post, then who is responsible for the latest revision of the post, and finally failing those, it assumes it was the post author. It’s likely that the guess is correct, but it’s impossible to say for certain when the plugin isn’t activated when posts were published.

Does this plugin include unit tests?

Yes.