Reviewing Member Submissions

BuddyPress Member Blog overviewFree + ProGet BuddyPress Member Blog →

Member Blog can hold member posts for review before they go live. Editors then approve each post, or send it back to the author with a note on what to change. Review happens in the WordPress Posts list, and with Pro it can also happen from the front-end editor.

Use this when you want a person to read every member post before the public does: a new community, a site with a brand to protect, or a site that has had spam.

One switch

Whether posts are held for review is decided by one setting, and nothing else:

WB Plugins > Member Blog > Access > Post Publication Rules > Publish immediately

Setting	What it does	Default
Publish immediately	Ticked: member posts go live as soon as the member publishes. Unticked: every member post, including scheduled ones, waits in Posts > Member submissions until an administrator or editor approves it.	Unticked (review on) on a new site. Sites upgrading from before this setting was saved keep publishing immediately.

Pro’s Editorial Workflow adds front-end review tools on top of this switch. It does not hold posts by itself.

Who reviews, and who skips review

Anyone with the WordPress edit_others_posts capability reviews, which on a standard site means editors and administrators. The same people publish their own posts directly even while review is on. Everyone else submits for review.

With Pro’s Editorial Workflow on, the roles picked under Reviewer Roles review too: they see Posts > Member submissions (if their role can open the Posts screen), the count bubble, and Approve and Reject on each waiting post. They are not made editors. Their own posts still go through review, and they cannot approve or reject their own submission. Developers can add reviewers with the bpmb_can_review filter.

What the member sees

With review on, a member’s main button reads Submit for Review instead of Publish. After submitting they see Submitted for Review! and the post sits on their Pending tab. They can keep editing it (Update submission) or take it back (Move to drafts). See Editing a post after you submit it.

Finding what is waiting

The Posts menu shows a count bubble with the number of member posts waiting, for everyone who can review.
WB Plugins > Member Blog > Overview shows a Needs review card while review is on or posts are waiting, with a Review now button when there is something to review.
Posts > Member submissions is the review queue. It lists only posts written through Member Blog, pending ones first, and the view link shows how many are pending.

Above the queue a summary shows how many posts are waiting and how long the oldest has waited. When nothing is waiting it says All caught up.

The queue is the normal WordPress Posts list, so search, author filter, sorting and pagination all work as usual.

Approve

Every pending row has Approve and Reject buttons in the Review column, and the same two links in the row’s hover actions.

Pressing Approve:

Publishes the post, or, if the member gave it a future date (Pro Scheduling), schedules it to publish at that time.
Runs everything a normal publish runs: the activity entry, follower notifications, the author’s “approved” email and (Pro) the credit charge.
Shows a notice such as 1 post approved and published.

If another reviewer already handled the post, nothing happens twice; the notice says the post was skipped because it is no longer pending.

When approval does not publish (Pro)

Pro’s limits can stop an approved post from going live. The post goes back to the author’s drafts and the notice says why:

Post credits: the author has no credits left and Block at Zero Balance is on in the Post Credits settings. Grant credits, then approve again. See Post credits.
Posting limits: the author’s posting limit stopped it.

Reject (send back)

Reject never deletes anything. The post goes back to its author as a draft with your note, so they can fix it and submit it again.

Press Reject on the row.
The Send back to the author screen lists the post (with a preview link, the author, when it was submitted and its word count).
Under What should the author change?, write your note. It is required, up to 2,000 characters, and a counter shows how many you have used.
Optionally press one or more Quick reasons to add a ready-made sentence to the note, then edit it.
Press Send back to the author. Cancel returns to the list without changing anything.

The default quick reasons are: Add a featured image. Give the post a clearer title. It is too short - please expand it. Check the spelling and formatting. Choose a category that fits. Remove the promotional links.

Developers can change the list with the bpmb_reject_quick_reasons filter:

add_filter( 'bpmb_reject_quick_reasons', function ( $reasons ) {
  $reasons[] = __( 'Please add a source for the figures you quote.', 'my-textdomain' );
  return $reasons;
} );

Bulk actions

Select several posts and use Bulk actions:

Action	What it does
Approve	Approves every selected pending post.
Reject (asks for a reason)	Opens the Send back screen for all selected posts. One note goes to every author.

Posts in the selection that are not pending are skipped.

Reviewing in the block editor

A reviewer who opens a member’s pending post in the WordPress block editor can:

Press WordPress’s own Publish button. This counts as an approval and runs the same steps as Approve (the same is true of the classic post screen and Quick Edit).
Press Send back to the author in the post’s summary panel. It opens the same Send back screen, so a note is still required.

Front-end review tools (Pro)

With Pro’s Co-Authors module on, WB Plugins > Member Blog > Co-Authors > Editorial Workflow adds:

Setting	What it does	Default
Front-end review tools	Shows Approve & Publish and Request Revision to reviewers when they open a pending post in the front-end composer. Request Revision asks for feedback before it sends the post back.	Off
Reviewer Roles	Extra roles that may approve or request revisions, from the front-end editor and from Posts > Member submissions. Administrators and editors can always review. A reviewer role can open another member’s post while it is pending review, so the review buttons are within reach; once the post is published or back in drafts, only its author, co-authors and editors can edit it. A reviewer role cannot approve its own submission.	Administrator, Editor
Workflow Email Notifications	Emails co-authors when a post they share is published or sent back.	On

These use the same approve and send-back steps as the Posts list.

What the author gets when a post is sent back

On their Drafts tab the post shows a Sent back label and the start of your note.
When they open it, the full note sits at the top of the composer with your name and when you sent it.
An email, Your post was sent back, with your note and an edit link. With Pro’s Notifications module, also an on-site notification on BuddyPress and BuddyBoss sites.

The note is cleared as soon as the author submits the post for review again, or when it is approved.

The author is also emailed when a reviewer approves their post, and reviewers are emailed once when a member post enters review: every administrator and editor, or with Pro the administrators picked under Select Admin User(s). Nobody is emailed about their own action. See Notifications.

Scheduled posts (Pro)

With review on, a member who schedules a post sends it to review first. It keeps its chosen date while pending. Approving it schedules it, and it publishes at that date. See Scheduling.

Editing an approved post

Moderation controls publication, not editing. A member can correct their own published post and it stays live; it is not sent back to review. To have every edit to a published post reviewed again:

add_filter( 'bpmb_moderate_edits', '__return_true' );

Private posts

Members who can publish see a Private option under Visibility in the composer. A private post is published, but only its author, editors and administrators can read it. It is listed on the author’s Published tab with a Private badge.

Private is a choice made at the moment a post goes live, so a member whose posts need approval is not offered it: their composer shows Public and Password protected only. This keeps a post from being approved as public when its author asked for it to be private. A post that is already private keeps the option on every later save. To remove the option from the composer and refuse it on save:

add_filter( 'bpmb_allow_private_posts', '__return_false' );

Upgrading from before 4.0

Before 4.0 the Publish immediately setting had no effect: member posts went live even when it was turned off. Since 4.0 the setting works, so a site that had it turned off started holding member posts for review on update. WordPress showed a one-time notice about this after the update.

For developers

Hook	Fires when
`bpmb_post_approved`	A pending post is approved (published now or scheduled). Receives the post ID and the reviewer’s user ID.
`bpmb_post_rejected`	A pending post is sent back as a draft. Same arguments. The note is saved before this fires.
`bpmb_review_queue_url`	Filters the review queue link used by the Overview card and emails.
`bpmb_post_entered_review`	A member post enters review, once per entry. Receives the post ID and the submitter’s user ID.
`bpmb_review_request_recipients`	Filters the user IDs emailed when a post enters review.