Free, built in WB Member Blog
BuddyNext + WB Member Blog
Members who write get somewhere to keep it.
What happens when someone uses it
One action, everywhere it lands
A member publishes an article from the front end
- Their profile An Articles tab, with a count beside it
- Their drafts Visible to them, not to anyone else
- The feed A post card, which core already does on its own
The bridge self-guards on WB Member Blog and quietly does nothing when it is not installed, so none of this appears until you turn it on.
What it changes
Your community with WB Member Blog in it
Each of these is something a member can do the day you turn it on, and what it changes for whoever runs the place.
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Keep everything they have written in one place on their own profile.
What changes
Writing stops disappearing down the feed a day after it is published, which is the usual reason members stop bothering.
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See their own drafts and scheduled posts where they read their published ones.
What changes
Half-finished writing stays visible to its author instead of being forgotten in wp-admin.
How it works
The flow, step by step
- 1 A member writes and publishes through WB Member Blog’s front-end editor.
- 2 The Articles tab on their profile picks the post up and shows it with a count, newest first.
- 3 Until it is published, the draft is visible to its author and to anyone who can edit others’ posts, and to nobody else.
- 4 Posts written in wp-admin appear on the same tab, because the tab reads posts rather than anything Member Blog specific.
For developers
The bridge self-guards on the partner plugin and no-ops when it is absent. Key hooks: buddynext_register_nav, buddynext_site_tracking_post_types, buddynext_profile_articles_per_page.
If WB Member Blog is not installed
The Articles tab only appears when WB Member Blog is active. That is a deliberate choice rather than a technical limit: the tab reads ordinary WordPress posts, so it could run without the plugin, but showing members a writing tab on a site that gives them no way to write would be worse than not showing it.
What to check once it is on
Publish an article as a test member and confirm the tab appears on that profile with the count incremented. Then save a draft and check it from a second, non-admin account: the draft must not be visible. Finally confirm the author’s "write a new post" button lands on the front-end editor rather than wp-admin, since that route is the one thing here that depends on Member Blog’s own settings.
WB Member Blog questions
- Does this put member articles into the activity feed?
- The feed card comes from BuddyNext core site tracking, not from this bridge, and it works whether or not WB Member Blog is installed. What the bridge adds is the profile tab, which is where writing goes to be found later rather than scrolled past once.
- Are member articles searchable in the community?
- No. This bridge adds no search indexing, so articles do not appear in community search results. They are found through the author’s profile or the feed.
- Who can see a member’s drafts?
- The author, and anyone whose role lets them edit other people’s posts. Everyone else sees only published articles on the tab.
- Do posts written in wp-admin show up?
- Yes. The tab lists ordinary posts by that author, so it makes no difference where they were written.
- Can it list something other than posts?
- Yes, through the same filter that controls which post types reach the feed, so the tab and the feed stay in agreement rather than drifting apart.
Turn it on
Setup
Default on. Install WB Member Blog and the Articles tab appears on member profiles; there is no BuddyNext setting to switch.