Introducing the "Super Editor"

I'm just wrapping up some work for the folks over at 404Media. They've funded some adjustments to how editors work, and they've contributed those changes back to the core of Ghost, so that everyone can use them. Thanks folks!

Also, a super big shout-out to Steve on the Ghost team, for helping me polish up these changes, provided useful feedback, and fixed a problem with the build server configuration that had me ready to 😭. Any remaining bugs are my own.

All the changes below are in beta until version 6.0 is released, since they're sort of breaking. ["Breaking" here means that it's a change that might surprise some site owners, and shouldn't be snuck in on a random Friday release. It doesn't actually mean that I broke anything – I hope!]

The beta version of the editor is internally nick-named the "Super Editor", and gains member management and comments moderation abilities. And now you understand today's featured image. I might have had too much fun making up silly AI images while waiting for tests to run.

Longer term, I think it'd make a lot of sense to pull apart the editorial workflow permissions from the member management permissions, but this adjustment gives sites an option for giving a staff member member management and comments moderation, without giving them access to everything in the administrator role.

To turn it on (probably in 5.113, not live yet!), visit /ghost > settings (gear) > Labs and toggle the "Enhanced Editor role (beta) switch. That makes new editors get the extra permissions. It doesn't actually update existing editors. (That'll probably happen in 6.0.) To also upgrade an existing editor, you'll need to open their individual profile page (from /ghost > settings > staff) and click the Editor (beta mode) role. If you need to switch back, toggle the switch first, then revisit any editors who should be downgraded.

"Super Editors" can:

• Do everything that Editors can do (unless I messed something up!)
• View the members page
• Import/Export members
• View individual member pages
• View members analytics
• Grant/remove complimentary subscriptions
• Use the impersonate link to log in as a member
• Cancel subscriptions
• Delete members
• Create members

They cannot do the following, which are still reserved for administrators and owners. (This is a partial list.)

• Create or modify offers
• Create or modify tiers
• See your MRR
• Makes changes to or invite other editors (super or not)
• Change site settings
• Link or unlink Stripe

Links to view subscription details from the membership pages that would lead to Stripe are present, but whether or not your "Super Editor" can use them will depend on whether they have access to your Stripe account, which is managed by you in the Stripe dashboard.