Creating an option for writing a post without an author attribution for a group blog on Wordpress

Question

I'm developing a group blog on wordpress (first time working with it) and the client has requested that a 'None' option be added where an item can be posted without a "by" attribution. So basically there would be one article / excerpt template for attributed author's posts and another for the none option where the byline would just be the date posted without the "by [author name]." Is this possible with wordpress?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is entirely possible. Though, I would recommend using the Post custom metadata (i.e. custom fields, or better yet, a custom metabox).

I would use a custom metabox, with two radio select options:

Byline:
(*) Author
( ) None

Then, in your template file, you can output the author byline only if the appropriate post_meta key has the appropriate value. If you want to get really fancy with it, you can even use the post_meta key/value to customize the Loop for your Author archive index output, so that Posts indicated not to display the byline don't output in the Author's archive index.