It seem wp_query have the problem where it does not accept more than 1 negative value in author argument. for example:

$args = array('author=-2,-3,-4'); 
$newquery = WP_Query($args); 

This grab everything else. Simply doesn't work.

I found this trac, but seem still no official patch for this.

Any suggestion?

It seem wp_query have the problem where it does not accept more than 1 negative value in author argument. for example:

$args = array('author=-2,-3,-4'); 
$newquery = WP_Query($args); 

This grab everything else. Simply doesn't work.

I found this trac, but seem still no official patch for this.

Any suggestion?

• wp-query

Share Improve this question asked Sep 25, 2012 at 20:05 dev-jimdev-jim 1,9881111 gold badges3535 silver badges5454 bronze badges

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4 Answers 4

Sorted by: Reset to default 2

You are right, it is not possible to pass an array with author IDs to exclude them. The reason is in wp-includes/query.php at line 2294 - 2298

if ( strpos($q['author'], '-') !== false ) {
  $eq = '!=';
  $andor = 'AND';
  $q['author'] = explode('-', $q['author']);
  $q['author'] = (string)absint($q['author'][1]); // this line select the first ID and only this ID
} else {
  $eq = '=';
  $andor = 'OR';
  }

You have to get all author IDs, then exclude the unwanted authors and request the posts from the remaining authors

// array for user IDs
$users   = array();

// roles to include
$roles   = array( 'author', 'editor', 'contributor', 'administrator', 'superadmin' );

// user IDs to exclude
$exclude = array( 2,3,5 );

// get all users
$_users = get_users();

foreach ( $_users as $user ) {

    // do not add the user ID if the users role does not match or the users ID is excluded
    if ( in_array( $user->ID, $exclude ) || ! in_array( $user->roles[0], $roles ) )
        continue;

    // add user
    array_push( $users, $user->ID );

}

$args = array('author=' . implode( ',', $users ); 
$newquery = WP_Query( $args );

As of WordPress version 3.7 (released in October 2013), you can now use author__in and author__not_in to pass an array of author IDs. Note that they both use two underscores after the word "author".

Here's how you would exclude author IDs 2, 3, and 4:

$query = new WP_Query( array( 'author__not_in' => array( 2, 3, 4 ) ) );

Here's a link to the codex.

Here's a link to the developer docs.

I didn't realize it before, but it seems that you currently can't exclude multiple authors posts using WP_Query, I've updated the Codex to be less misleading.

Here is a way to exclude posts from multiple authors using the $wpdb class:

<?php

   $results = $wpdb->get_results(
   "Select * FROM $wpdb->posts
   WHERE post_type = 'post'
   AND post_status = 'publish'
   AND post_author <> 2
   AND post_author <> 3", 
   OBJECT
   );// gets posts, that are published, and exclude posts written by authors 2 and 3

   foreach($results as $result)
   {
   echo "<h2>".$result->post_title."</h2>";
   }

?>

"UNTESTED" but could you do it this way?

 function filter_pre_get_posts( $query ) {

// If this is the blog posts index,
// and if this is the main query,

if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
    $query->set( 'author', -2,-3,4);
    }
 }
 add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'filter_pre_get_posts' );

This is a function I picked up here for excluding categories. Not sure if it could be used to exclude by author but it is far better than writing a custom query if it works