I am the only person who will be writing anything on my blog, except for comments from any readers … which have to be okayed by me before publication. Have I got that right?
Since you will be the only person writing posts then you will want the default setting to be ‘subscriber’ for any new person who may register, if you are even going to allow registrations. Setting the role or status level doesn’t have anything to do with comments. Comments are controlled under different settings.
It “was” set at subscriber when I first saw the section and I’d changed it. I guess that is a default setting????
Subscriber is the lowest role and only allows people to subscribe to your blog, and they will not be able to write blog posts. In that you do not want anyone else to be authorized to write blog posts, then you should leave the default role at ‘Subscriber’ for everyone else (who might register).
Your role needs to be Administrator, or you’ll lock yourself out of your dashboard.
To clarify, make sure YOUR role is set to Administrator, but for new registrations you should leave the default setting at Subscriber.
If in the future you wish to allow someone else to contribute then you can change each individual as per what you want them to be authorized to do.