wp-cron.php running Postie and Subscribe2

Hi, I’m hosting a website on Dreamhost and using Postie and Subscribe2 plugins. I have very few website visitors since it’s a private password protected members only site.

If I set subscribe2 to run for each new post it works but if I set it to run once daily it does not.

If I click ‘run postie’ button in the plugin it successfully collects waiting emails and makes new posts but it does not run automatically.

I’ve been told that the way wp-cron.php works you need visitors to your website to execute it. I’ve read this article about setting up a manual cron job to execute wordpress cron jobs – https://tommcfarlin.com/wordpress-cron-jobs/.

I’ve also read this post with specific instructions to make a cron job to run Postie – http://postieplugin.com/forcing-an-email-check/.

I haven’t been able to get either to work yet.

With Tom McFarlin insgructions I’ve done 1, I don’t understand 2 and I don’t understand 3 but within Dreamhost (which does not have cpanel but it’s own custom built interface) I have opened the cron job creator they have, set a frequency of 15 minutes and entered the command line http://members.lakesideinvestmentclub.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron.

Can anyone either explain what I’m doing wrong and how to do it right or offer a simpler solution in plain English for someone not familiar with coding?

I understand the problem described regarding wp-cron.php file, although it seems a bit weird to me that WordPress executes cron jobs this way.

It seems to me that I simply want to force execute the wp-cron.php file every 15 minute or every hour regardless of whether anyone visits my site and then everything should be fine because wp-cron.php should execute all the plugins cron jobs. It seems like a simple thing to want but the way to do it so far eludes me!

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.