Suggestion – Option to TOTALLY disable Comments
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WordPress is GREAT blogging software – and sometimes that is the problem! There are some (many?) potential users who want to set up a site that never accepts comments but wants to be able to publish stories and news. Two examples are municipalities and entertainment venues which have frequent posts to share with their viewers but do not want feedback. Similarly, commerce sites would generally not want comments to their pages either.
A future release of WordPress might offer a profile option which, when checked, removes all traces of the commenting feature from every page including headers, links, message counts, etc. etc. Such an option would have to be supported by theme designers who would have to check for the “no comments features” flag and modify the html pages accordingly.
I recently helped a client install WordPress on his own server for a “no-comments” environment and had to modify his theme style sheet plus four theme scripts and two WordPress scripts. This was way more difficult than it should have been. If I get ambitious I’ll do another post explaining the process for anyone interested.
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This should go to wordpress.org, since your talking self hosted.
For here, you just need the CSS upgrade to turn off comments apparently
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Actually, no. You can turn comments off on any post in the Discussion blue box on the Write Post page.
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Hi,
this should help: turn on: users have to be registered to comment! and don’t allow registrations in the ‘options’ menu. -
That would annoy people, though, because they would assume that they just couldn’t figure out how to get it to work OR they’d know you were just being passive-aggressive.
Better to just turn off the comments altogether.
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a blog is not quite a blog without the comments feature, which is why it’s very difficult to disable comments. so naturally a site that isn’t going according to the nature of a blog may encounter those difficulties.
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I have to disagree there; quite a LOT of blogs don’t allow comments, because newbies in particular or abuse survivors for example can be very nervous and don’t want any drama. They just want the self-expression.
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well, to me the interaction between readers and bloggers is an important element in blogging that sets it apart from other media. bloggers with no comments enabled sound like people with websites.
if there are many bloggers who disable comments totally, then perhaps this is an evolution in blogging and blogs.
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No, it’s more like the starting point, because the first blogs didn’t have comments at all. People usually evolve to enabling comments once they’re more experienced and confident.
Also, a lot of ex-forum moderators disable comments. A LOT. Especially if their forums are really hairy, drama-wise.
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Probably but I never read teh threads that I post in, especially when they’re longwinded. ;)
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Am I just being particularly dense? Because I’ve UNchecked “Allow people to post comments on the article” and all the posts I’ve previously made still have commenting fields available, and when I test while not logged in, I get a comment “awaiting moderation”. Is there some sort of time delay after making the change? I’m just being dense, right?
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@bstewart:
you aren’t being dense, but i rather think that that setting is for anything you post in the future (think of it as just setting a default). You would have to close comments manually on all your old posts by going to Manage->Posts->Edit and changing the discussion options there@other folks:
i believe the OP is floating an idea to remove all traces of comments being a feature if comments are turned off. Most themes still show “0 comments” or something like that even if no comments are allowed. -
So, what you’re saying is… I should pour myself a very large bourbon and get down to it, editing many hundreds of individual post options? Yikes. Good thing I like bourbon.
May I humbly suggest that the checkbox text be changed to “Allow people to post comments on future articles”? And that a bulk-close option be considered for future enhancements? I don’t want to delete comments, just prevent any more commenting.
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Skip bourbon and go straight to Jack and Coke: you’ll need the caffeine.
Send a feedback to staff and ask for that feature to be considered; I’m sure it would be popular.
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@nadimtheadmin
I hope you noticed the first response to drdinsmore.This should go to wordpress.org, since your talking self hosted.
-> Options -> Discussion
This is the page where you can turn off all comments if you so choose. Also on every post and page there is a Discussion button click it and you can turn off comments there too.What’s being referred to here is just eliminating the words “comments are closed” from appearing on the blog. It’s not about turning off the commenting function.
“For here, you just need the CSS upgrade to turn off comments apparently.
I also note that it’s my experience that blogs that allow no discussion at all aren’t actually blogs. They are splogs full of content stolen from real blogs.
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Hmmm. This feels like it may be a political issue and I don’t want to wade into contentious waters. I too, have a blog that is announcement-oriented and wish to eliminate all reference to comments. I’ve turned them off, but there is still an RSS feed button for comments and “Comments Off” appears at the end of every post.
I purchased the CSS option, but am stuck there. Total newbie (er, noobee) when it comes to code-level stuff. I’m using MistyLook. I *think* with CSS I could modify my blog to elimate all reference to comments, but I don’t know how to do it. I have been hesitating to ask for help because of the reference to “splogs”, whatever those are.
I’m just a mom trying to help some schools get their news out… Does that make me a splogger?
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