3-23: Managing Comments Video Lecture | WordPress for Beginners - Software Development

welcome back comments in WordPress allow
your site visitors to engage in
discussions with you and other visitors
therefore it's a great way to build
rapport with visitors as well as
increasing your blog audience the
activity module on the dashboard is
telling us - comments are awaiting
moderation comments that are awaiting
moderation will be highlighted in red
just under the comment we can approve
reply edit mark as spam or delete this
comment you can unapprove a comment at
any time by clicking unapproved in the
first comments we can see the URL to
Google as mistyped so I'll go ahead and
edit the comment
first I'll fix the URL and then toggle
the comment status to approved and then
click update
next I'll reply to this comment you're
able to format your replies using the
tags on the toolbar
to view a comment click the hashtag
after the comment title you'll be taken
to the public view of the post where the
comments reside
you can leave additional comments by
typing in the comments field or if we
want to reply to a certain comment click
on reply under that particular comment
the comment box will now be positioned
just under the comment you're replying
to click on the X to cancel commenting
because I'm currently logged in I can
only see a comment field
if I log out we'll see the comment form
as it appears to the public in order to
leave a comment I'll need to enter my
name and email this adds an additional
layer of security so your blog does not
get spammed obviously this security
layer isn't foolproof and we'll talk
about additional settings you can change
later in the video
to access the comment subpanel go to the
dashboard then click on the comments
menu
the top is a summary of all comments on
your site you're able to see how many
total comments you have and out of those
comments how many are pending approved
spam and in the trash
much like posts and pages hovering over
a comment will bring up additional
options these are the same options we
saw on the dashboard however we can now
quick edit comments the bulk action menu
can be used to manage multiple comments
at once comments can be approved or
unapproved marked as spam or moved to
the trash you can also filter comments
to display only comments that are made
on your site or you can choose to
display pings which are comments made on
another website and contains a link to
your article when you are managing
comments you may find yourself dealing
with for example comment spam or
comments that contain inappropriate
content so to manage comments more
effectively there are another set of
options available for you to configure
to access these settings go through the
discussion sub panel under settings
think of pingbacks and Trackbacks as
remote comments they appear when an
external blog links to your article or
vice versa you can choose whether you'd
like to send these pings when you link
to an external blog or if you'd like to
receive pings from other blogs when they
link to you so build rapport and
encourage discussions it's a good idea
to allow visitors to post comments on
new articles you can choose how you
regulate the posting of comments it's
common practice to require visitors to
enter their name and email when leaving
comments this acts as a deterrent for
spammers if you find you're getting a
large amount of spam you may want to
require visitors to be logged into your
website before they're allowed to leave
a comment however this makes it more
difficult for visitors to enter
discussions as people do not want the
hassle of registering it's a good idea
to leave this unchecked
you can choose to automatically close
comments on articles older than a
certain number of days but keep in mind
while activating this option may be a
good way to combat spam that does
prevent genuine visitors from leaving
comments you can also enable threaded or
nested comments up to ten levels deep
this helps your visitors to
differentiate between top level comments
and replies to that particular comment
let me show you what I mean if a visitor
leaves a comment on an article it's a
top-level comment if visitors reply to
their comment it will be nested under
the top-level comment indicated by the
indentation this keeps everything nice
and tidy
if you have a large number of comments
you may want to break up your comments
into multiple pages and you can choose
to display comments in chronological
order with the oldest comments at the
top or reverse chronological order with
the newest comments at the top you can
choose to be notified by email whenever
someone posts a comment or anytime a
comment is held for moderation and
before a comment is displayed on your
site you can choose to always manually
approve comments or you can choose to
automatically approve it provided the
commenter has had at least one
previously approved comment
if a comments contains two or more links
which is a common trait of spam then we
can choose to hold it for manual
approval you can also hold comments for
moderation if they contain any words you
enter into this field you can enter a
list of commonly used spam words into
this field or the comment blacklist
field the difference between these two
fields is if a comment contains a word
from the comments moderation field that
comment will be held for moderation if a
comment contains a word from the comment
blacklist field that comment will
automatically be marked as spam instead
of being held for moderation
can enable or disable avatars which are
some nails that appear next to your
username when you leave a comment and
depending on the theme you are using
they may also appear next to the author
name and posts and pages you can choose
a rating for these avatars and you can
choose a default avatar visitors will
have if they haven't created their own
something of interest here is the
Gravatar gravitas stands for globally
recognized avatar and is used by
millions of people and websites using
Gravatar users can register an account
using their email address in upload and
avatar they like to associate with the
account when a user posts a comment on
your site WordPress checks whether the
email entered matches an email address
at Gravatar and if a matches found the
Gravatar will be displayed along with
the comment in a nutshell if you select
the Gravatar option any users with a
Gravatar account will have their own
custom avatar this is a good reason to
require users to fill out their name and
email when leaving a comment next we are
going to move on to in managing users
you