Updating comment control settings

Our theme Customizer offers a number of ways to control Comment settings, and even more live in your WordPress dashboard under  Settings > Discussion.

EDITING GLOBAL COMMENT SETTINGS

Wordpress offers many comment controls that can be edited directly from your Dashboard. Navigate to Settings > Discussion to review your site's global comment settings.

EDITING COMMENT LABELS AND CALLS TO ACTION

You can edit labels associated with the comment section on your post pages in your theme Customizer. These include:

  • Editing the comments section title (the title above the published comments, often with a number next to it, like “5 comments.” Consider changing this to a word such as “notes” or “thoughts”).
  • Editing the comment form title (“Leave a Comment” could be edited to read “What do you think?” or “Leave a note”)
  • Editing the  comment form submit button text (Ideas for this button are “submit,” “publish,” or send)

The Customizer also allows you to hide both the number of comments (the “count”) as well as the comments title.

To access these settings in your theme Customizer, navigate to Appearance > Customize > Post & Page Display Options > Single Post Options, then scroll down to the Comment Section Options.

TURNING OFF COMMENTS

To turn off comments on all posts sitewide:

1. Navigate to Settings > Discussion.

2. Uncheck  Allow people to submit comments on new posts.

To turn off comments on a single post:

If you are using the WP Block Editor, navigate to the Discussion section on the right sidebar of options within your chosen post. Expand the section, and uncheck Allow Comments and Allow pingbacks & trackbacks. Publish or update your post to commit the setting.

MODERATING COMMENTS

If you’d rather keep an eye on comments before they’re public on your site, you can choose to moderate comments. This means you would approve each comment before it gets published to the site. To enable this feature: 

1. Navigate to  Settings > Discussion.

2. Then, look for the section that says Before a comment appears and check the box that says Comments must be manually approved. This will hold all comments for approval by you, in the Comments section of the dashboard (just like under the Pending tab).