Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Sure thing, at Settings -> Discussion in your blog’s Dashboard, check “Allow people to post comments on new articles.”
This only sets the default for future posts. For existing posts, you will need to disable comments on them by editing them and unchecking “Comments” in the Discussion field below the editor. If you don’t see a Discussion field below the editor, click the Screen Options tab near the top-right and check “Discussion.”
Thread Starter
Rimfya
(@rimfya)
Yeah I turn that setting off and still get comment spam somehow. The website doesn’t display a comment form anywhere on the site and yet spammers still see it’s a WordPress site and send spam. It’s really annoying and completely preventable.
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
Are you receiving Pingback or trackback spam instead? It’s a different method than comments, but can of course appear indistinguishable when you just want it to stop. 🙂
If so, at Settings -> Discussion, uncheck “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)” for future articles, and uncheck “Allow trackbacks and pingbacks on this page.” under the Discussion module of specific existing posts/pages.
If you just want to end spam, but keep comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks open, here’s a handy guide: http://codex.wordpress.org/Combating_Comment_Spam
Thread Starter
Rimfya
(@rimfya)
Thanks for the reply. Not sure, but since this is the “requests” forum, this is my request.
One big button.
“Disable Comments and Trackbacks”
*click*
No plugins. No options. No fixes. No workarounds.
One button.
Since not everyone wants BOTH disabled, having it be checkboxes currently is a better setup.
Moderator
James Huff
(@macmanx)
Volunteer Moderator
There are plugins which do what you’re looking for, I found these via a quick search for “disable comments”:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments/
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-disable-comments/
There are definitely more than just those two.
Thread Starter
Rimfya
(@rimfya)
Ipstenu – I disagree but okay. I would prefer not to see a page of options when one button would remove them all. Comments on the internet aren’t what they used to be, I wonder what % of WP sites still use the inbuilt comments, I see more Disqus comments.
MacManX – Thanks but I try to run WP with as few plugins as possible, and I posted this thread in this forum as a suggestion of something simple that could be worked into the standard install.
Ipstenu – I disagree but okay.
You disagree that not everyone would want both trackbacks and comments disabled? Because I don’t want both removed 🙂 Comments yes, trackbacks no, please and thank you. If you were to make a ‘Kill all’ button for BOTH, it would be useless to me and everyone else like me, which gets us right back to the parity issues.
By the way, the ‘weight’ of the plugins James posted are exactly the same as if the code was in core. Obviously it’s your choice to install a plugin or not, but the extendability of WordPress via plugins is why this is going to remain something for the realm of plugins. Keep WP smaller, allow people to make a decision 🙂
I personally think that having this the option to fully disable trackbacks and comments would be really interesting depending on the project.
This is my own website: [Redacted] and in this case I just want comments just for the blog, but not in the rest of the pages. So, I would not consider this important for my project.
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
So as it’s dependant on a project-per-project basis wouldn’t be more suitable to use a plugin instead of requesting it in core?
The best solution is to rename or delete wp-comments-post.php file.
If you don’t want to get crazy, the best option is the plugin Disable Comments. https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments/
I also don’t care for comments or trackbacks. The disorderly controls for this reflect an older period when those were more welcome. Time for an update one that “opts-in” to comments rather than assuming I want visitors leaving droppings around my site.
To Rimfya, the Bad Behavior plugin seems to work for me. I also dug a copy of Spam Karma out of its Google Code repos and use it on new sites, even though comments are laboriously turned off via the numerous steam valves and knife switches in the ancient WP UI.
To use WP without plugins is to suffer the default choices. And I rarely agree with those in any environment. The further WP is developed the less I agree with them, the more marketing is taking over. Like auto-updating. If I made a plugin to block that I’d call it Hubris. :^)
Completely agree with OP.
I have set all the settings to prevent comments yet I get spam posts from virtually all my WP sites. This is a bug IMO.
If disabling comments and requiring user registration does not prevent comments, something is broke.
As for using a plugin?! Why should I need a third party plugin to do something WP should be doing.
Renaming wp-comments-post.php doesn’t seem like a great solution either, as you will need to do this every update I imagine.
Come on WP, move with the times. Probably most of the sites running WP are not “blogs” any more. You wouldn’t have this problem with Drupal 😉
If disabling comments and requiring user registration does not prevent comments, something is broke.
Disabling comments and trackbacks does indeed prevent them from occurring, but for new posts only.
Comments and pingbacks can be enabled and disabled on a per-post basis. If you want them disabled, then you need to disable them on each post that you have them enabled for. The “Allow people to post comments on new articles” and the other setting on the Settings->Discussion page sets the defaults for new posts.
You can use the Bulk Editor if you want to change this for all your posts en masse. Go to the main Posts screen, and select the checkmarks beside the posts you wish to edit. In the dropdown at the top left, change the word “Bulk Actions” to “Edit” and click the Apply button. This brings up the Bulk Edit pane. Then, change the setting for the “Comments” and “Pings” both to “Do Not Allow” and click Update. All the checked posts will have comments and pings disabled on them.
This is a much more fine-grained level of control, and yes, it does indeed work properly. A post with comments and pings disabled cannot receive comments or pingbacks, of any kind. They simply get dropped.
