How to turn all comments off completely?
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Disabling all comments just to stop trackback spam seems excessive, doesn’t it? There are several great plugins that will take care of your spam (one of them comes with modern versions of WordPress by default…). I’ll link them at the bottom of this.
If you’re really at 2.0.5, you need to upgrade. You’re not secure.
Meanwhile, visit Options -> Discussion.
Uncheck ” Allow people to post comments on the article”
Save.That’ll take care of all posts going forward.
For existing posts, you’ll need to edit each post and uncheck the allow pings box -or- search here for the sql to do them all at once.—- antispam plugin suggestions —-
http://akismet.com/
http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/
http://homelandstupidity.us/software/bad-behavior/For those who struggle with the Akismet directions: http://wordpress.com/api-keys/
See also the Combating_Comment_Spam page in the Codex.
Thanks HandySolo.
I had already Options -> Discussion: Unchecked “Allow people to post comments on the article” but I’m not sure if this was from the beginning. The point is that I never wanted comments in the first place. It’s just not the concept of that site. So I understand that it’s probably overwritten by the individual articles. I’ll change them.
You’re right about the upgrade. Work to do 🙂Like Pieter, I never wanted Commments, at all. I wanted to use WordPress as a simple way to Categorize and organize my materials online, without interactivity.
The lack of a way to actually disable the Comment system was not a problem, at first. Now, the comment-spammers have found me, and it’s a problem.
I know the spirit of WP basically aims at interactivity, including something like Comments. However, it is also clear that a considerable interest exists, to use the WordPress software for non-interactive purposes, like myself & Pieter.
The fact that a crimimal community exists to exploit & abuse the WP Comments-system means that virtually everyone who wants a non-interactive facility will eventually find themselves ‘engaged’ with the Comment-criminals.
This is unacceptable for me. My e-mail is being pounded, I must make repeated trips to Admin to clean out piles of foolishness. No way. The current setup ‘plays into’ the spammers, gives them too good a reason to stay in the ‘game’. I’m not going to do this.
I am in the process of shutting down my WordPress website, now that I have satisfied myself there is actually no way to really turn off the Comment system.
WordPress: You guys should have an up-front, one-stop check-box: “Turn Off the Commment System Completely”. You are losing people because this can’t be done.
I’d really like to hear from someone deeply involved with the development ( or just a real expert ) because I find it hard to believe that there is no way to totally block comments.
I too manage several blogs, which for entirely logical reasons, are not meant to be interactive and the clients do NOT want any comments period – spam or legitimate.
So I spend a good amount of time every day clearing out spam that is “awaiting moderation”.
I have made certain, right from the beginning, that “allow people to post comments” was unchecked, and that “allow comments” and “allow pings” was never checked on any post, and in fact I removed the lines of php code referring to comments from the files for index.php, single.php, and page.php.
And yet I still get comment spam. There must be some other steps that can be taken – files to be deleted maybe? Should I delete wp-comments-post.php?
WP is a brilliant, wonderful application that I recommend often, but this one annoyance has me pulling my hair out.
Maybe add the ability to totally block comments to the next version? Please??
have any of you followed HandySolo’s link to here
See also the Combating_Comment_Spam page in the Codex.
It shows you numerous fixes to completely opt out of interaction with others.
Thanks 4k! I did miss that link from above. Although I had already set my comments status to “closed” using exactly that approach thru phpMyAdmin (UPDATE wp_posts SET comment_status=”closed”;) it did not stop the comments – that was what was driving me buggy.
However, I did not know that it would be okay to delete the wp-comments-post.php file, now I do and I will. Hopefully that will be the end of it.
Thanks for pointing that out – guess my eyes were drawn to the bolded links above it, and in my frustrated stupor I just missed it…
Quoting from above:
“WordPress: You guys should have an up-front, one-stop check-box: “Turn Off the Commment System Completely”. You are losing people because this can’t be done.”
I couldn’t agree more. I am a newbie and am looking for a simple way to completely disable comments (and any visible reference to them).
Okay, I can understand why some people want Comments enabled, but a blog is a blog (look up the definition in a dictionary) and is meant for posting thoughts, as in a diary.
I also do not want comments at all. I just downloaded WordPress this week (2/12/2008) and have, I assume (how can I tell?), the latest
version.Thank you,
Tom
Just create a new theme and remove the comments php / html from the post pages.
Simple if you know some basic PHP / HTML.
Any chance to get an English translation of this?
I have no knowledge of how to create a new theme and I don’t know PHP/HTML.Why haven’t the authors documented this if it’s so simple?
There are tons of posts in this forum from people like me who all want the same thing: banish comments completely.
Tom
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(@pieter)
16 years, 11 months ago
Simple question: how to disable *all* comments?
I mean a one time action for all comments.
Couldn’t find that in manual nor in forum.
Even without giving anyone access, still the spammers are there, putting comments – I mean crap, that don’t show up on the pages, but indeed in my mail box for approval.
Thanks!