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1. billdennis5
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Here's the problem:

   When I limit comments only to registered users, my comment count drops off.

   When i open up comments, and try to keep an eye on things, I find myself babysitting and moderating instead of writing my own posts.

   I really don't want to END anonymous comments, because when you write a blog about local politics and media, sometimes folks have a very legitimate reason to remain anonymous.

   But all it takes it one or two people who are determined to aggressively confront anyone who dares disagree with them (you know the type) and then you have readers refusing to come back because their feelings are hurt.

   What I am wanting is some way to allow readers to block certain commenters. It would be the way some chat rooms work. Under a comment, there could be a "block commenter" button, and then that reader wouldn't have to put up with this particular commenter anymore.

   I went through all the plugins in the here and found nothing like that.

   I have a feeling this would be a very popular plugin.

2. Jeremy Clark
   Moderator
   Posted 3 years ago #

   I went through all the plugins in the here and found nothing like that.

   It probably doesn't exist. It would be very hard to block a specific anonymous person. If you block by email then their use another fake email, you can't block by IP address because most likely it's dynamic, you could block a group of IP addresses but you have no way of knowing if their is another legitimate/civil person in that block. But it might be the only way.

   You could try blocking by keywords in the discussion section of your dashboard.

3. billdennis5
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   I ssuch a plugin possible if it were based on banning a commenter who used a specific email address?

4. xintron
   Member
   Posted 3 years ago #

   You could create a plugin that allows users to do this (block comments) and then save that to a cookie on the users computer. That cookie would then contain the last known ip and email of the poster the user wants to block and those are left out when the comments are fetched.

   As far as I know there's no such plugin out there and as the previous poster stated, it's VERY hard to block anonymous commenter but the positive to this plugin is that the commenter getting blocked doesn't know about it and therefor they might not see the need to post from a different email/ip and the plugin would work better than a normal anonymous comments banner.

5. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Try this:

   1. Login into WordPress admin section.
   2. Click on Settings from dashboard.
   3. Click on discussion settings.
   4. Enter the Email address/es in ‘Comment Blacklist’ to block it.
   5. Click on save changes to apply it.

   I think that might work. I'm having a similar issue and I'm afraid I'll be needing to use it soon if one of my posters doesn't grow up.

6. Jeremy Clark
   Moderator
   Posted 3 years ago #

   Ipstenu, when that user realizes that they've been blocked they'll use a fake email and other information and your back to square one.

7. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 3 years ago #

   In my particular case, I don't think that'll happen. It doesn't sound like these guys are spammers, and I honestly think spammers are a little different breed than people being jerks.

   I have one (yes, one) user who's just being stupid. He's antagonistic, rude, incivil and no mater how many times I smack him, he still does it. So I'm at the point where I have to do something.

   Much like billdennis5, I have open (though not anonymous) comments on my site. You have to put in an email. I want to stop that ONE poster from screwing up the blog for everyone else (I actually get complaints about him). So I put his IP (which hasn't changed in a year) and his email in the blacklist. It's not a perfect solution, and yes, if he changes from frustrating user to troll, starts using TOR and gmail, them I'm in trouble. But. He's not doing that yet.

   It's a critical mass thing. If you're overrun by spammers, then I'd suggest turning on registration but seeing if you can get a plugin to allow 'post as anon' or such. If you've just got one or two bad apples, though, blacklist will get you through the day.

8. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 3 years ago #

   In the interests of being complete...

   Force create a user with his nickname and email address.

   Install Cimy User Extra Fields

   Make a new field in Cimy

   • Name: BOZO
   • Value: YES
   • Type: Checkbox
   • Label: Bozo?
   • Description: Admin only setting to block users from commenting.
   • Set it to 'Can be modified only by admin'
   • Uncheck 'Show the field in the registration'

   Create Bozocide plugin (many thanks to Scott Merrill for "Impostercide")

   All it does is check if the person has BOZO checked. If so, they get a YES and the comment dies.

   add_filter ('preprocess_comment', 'check_bozo');
   
   if (! function_exists ('check_bozo')) :
   function check_bozo ($data) {
   global $wpdb, $user_ID;
   
   extract ($data);
   if ('' != $comment_type) {
           // pingback or trackback, let it through
           return $data;
   }
   
   get_currentuserinfo();
   
   $is_bozo = get_cimyFieldValue($user_ID, 'BOZO');
   
   if ( $is_bozo = 'YES') {
   		die ("Your ID is currently blocked from making comments.");
   	}
   
   return $data;
   }
   endif;

   Then go in and mark the person as a Bozo and call it a day. Tested it on my admin account and it works.

   It's ugly, but does the deed.

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