Support » Fixing WordPress » Bulk edit past comment details

  • Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)


    I have changed my profile information recently and have noticed that my past comments haven’t been updated.

    Is there any way to bulk edit past comment details, and could it be considered that it happens automatically in a future version of WordPress?

    For example, I have changed my name from Christopher (admin team) to Christopher Roberts. I was hoping all comments would adopt the profile changes, but it is only new ones.

    Any ideas, thoughts or advice?

    Thanks
    Christopher – Technology Bloggers Admin Team

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Are all of the comments on your site?

    Thread Starter Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)

    Yes.

    The site is Technology Bloggers.

    My comments used to have my name as Christopher (admin team), however I now want them to show Christopher Roberts.

    Are you using any caching plugins?

    Thread Starter Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)

    Yes, WP Super Cache Settings – cleared all caches though.

    Assuming your theme’s comments template is using the display name, the change should take effect immediately across all comments – old & new. Are you using any comment plugins?

    Thread Starter Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)

    Akismet, CommentLuv, Contact Commenter (Disabled), Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin, KeywordLuv, Move WordPress Comments and ReplyMe.

    Any of these an issue?

    Thanks for your help so far 🙂

    I’d suggest deactivating all of them except Akismet. Also, you are remembering to press CTRL and F5 simultaneously to view these older comments.yes? Or emptying your browser cache to ensure that your web browser fetches a fresh copy of the page rather than serving up an out-dated copy from your own cache?

    Thread Starter Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)

    They don’t change in the WordPress admin console either.

    Sorry – my bad. Comment author names are stored separately in the wp_comments database table. You’d need to run a search & replace on the comment_author field to update all of the old comments. 🙁

    Thread Starter Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)

    I know, I went into the database, but as I have posted 1,000+ comments it would take me days!

    I tried editing them all, and just managed to save my browser from crashing, but could only find two Firefox addons which seemed to be able to do the job – neither of which worked :-/

    I did a SQL query on this one

    UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_author = REPLACE( comment_author, 'old comment author', 'new comment author' ) WHERE comment_author_IP = 123.123.123.123 ;

    i searched for the comment author based on IP and changed the old name to the new name.

    i am not a SQL expert at all. i don’t know jack, but just figured this out on my own. it worked for me. i suppose (as a guess) if you just want to look for a specific comment author you would use

    UPDATE wp_comments SET comment_author = REPLACE( comment_author, 'old comment author', 'new comment author' ) ;

    Thread Starter Christopher Roberts

    (@christopherrobertswordpress)

    Thanks jbbaab44. I appreciate you are no SQL expert, but I don’t even know how to do that!

    Where do I go, database or WP? What do I do?

    Thanks for the suggestion 🙂

    Christopher

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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