8. Discussion options

Meg’s PressGO! objectives

1. To customise how you would like to manage discussions on your blog.

Your PressGO! objectives

What are you hoping to learn from this module? Your objectives can be the same as mine, but is there anything else you are expecting to learn? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

Blog it here.

Introduction

Once you start blogging and getting comments on your blog, you will probably want to change your settings for how you manage discussion. In this module, you will learn how to:

• Turn off/on comments on posts and pages.
• How to get email notification of new comments on your blog.
• How to moderate comments, including those containing offensive language.

Focus questions: Managing comments

What sorts of things would you like to do with managing comments on your blog? Would you like to approve all comments before they are published on your site? Would you like to exclude certain words from appearing in comments? Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

Blog it here.

Turning comments on or off your posts and pages

Allowing people to comment on your blog posts is kind of the whole point of blogging. However, you can turn this function off if you want to. You can also turn page comments on or off.

Exercise: turn comments on or off

For posts:

1. Go to Write > Write Post and scroll down the page to ‘Advanced Options’.
2. Open the ‘Comments & Pings’ field by clicking on the sideways arrow to the left.
3. Check the box to ‘allow comments’ (this is the default function, anyway) or uncheck the box to not allow comments.

For pages:

1. Go to Write > Write Page and scroll down the page to ‘Advanced Options’.
2. Open the ‘Comments & Pings’ field by clicking on the sideways arrow to the left.
3. Check the box to ‘allow comments’ (this is the default function, anyway) or uncheck the box to not allow comments.
4. Don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’.

Getting email notification of comments

You might want to know whenever someone makes a comment on your blog. WordPress allows you to set an option so that an email is automatically generated and sent to your account whenever a comment is made.

Exercise: Turn comment notification on

1. Go to Settings > Discussion
2. Navigate to ‘Email me whenever’ and check the options you want.
3. Don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’.

Moderating comments

WordPress give you many options for moderating comments. You can hold for approval any comments that potentially contain offensive language as well as have administrators approve comments before they are made public on your blog.

Exercise: Hold potentially offensive comments for approval by an administrator

1. Go to Settings > Discussion
2. Navigate to ‘Comment moderation’. Go to the large text box underneath and fill it in with any words you want noted as being potentially offensive.
3. Don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’.

Exercise: Hold comments for approval by an administrator

1. Go to Settings > Discussion.
2. Navigate to ‘Before a comment appears’ and check the ‘An administrator must always approve the comment’ box.
3. Don’t forget to click Save Changes’.

Reflection

Write down your thoughts, discuss with a partner or small group in the class, or blog it!

• What have I learnt?
• What is still unclear?
• What do I need to follow up on?
• Where to from here?
• What other stuff I have read or accessed to help me make sense of it all?

Blog it here.

Links and resources