The Discussion Settings in WordPress controls the visitors and other users to interact with your content. It can be defined as the interaction between the bloggers and the visitors. The Discussion Settings can be done by the admin to control over the posts/pages. It can control the settings such as comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks. And also, it controls the way in which your site sends email notifications, decides whether your site should display Avatars and their ratings.
Steps to configure Discussion Settings in WordPress:
The Discussion settings will help to engage interaction on your website or blog and allow visitors to post comments. It will be helpful to initiate discussions. Let us discuss the steps to configure Discussion Settings in WordPress.
Step 1: Login to the wp-admin dashboard. Then go to the option Settings -> Discussion.
Step 2: Now the discussion settings will be displayed as shown in the below screenshot
The following are the details of the fields found in these settings
Default Article Settings:
These settings allow specifying the default settings for all new posts or pages. It can be overridden by individual articles also. There are three options available in these settings and they are listed below
- Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article – This setting sends a notification to other blogs when you publish articles in it. It sends both pings and trackbacks to other blogs.
- Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) – It allows pings and trackbacks from other blogs.
- Allow people to post comments on new articles – This option helps to allow or disable comments by default. If this check box is enabled, it allows the visitors to comment on your posts.
The above settings can be changed as per your wish for individual articles also.
Other Comment Settings:
It has a lot of options and those are listed below
- Comment author must fill out name and e-mail: When this checkbox is enabled, the visitors must fill their name and email id as a mandatory.
- Users must be registered and logged in to comment: If this checkbox is enabled, only the registered users can leave the comment. Otherwise, any user can leave the comments.
- Automatically close comments on articles older than days: This option allows to accept comments only for a particular period of time.
- Enable threaded (nested) comments: This option allows the visitors to have a discussion and get responses.
- Break comments into pages with top level comments per page and the page displayed by default – This option helps to split the comments into different pages when there are a large number of comments in it.
- Comments should be displayed with the comments at the top of each page – This option is used to arrange the comments in either ascending or descending order.
Email me whenever:
This option controls when you get notified about new comments. This setting has two options that are mentioned below
- Anyone posts a comment – When you check this box, the author gets an email for every single posted comment in it.
- A comment is held for moderation – If this option is enabled, WordPress will hold the comments for moderation and sends a notification mail. It is useful to allow or decline comments by the admin.
Before a Comment appears:
This setting allows control over how and when the comments are posted. It has the following two settings
- Comment must be manually approved – If this option is enabled, only the approved comments by the admin can be displayed on the posts or pages.
- Comment author must have a previously approved comment – With this option, you can approve the comment of an author who has commented and his email address matches the email address of the previously posted comment. Or else, the comment will be held for moderation.
Comment Moderation:
This section helps to specify the option to deal with Comment Spam. It contains only a specific number of links that are allowed to comment.
Comment Blacklist:
Comment Blacklist is similar to Comment Moderation. In this section, you can input your own spam words which you do not want your visitors to enter into comments, email, URL, etc. The comments entered with the words in the Blacklist area will be deleted permanently without any warnings.
Avatars:
Avatar is a small image displayed beside your name at the top right corner of the dashboard. It is similar to the profile picture and it has the below options to set in your WordPress site.
- Avatar Display – If this option is enabled, it displays the avatar beside your name.
- Maximum Rating – It has four options and they are G, PG, R, and X. This is the age section from which you can select the audience type to display the posts.
- Default Avatar – This option has a few more Avatar types with images. You can select the Avatar type based on the visitor’s email address.
Step 3: Click on the option Save to save the changes.
Now, the discussion settings are configured successfully for your WordPress website. We hope that this tutorial will be helpful to configure discussion settings. For more information, follow us on Twitter and Facebook and For video tutorials, subscribe to our YouTube channel ServerCake India.