Not able to comment (7 posts)

Topic tags: comments, Wordpress
  • One of my customers has a Wordpress site/blog.  He asked me why one of his readers was unable to comment.  I went into his site and noticed that there were 17 updates needed for his site.  Once those are finished what plug-in typically prevents people from being able to comment.  Akismet is one of the plug-ins that needs to be updated.  

    Unless the page itself doesn’t have the “comments” option checked, where else do I check?

  • @deereinhardt If they are using Akismet, the comments might have gone into the spam folder.  The only other thing I can think of is if they have a captcha plugin that isn’t properly installed, so the reader doesn’t see the captcha and can’t get past it to enter the comment.

  • Thanks @kristi-hines for the response.  I went out to test and realized that the blog requires a log-in to post a comment.  From what I read about Akismet, it doesn’t create the log-in to comment option, just scans for scams. None of the other plug-ins that I see on his site have anything to do with commenting on blogs.  Could it be in his theme?

    I don’t see a captcha.

  • Hi @deereinhardt ,

    IF MEMORY SERVES – you need to go to settings, general, membership? where that are two options:

    Anyone can register.
    Users must be registered and logged in to comment.

    Don’t have access to WP where I am right now, but that is generally correct.

  • That did the trick @richardmclaughlin  I will have to learn to check settings from now on.  I am still learning my way around wordpress and thanks to everyone in this forum, it is making it much easier!!!!

  • @deereinhardt I would suggest they allow anyone to comment without registering. They can make them all approval only, meaning the client has to click Approve before it goes live.  Most people will be deterred from commenting if they have to log in.

  • I agree with  @kristi-hines about making it easy for people to comment. I do moderate first time commenters. I put a message explaining that fact between the bottom of the message box and the submit button so (hopefully) people understand that.

    I have considered removing that barrier and just allowing everyone to post but adding a Captcha or math question to prevent the bots. 

    I get about as many comments as I can answer now.


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