Disabling Comments on WordPress


Your WordPress blog is your forum to speak to the online world. If you don't want people to have the ability to share their thoughts on your posts, you should feel free to disable the commenting feature. It’s your blog – it should be your decision whether or not you want other people to be able to share their opinions about the content on your site.
Deciding whether or not to allow comments can be tricky. Maybe after receiving a few negative comments, you’re on the fence about it. You might feel like it’s wrong to not let people voice their thoughts on your posts if they take the time to read them, but it’s not. Your blog is your little part of the Web that you’re free to do whatever you want with, and you don’t need to put up with comments if you don’t want to.
Depending on the type of blog you run, you may receive a great deal of comments. Even if they’re not all negative, they can become a bit of a hassle. If you feel like it’s your duty to reply to every comment you receive, this can take up a great deal of your time. Also, often times conflicts start in the comments section of blogs, between users with differing opinions about your post. These disagreements often become very dramatic and go severely off topic — often taking directions you don’t want associated with your blog. Not having to deal with situations like this is another great reason to disable commenting.

Changing Comments Settings:

As the WordPress comment feature is automatically enabled on all posts and pages, you’ll have to take manual action to disable it. Follow these steps from the WordPress site to disable comments on posts you’ve already published, making additional user thoughts a thing of the past:
1.      Under the “Settings” tab, click on “Discussion.”
2.      After locating the “Discussion” section, uncheck the boxes that currently permit commenting. These will likely read, “Allow comments,” and “Allow trackbacks and ping backs on this page.”
3.      Hit save to ensure your changes are put into action.
Although WordPress doesn’t have a magic button to click to turn comments off for all published posts, you can still make one change that will apply to many different posts and pages at once. If you’re trying to disable comments from multiple posts and pages on your blog, save time by taking the bulk editing route. Here’s how to do it:
1.      Head to “Posts” and click “All Posts.”
2.      Choose the posts you would like to disable commenting on.
3.      Go to the “Bulk Actions” drop down menu and choose “Edit.”
4.      Click “Apply.”
5.      Change the commenting for “Comments” and “Pings to “Do not allow.”
6.      Click “Update.”
7.      Repeat until you’ve disabled commenting on all pages.
If you’re alright with user comments for a certain period of time after the post has been published, but don’t want to deal with readers discovering really old posts and sharing their thoughts on them, there’s a solution. You can automatically close comments on your WordPress blog after a specific number of days, designated by you. Here’s how to do it:
1.      Go to “Settings” and click “Discussion.”
2.      Find “Other comment settings,” which is located on the left-hand side of the page.
3.      Select the box next to “Fill in the number of days,” and enter any number of days you please.
4.      Hit save to ensure your changes are applied.
Making the decision to disable comments on your WordPress blog is a big one, but don’t feel guilty if you decide to do so. Your blog is your forum to speak to the world. It’s your site, so the content posted on it — including commenting — should all be done at your discretion. Opting to have a quiet blog, where your voice is the only one heard, can help you to stay focused on writing great content for your readers to (silently) love.

Sara Collins is a writer for NerdWallet, a personal finance site that helps readers create the best stock trading accounts.
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