The Discussion Settings screen controls how comments work on your blog: whether they're allowed, whether they need approval before appearing, how spam is handled, and when you're notified by email.

Open Discussion Settings

1. In your admin panel, open Blog > Discussion Settings.

Default post settings

These apply to new posts and can be overridden on an individual post.

• Attempt to notify any blogs linked from the post — when you link to another site in a post, send it a notification (a "ping") so your mention may appear in their comments. Posts with many links take longer to publish because each site is contacted first.
• Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) — accept pings from other sites that link to you. When on, these appear in the comments section of your posts.
• Allow people to post comments on new posts — turn commenting on for new posts. Uncheck it to disable comments by default.

Other comment settings

• Comment author must fill out name and email — require a name and email before a comment can be submitted.
• Users must be registered and logged in to comment — restrict commenting to logged-in users.
• Automatically close comments on posts older than [X] days — stop accepting comments on posts after the number of days you set.
• Enable threaded (nested) comments [X] levels deep — allow replies to be nested under comments, up to 10 levels.
• Break comments into pages — paginate comments with a set number per page, choose which page shows by default, and whether older or newer comments appear first.

Email notifications

Choose when you're emailed. "Me" means the post author or the site administrator.

• Anyone posts a comment — email the author whenever a comment is posted. On a busy blog this can mean a lot of email.
• A comment is held for moderation — email when a comment is waiting for approval.

Before a comment appears

• Comment must be manually approved — hold every comment until someone with permission approves it.
• Comment author must have a previously approved comment — auto-approve commenters whose email matches an already-approved comment; everyone else is held for moderation.

Comment moderation and blacklist

• Hold a comment if it contains [X] or more links — a high link count is a common spam trait; comments over your limit are held for moderation.
• Moderation word list — comments containing any of these words, or matching these IP addresses, are held for moderation. Enter one word or IP per line.
• Blacklist — comments matching these words or IPs are marked as spam automatically. Use it carefully, as genuine comments can get caught.

Avatars

An avatar is the image shown next to a commenter's name. Avatars are powered by Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatars).

• Avatar display — choose Show Avatars or Don't show Avatars.
• Maximum rating — limit the highest avatar rating you'll display: G, PG, R, or X.
• Default avatar — the image shown for commenters without their own avatar (for example Mystery Man, Blank, or a generated option such as Identicon, Wavatar, MonsterID, or Retro).

Save your changes

Click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen. A confirmation message appears at the top once your settings are saved.

Permission required: Owner.