Great Plugin! Thanks.

I’m sorry for you issues you’ve been having with your site, but unfortunately, from what you’ve described, it appears to be a lack of understanding how the plugin works. As I don’t have a link to your site, I can only go off what you have posted.

I know I have been guilty of not reading the manual before I jump to conclusions, and it appears you have done the same. ??

This plugin affects all new posts and pages, and it appears you are wanting this to work on all older posts. The reason I’ve believe this is because you mentioned the discussion tab. The plugin only works if the third checkbox on the discussion tab is checked. If it isn’t there is no reason to use the plugin as it serves the same purpose; it disables comments on everything new. The plugin I created allows you to selectively disable them by new types.

There is one more feature my plugin has, which you obviously haven’t used, and that is where you can turn off comments on all previous articles with the click of a button on the settings page for the plugin. This does the same thing as individually opening each post and disabling comments.

Finally, I believe I know the cause of your mass amounts of comments. If you unchecked all the boxes on the discussion page, you opened yourself up to spam, as a critical “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” is now unchecked. As my comment doesn’t modify any of those settings, this was either done by you or another plugin.

So to reiterate, this plugin does nothing to stop comments. It merely disables comments on all new posts, pages or whatever custom post type you have set it to. If you want it to stop comments on previously created posts, you will need to either disable them using the plugin, or manually turn them off.

Hopefully this helps.

Hi, Seth,

You’re right. I don’t always read the instructions. I expect to understand by telepathy. Although, when I do read the instructions, I don’t necessarily understand them.

I finally did look at your instructions. Fortunately, I had only put up 2 posts before deciding to shut off comments.

I think I fixed it by copying & pasting the contents of those 2 posts into new blank posts, saving drafts, then trashing the 2 old posts, and then publishing the 2 new ones. It’s been about 10 hours or so, and no spam yet.

I have now also checked off “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”. I am now going over to your plugin’s settings page to also “turn off comments on all previous articles” as triple insurance.

Thank you for your plugin, do appreciate it!

Sorry to be a pain in the ass.

: )

No worries. I’ve done the same, so I know where you are coming from! ??

One quick suggestion is to make sure is that you have checked “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”. I thought you had it already unchecked, and I may have been a little unclear. Check it! If you have no comments anywhere, it won’t matter, but if you do, this will at least prevent comment spam from automatically happening.

“Comment author must have a previously approved comment”

I did have it unchecked; I was under the false impression that unchecking everything disabled everything.

I checked it the other day after your post, and I haven’t had spam since. Thank you!

And I know the bots are coming in droves, I put in a “Who’s online” plugin, and it shows guests, bots, and members online. The bots are coming in like mad, and still no spam!

Thank you, Seth! Great job!
And thanks for your time, I do appreciate it.

: )