Managing Comments and Trackbacks

When you invite readers to comment on your site, you, as the site admin-
istrator, have full access to manage and edit those comments through the
Comments page, which you can access on your WordPress Dashboard.
To find your comments, click the Comments link on the Comments menu; the Comments page opens.

 

When you hover over a comment with your mouse, several links appear that give you the opportunity to manage the comment:

✦ Unapprove: This link appears only if you have comment moderation
turned on. Also, it appears only on approved comments. The comment
is placed in the moderation queue, which you can get to by clicking the
Pending link that appears below the Comments page header. The moder-
ation queue is kind of a holding area for comments that haven’t yet been
published to your blog.
✦ Reply: Makes a text box drop down, where you can type and submit
your reply to this person. This feature eliminates the need to load your live site in order to reply to a comment.

✦ Quick Edit: Opens the comment options inline, without ever leaving

the Comments page. You can configure options such as name, e-mail
address, URL, and comment content. Click the Save button to save your
changes.
✦ Edit: Opens the Edit Comment page, where you can edit the different
fields, such as name, e-mail address, URL, and comment content
✦ Spam: Marks the comment as spam and marks it as spam in the data-
base, where it will never be heard from again! (Actually, it’s stored in the database as spam; you just don’t see it in your comments list unless you click the Spam link at the top of the Comments page.)
✦ Trash: This link does exactly what it says; it sends the comment to the
trash can and deletes it from your blog. You can access comments that
have been sent to the trash to permanently delete them from your blog,
or restore them.

If you have a lot of comments listed on the Comments page and want to bulk-

edit them, select the check boxes to the left of all the comments you want to
manage; then select one of the following from the Bulk Actions drop-down
list at the top left of the page: Approve, Mark as Spam, Unapprove, or Delete

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Comment and trackback display

Almost every single WordPress theme displays comments at the bottom of
each post published in WordPress. You can do custom styling of the com-
ments so that they match the design of your site by using several items:
✦ WordPress template tags: Tags related to the display of comments and
trackbacks. For more on these tags, see Book VI, Chapter 3.
✦ Basic HTML: Using HTML markup helps you provide unique styles to
display content. For information about the use of basic HTML.

✦ CSS: Every WordPress theme has a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) template
called style.css. Within this CSS template, you define the styles and
CSS markup that creates a custom look and feel for the comment and
trackback display on your site. You can find more information about
using CSS .

✦ Graphics: Using graphics to enhance and define your branding, style,
and visual design is an integral part of Web design. Because we can’t
fully cover graphic design in a single chapter, you may want to check
out WordPress Web Design For Dummies, which Lisa wrote, for great
information on graphic and Web-site design with WordPress (published
by Wiley).

✦ WordPress widgets: WordPress has a built-in widget to display the most
recent comments published to your site by your visitors. You also can
find several plugins that display comments in different ways, including
top comments, most popular posts based on the number of comments,
comments that display the author’s photo, and more. For information
about widgets and plugins for these purposes.

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Tracking back

The best way to understand trackbacks is to think of them as comments, except for one thing: Trackbacks are comments left on your blog by other blogs, not by actual people. Although this process may sound mysterious, it’s actually perfectly reasonable.
A trackback happens when you make a post on your blog and, within that
post, you provide a link to a post made by another blogger in a different
blog. When you publish that post, your blog sends a sort of electronic
memo to the blog you linked to. That blog receives the memo and posts an
acknowledgment of receipt in a comment within the post that you linked to
on their site.
That memo is sent via a network ping (a tool used to test, or verify, whether
a link is reachable across the Internet) from your site to the site you link
to. This process works as long as both blogs support trackback protocol.
Trackbacks can also come to your site by way of a pingback — which, really,
is the same thing as a trackback, but the terminology varies from blog plat-
form to blog platform.
Sending a trackback to a blog is a nice way of telling the blogger that you
like the information she presented in her blog post. Every blogger appreci-
ates the receipt of trackbacks to their posts from other bloggers. Figure 5-3
shows one trackback link, below the Who’s Linking Here header.

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Interacting with Readers through Comments

People can leave notes for you that are published to your site, and you can
respond and engage your readers in conversation about the topic at hand
(refer to Figure 5-1 and Figure 5-2). Having this function in your blog cre-
ates the opportunity to expand the thoughts and ideas that you present in
your blog post by giving your readers the opportunity to share their own
thoughts.
In the WordPress Dashboard, you have full administrative control over who

can and can’t leave comments. In addition, if someone leaves a comment
that has questionable content, you can edit the comment or delete it. You’re
also free to disallow comments on your blog. The Discussion Settings page
in your Dashboard contains all the settings for allowing, or disallowing, com-
ments on your site; flip back to Book III, Chapter 3 to dig into those settings,
what they mean, and how you can use them to configure the exact interac-
tive environment that you want for your site.

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Exploring reasons to disallow comments

Under certain circumstances, you may not want to allow readers to leave
comments freely on your site. For example, if you wrote a blog post on a
topic that is considered very controversial, you may not want to invite com-
ments because the topic may incite flame wars, or comments that are insult-
ing to you, or your readers. If you’re not interested in the point of view or
feedback of readers on your site, or if your content doesn’t really lend itself
to reader feedback, you may decide to disallow comments entirely.
In making the decision to have comments, you have to be prepared for the
fact that not everyone is going to agree with what you write; especially if
you’re writing on a topic that invites a wide array of opinions, such as poli-
tics, religion, or op-ed pieces. As a site owner, you make the decision, ahead
of time, whether you want readers dropping in and leaving their own views,
or even disagreeing with you on yours (sometimes vehemently!).

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Deciding to Allow Comments on Your Site

Depending on the topic you write about on your blog, allowing comments

ends the message that you, as the author/owner of the site, are open to the

views and opinions of your readers. Having a comment form on your site
that readers can use to leave their feedback on your articles (such as the
one shown in Figure 5-1) is like having a great big Welcome to My Home
sign on your site — it invites users in to share thoughts and participate in
discussions.

If you want to build a community of people who come back to your site

frequently, respond to as many comments that your readers leave on your

blog as possible. When people take the time to leave you a comment on your
content, they like to know that you’re reading it and they appreciate hearing
your feedback to them. Plus, it keeps discussions lively and active on your
site. Figure 5-2 illustrates what comments look like after they’re published
to your site. (Note: The actual design and layout of the comments on sites
varies from theme to theme; you can find information on theme

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Deciding to Allow Comments on Your Site

Some blog users say that a blog without comments isn’t a blog at all
because the point of having a blog, in some minds, is to foster communica-
tion and interaction between the site authors and the readers. This belief is
common in the blogging community because experiencing visitor feedback
via comments is part of what’s made blogging so popular. However, allow-
ing comments is a personal choice, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t
want to.

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Tools to manage multi-author blog posts

The plugins listed in this section can help you, the site Administrator,
manage your group of authors and registered users by giving you some tools to track users’ activity, list their posts, and stay up-to-date and notified when your authors publish new content:

✦ Co-Authors Plus (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/co-
authors-plus/faq): This plugin allows you to assign multiple authors to one post, which you may find especially helpful when you have more than one author collaborating on one article, allowing the authors to share the byline and credit.
✦ Author Complete Post List (http://wordpress.org/extend/
plugins/author-complete-post-list): This plugin provides a very easy way to show a complete list of an author’s posts, enabling you to display an archive page per author.
✦ Custom Author Byline (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
custom-author-byline): This plugin adds a custom author byline
module below the Post Editor on the Add New Posts page, which
enables you to include the name of an author who’s not a registered
member of your site (helpful when you need to give credit to
collaborators).
✦ Pending Post Notifier (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
wp-pending-post-notifier): This plugin simply sends an e-mail
to the site Administrator whenever posts are ready for review. For
example, when a user who has the role of Contributor writes and saves
a post, an e-mail is sent to the Administrator, telling him that new posts
are awaiting his review.
✦ Audit Trail (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/audit-
trail): This plugin records the actions of the registered users on
your site, such as when they log in or log out, when they publish posts
and pages, and when they visit pages within your site. As the site
Administrator, you can keep track of the actions your authors and users
take on your Web site.

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Tools to promote author profiles

One way to operate a successful multi-author blog involves taking every
opportunity to promote your authors and their information as much as possible. Authors often get involved in posting content on other Web sites, in addition to yours, for exposure, and the plugins in this list give you tools to promote authors bios, links, social network feeds, and more:

✦ Author Information Widget (http://wordpress.org/extend/
plugins/author-info-widget): This plugin gives you a widget that
you can place in the sidebar of a single post page, displaying the post
author’s name, biography (from the About Me section of the Author
Profile page in the Dashboard), Avatar (author’s photo) and Social
Network and Contact links.
✦ List Authors (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/list-
authors): This plugin provides a widget that displays a list of the
authors on your site, where the author’s name is a link to her post
archive. Figure 4-4 displays the List Authors widget with the different
options that you can set for it.

✦ Profile Pic (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/profile-

pic): This plugin gives your authors the ability to add their own photos
to their profiles on your site, and it provides you with a widget that can
display each author’s photo, as well as his name and a link to his post
archive.
✦ Author Spotlight (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
author-profile): This plugin provides a widget that you can place
in your sidebar, displaying the profile of the author of the post being
viewed — the author information automatically appears on only a single post page and displays the profile of the author of the post.

✦ Author Based Twitter (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
author-based-twitter-widget): This plugin gives your authors the
ability to show their own Twitter feeds in the sidebar by using a handy
widget. The author’s Twitter feed information appears on her post page
only — so authors can promote their own Twitter accounts on your
Web site.

 

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Tools that help authors communicate

When you’re running a multi-author site, communication is crucial for shar-
ing information, giving and receiving inspiration, and making certain that
no two authors are writing the same (or a similar) article on your site. Use
the following tools to help you manage the flow of communication between
everyone involved:

✦ WP Status Notifier (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
wp-status-notifier): In the section “Understanding User Roles
and Capabilities,” earlier in this chapter, we mention that the role of
Contributor can write and save posts to your site, but those posts don’t get published to the site until an Administrator approves them. This plugin notifies the Contributor author, via e-mail, when his post is published to (or rejected by) your site.
✦ Editorial Calendar (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
editorial-calendar): This plugin gives you an overview of scheduled
posts, post authors, and the dates when you scheduled the posts to
publish to your blog. This plugin can help you prevent multiple author
posts from publishing too close together or, in some cases, right on top
of one another by enabling you to reschedule posts by using a drag-and-
drop interface.
✦ Email Users (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/email-
users): This plugin allows you to send e-mails out to all registered users of your blog, and users can send e-mails back and forth to one another by using the plugin interface in the Dashboard. This tool provides the authors and users on your multi-author blog the ability to keep in touch and communicate with one another.
✦ Subscribe to Authors Post Feed (http://wordpress.org/extend/
plugins/subscribe-to-author-posts-feed): This plugin adds
an RSS feed to each author’s post archives, which allows you, other
users, and site visitors to subscribe to that author’s RSS feed so that you
receive immediate notification through your RSS feed reader when the
author publishes new content.
✦ Dashboard Notepad (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
dashboard-notepad): This plugin gives you a widget that appears on
your main Dashboard page and allows you and other users (depending
on the user role that you set in the plugin options) to leave notes for
each other. You can use this plugin to ask and answer questions, and to
create to-do lists for your authors.

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Managing a Multi-Author Site

You may love running a multi-author site, but it has its challenges. The
minute you become the owner of a multi-author site, you immediately
assume the role of manager for the authors you invited into your space.
At times, those authors look to you for support and guidance, not only on
their content management, but also for tips and advice about how to use
the WordPress interface — it’s a good thing you have this book at the ready
so that you can offer up the gems of information you’re finding within these
pages!
You can find many tools available to assist you in managing a multi-author site, as well as making your site more interactive by adding some features, which can make it a more rewarding and satisfying experience not only for you and your readers, but for your authors, as well.

The tools we list in the following sections come by way of plugins, which are

add-ons that extend the scope of WordPress by adding different function-
ality and features. You can find information on the use and installation of
plugins in Book VII.

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Editing User Details

After users register and settle into their accounts on your site, you, as the
site Administrator, have the ability to edit their accounts. You may never
have to edit user accounts at all; however, you have the option if you need
it. Most often, users can access the details of their own accounts and change
e-mail addresses, names, passwords, and so on; however, circumstances
under which a site administrator may need to edit user accounts would be
to do things such as

✦ Edit user roles. When a user registers, you may want to increase
her role, or level of access, to your site; promote an existing user to Administrator; or conversely, demote an existing Administrator or Editor down a notch or two.
✦ Edit user e-mails. If a user loses access to the e-mail account that she
registered with, she may ask you to change his account e-mail address
so that she can access her account notifications again.
✦ Edit user passwords. If a user loses access to the e-mail account with
which she registered, she can’t use WordPress’s Lost Password feature, which allows users to gain access to their account password through e-mail recovery. In that case, a user may ask you to reset her password for her so that she can log in and access her account again.
In any of these circumstances, you can make the necessary changes by clicking the Users link in the Users menu on your WordPress Dashboard, which loads the Users page shown in Figure 4-3.
Figure 4-3 shows you the Users page on a site that has multiple users who have different levels of access, or roles (we blurred out the usernames and e-mail addresses in Figure 4-3 to protect the users’ privacy).
When you hover over the name of the user, an Edit link appears below the user listing. Click that Edit link to access the Edit User page, where you can edit different pieces of information for that user, including
✦ Personal Options: These options include Visual Editor and Color
Scheme preferences.
✦ Name: Specify a user’s role, first and last name, and nickname.
✦ Contact Info: Includes users’ e-mail addresses; Web sites; and AIM,
Yahoo IM, and Google Talk IDs.
✦ Biographical Info: A few lines of biographical info for the user (optional,
but some WordPress themes display authors’ biographies).
✦ New Password: Change the password for the user.

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Adding New Users

Allowing new users to register by using the WordPress registration interface is only one way to add users to your site. As the site Administrator, you have the ability to add new users manually by following these steps:
1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard by inputting your username and
password in the form at http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.
2. Click the Add New link in the Users menu on the Dashboard.
The Add New User page, shown in Figure 4-2, loads.
3. Enter the username in the Username text box.
You can’t skip this text box. The new user types in this username when he’s prompted to log in to your site.
4. Enter the user’s e-mail address in the E-Mail text box.
You can’t skip this text box, either. The user receives notifications from you and your site at this e-mail address.

5. Enter the user’s first name in the First Name text box.

6. Enter the user’s last name in the Last Name text box.
7. Enter the URL for the user’s Web site in the Website text box.
8. Enter the desired password in the Password text box.
WordPress asks you to type the password twice as a way of authenticat-
ing the password (making sure that you typed it correctly the first time).
WordPress provides a strength indicator that gives you an idea of how
strong, or secure, your chosen password is. You want secure passwords
so that no one can easily guess them, so make the password at least
seven characters long and use a combination of letters, numbers, and
symbols (such as @, #, $, and ^).
9. If you want the user to receive his password by e-mail, select the Send
This Password to the New User by Email check box.
10. Select Subscriber, Contributor, Author, Editor, or Administrator from
the Role drop-down list.
11. Click the Add User button.
The Add New User page loads and the e-mail notification is sent to the user you just added. When the page loads, all the fields are cleared, allowing you to add another new user, if you want.

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Allowing New User Registration

As you can see in Table 4-1, each user level has a different set of capabili-
ties. In Book III, Chapter 3, we discuss the General Settings in the WordPress
Dashboard, in which you set the default role for users who register on your
Web site. Keep the default role set to Subscriber because when you open
registration to the public, you don’t always know who’s registering until
after they register — and you don’t want to arbitrarily hand out higher
levels of access to the settings of your Web site unless you know and trust
the user.
When users register on your Web site, you, as the Administrator, get an
e-mail notification (sent to the e-mail address you set on the General Settings
page), so you always know when new users register, and you can then go
into your Dashboard and edit the user to set his role any way you see fit.
New users can register on your site only after you enable the Anyone Can
Register option on the General Settings page within your Dashboard (Book
III, Chapter 3). If you don’t have it enabled, then users see a message on
the Registration page that tells them registration isn’t allowed.

By the way, the direct URL for registration on a blog that has registration
enabled is http://yourdomain.com/wp-register.php. With registra-
tion enabled (in the General Settings), a user sees a form inviting her to
input her desired username and e-mail address. After she does, she gets a confirmation notice in her inbox that includes an authorization link that she must click in order to authenticate her registration

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Allowing New User Registration

Super          Administrator        Editor      Author       Contributor      Subscriber

Admin

 

Publish posts                 Yes             Yes                      Yes          Yes            No (moder-          No

ated)

 

Edit published posts          Yes             Yes                      Yes          No             No                  No

 

 

Edit others’ posts     Yes             Yes                      Yes          No             No                  No

 

Edit own posts                Yes             Yes                      Yes          Yes            Yes                 No

 

Publish pages                Yes             Yes                      Yes          No             No                  No

 

Read                          Yes             Yes                      Yes          Yes            Yes                 Yes

 

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WordPress User Roles and Capabilities

WordPress User Roles and Capabilities
Super Administrator Editor Author Contributor Subscriber
Admin
Manage Multisite        Yes No No No No No

features

Add/edit users        Yes Yes No No No No

Add/edit/install     Yes Yes No No No No
plugins

Add/edit/install      Yes Yes No No No No
themes

Manage comments  Yes Yes Yes No No No

Manage categories,    Yes Yes Yes No No No
tags, and links

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Understanding User Roles and Capabilities

Before you start adding new users to your site, you need to understand the
differences among the user roles because each user role is assigned a differ-
ent level of access and grouping of capabilities to your blog, as follows:
✦ Subscriber: The default role. Maintain this role as the one assigned to
new users, particularly if you don’t know who’s registering. Subscribers
get access to the Dashboard page, and they can view and change the
options in their profiles on the Your Profile and Personal Options page.

(They don’t have access to your account settings, however — only to

their own.) Each user can change her username, e-mail address, pass-
word, bio, and other descriptors in her user profile. The WordPress
database stores subscribers’ profile information, and your blog remem-
bers them each time they visit, so they don’t have to complete the pro-
file information each time they leave comments on your blog.
✦ Contributor: In addition to the access Subscribers have, Contributors
can upload files and write, edit, and manage their own posts. Contributors
can write posts, but they can’t publish the posts; the administrator
reviews all Contributor posts and decides whether to publish them. This
setting is a nice way to moderate content written by new authors.
✦ Author: In addition to the access Contributors have, Authors can pub-
lish and edit their own posts.
✦ Editor: In addition to the access Authors have, Editors can moderate
comments, manage categories, manage links, edit pages, and edit other Authors’ posts.
✦ Administrator: Administrators can edit all the options and settings in
the WordPress blog.
✦ Super Admin: This role exists only when you have the Multisite feature
activated in WordPress — see Book VIII for more about the Multisite
feature.

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Tools

The last item in the navigation menu (and subsequently in this chapter!) is
Tools. Click Tools to open a drop-down list of links that includes Book III
Chapter 3
✦ Tools: Opens the Tools page in your Dashboard. WordPress comes pack-
aged with two extra features that you can use on your blog, if needed.
They’re Press This and Category/Tag Conversion.
✦ Import: Clicking this link opens the Import page in your Dashboard.
WordPress gives you the ability to import from a different blog platform. This feature is covered in depth in Book II, Chapter 7.
✦ Export: Clicking this menu item opens the Export page in your
Dashboard. WordPress allows you to export your content from
WordPress so that you can import it into a different platform or to another WordPress blog.

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Users

The Users drop-down list has three links:

✦ Users: Go to the Users page, where you can view, edit, and delete users
on your WordPress blog. Each user has a unique login name and pass-
word, as well as an e-mail address assigned to his account. You can view
and edit a user’s information on the Users page.
✦ Add New: Opens the Add New User page, where you can add new users
to your WordPress blog. Simply type the user’s username, first name,
last name, e-mail (required), Web site, and a password in the fields pro-
vided and click the Add User button. You can also select whether you
want WordPress to send login information to the new user by e-mail. If
you want, you can also assign a new role for the new user. Turn to the
section “Configuring the Settings,” earlier in this chapter, for more info
about user roles.
✦ Your Profile: Turn to the “Creating Your Personal Profile” section, ear-
lier in this chapter, for more information about creating a profile page.

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Plugins

The next item in the navigation menu is Plugins. Click Plugins to expand the drop-down list:
✦ Plugins: Opens the Plugins page, where you can view all the plugins cur-
rently installed on your blog. On this page, you also have the ability to
activate, deactivate, and delete plugins on your blog (see Book VII).
✦ Add New: Opens the Install Plugins page, where you can search for
plugins from the official WordPress Plugin Directory by keyword,
author, or tag. You can also install plugins directly to your blog from the WordPress Plugin Directory — you can find out all about this exciting feature in Book VII, Chapter 1.
✦ Editor: Opens the Edit Plugins page, where you can edit the plugin files
in a text editor. We very strongly advise against editing plugin files
unless you know what you’re doing (meaning that you’re familiar with
PHP and WordPress functions). Head over to Book VII, Chapter 4 to read
more information on editing plugin files.

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