Comment Hacks Plugin

Make comments management easier by applying the simple hacks Joost has gathered over the years.

This plugin adds some small hacks around core WordPress comments to make them more bearable:

• Cleaner comment notification emails.
• The option to enforce a comment policy: just create a comment policy page, toggle the option on and select it, and
  commenters will have to accept your comment policy before being able to comment.
• The option to forward comments to an email address (for instance for your support team) and then trash them.
• The option to disallow comments below and above a certain length.
• The option to redirect first time commenters to a “thank you” page.
• An input field on the comment edit screen to change the comment parent ID.
• Links in the admin comments section to email individual commenters.
• A button in the WP toolbar to email all the commenters on a post.
• Adds a comment routing option. This adds a dropdown in a post’s discussion settings, allowing the routing of comment emails to another user.

See the screenshots to get an even better idea of the plugins’ functionality.

Have you found an issue?

If you have bugs to report, please go to the plugin’s GitHub repository. For security issues, please use our vulnerability disclosure program, which is managed by PatchStack. They will assist you with verification, CVE assignment, and, of course, notify us.

Install through your backend

1. Search for “comment hacks”, click install.
2. You’re done.

Install manually

1. Download and unzip the plugin.
2. Upload the yoast-comment-hacks directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
4. Configure your settings on the Settings → Comment Hacks screen.

1. 

   Screenshot of a clean comment notification email.

2. 

   The comment parent edit box.

3. 

   The plugins admin settings.

4. 

   The button on the frontend to email all the commenters on a post.

5. 

   The link in the backend to email an individual commenters on a post.

1.9.4

• Fix fatal due to wrong class import, props @andizer.

1.9.3

• Fix bug where comment reroute recipient would not save.
• Added an option to disable the “Email all commenters” admin bar button.

1.9.2

• Fix missing autoloader

1.9

• Introduces a new option to the plugin: adding a comment policy was never easier than this: just create a comment
  policy page, toggle the option on and select it, and commenters will have to accept your comment policy before being
  able to comment.
• Fixes a bug where editing a comment on the quick edit screen would cause that comment to lose its parent.
• Enhances performance by preventing too frequent option updates.
• Remove all direct DB queries in favor of using WordPress core functions.

1.8.1

• Fixed a couple of PHP 7.4 related issues.

1.8

• Changed namespace to JoostBlog.
• Removed Yoast branding.
• Updated plugin to require PHP 7.4.

1.7

• Bugfixes:
  • Fixed: the “Email commenters” link would not be displayed in the WordPress admin bar and in the Comments list.
  • Fixed: the “Email commenters” link in the front end admin bar wouldn’t work when jQuery wasn’t enqueued.
  • Fixed: the notification emails for new comments would have incorrect content for the Author line and the text displayed before the comment.

1.6

• Fix language packs.

1.5

• Bugfixes:
  • Fixed: comment recipient dropdown would reset on reload of the page.
  • Fixed: admin bar CSS showing when no admin bar is showing.

1.4

• Enhancements:
  • Limit the roles shown in the comment notifications dropdown to roles that normally exist and can write. Introduces a new filter to allow expanding them.

1.3

• Enhancements:
  • Add option to restrict comments that are too long, next to too small.
  • Add reply-to header to comment notification and moderation emails, pointing to the post author.
  • Preserve the active tab when saving settings.
  • Remove [...] from pingback / trackback excerpt in cleaned emails as that’s already included by core.
  • Replace link to ARIN with link to ip-lookup.net for details about the IP.
  • Refactored code for readability and code quality.
  • Refactor upgrade routine to do less DB queries.

1.2

Fixes several issues:

• Differentiate between AJAX request and normal POST for nonce checking, fixes #7.
• Make sure comment type isn’t empty in cleaned email, fixes #8.
• Allow setting the comment parent to 0, fixes #10.
• Prevents defaults from being reinstated, fixes #14.

Also:

• Adds translator comments to all strings with sprintf / printf.
• Updates to new version of Yoast i18n, in the process switching from translate.yoast.com to translate.wordpress.org and removing packaged translations.
• Added yarn.lock and removed no longer needed i18n grunt tasks.

1.1.1

• Add text domain so the plugin can be translated.

1.1

• Add comment routing option, adds a dropdown in a post’s discussion settings, allowing the routing of comment emails to another user.

1.0

• Initial version.