Your Comment Has Been Moderated – Stay Tuned for Approval

You come across a blog post you really want to comment on. You think out your comment, carefully type it in, check it for misspellings, and, when you are ready, you hit the submit button. The page reloads and…where’s your comment? It’s not there! Did it take it? What happened?

Some people understand that comments, especially any with links, may get moderated. This means a comment is “held” until the blog owner okays it and releases it “to the public”, so to speak. So they just move on.

Others freak and rewrite their comment, often not making the same point as eloquently as they did the first time. They hit submit and…nothing again! Where did it go? In frustration, they often give up.

If you have comments turned on, I think it is important to let the commenter know that their comment has been received. It’s a nice way of saying thank you for commenting, and to let them know it worked. There are several ways to do this.

The easiest method is to edit your WordPress Theme’s comments.php template file and add a bit of text in the comment area that says, “Comments may be moderated. Please do not post your comment a second time.”

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<h3 id="respond">Leave a Reply</h3>
<p>Comments may be moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. It may be posted soon. Do not post your comment a second time. Thank you.<br />
The management.</p>


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The other method is to have a bit of code that lets your commenter know that their comment has been received and is awaiting moderation and approval.

Your WordPress blog may already have a built-in feature that checks to see if a comment is in moderation and posts a note about it. To test it, log out from your blog and post a comment that includes 5-10 links. That should trigger instant moderation of a comment. If you see an acknowledgment, then it works. If the comment disappears and you don’t see any acknowledgment, then your blog needs a bit of code to make the acknowledgment work.

The code to add to your WordPress Theme comments.php template file has a conditional statement that recognizes when a comment has been posted and let’s the commenter know that the comment is being held for moderation.

The conditional PHP statement asks if the comment is approved. If not, it posts a statement. If it is, the comment appears. It looks like this:

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<?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>


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Your WordPress Theme’s comment template file might have a different layout, but this is how the moderation code is used in the WordPress Default Theme (Kubrick):

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<ol class="commentlist">
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
<li class="<?php echo $oddcomment; ?>" id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
<cite><?php comment_author_link() ?></cite> Says:

<?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0?) : ?>
<em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>

<?php endif; ?>
<br />
<small class="commentmetadata">
<a href="#comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" title=""><?php comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at <?php comment_time() ?></a> <?php edit_comment_link('e',","); ?></small>
<?php comment_text() ?>
</li>

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You can change the wording. I like:

Your comment has been received. Be patient and as soon as I approve the comment, it will appear here. Thank you.

Next time someone posts a comment on your WordPress blog, if it is moderated they won’t worry about the comment disappearing. They can relax. You’ve just taken away some of the aggravating stress of commenting on blogs.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network