[wp-hackers] possible permanent post and edit page modifications

[Owen Winkler]

> After a while, it's just as easy to modify the form than to play with 
> the craftiness, don't you think?

Hmm.  I suppose that either way the code would read
"<?if(is_moderated()){?>", so you have a point there.
 
> If I were hit by a comment spammer putting in several hundred 
> comments 
> at once, this type of insert and update is probably going to cause 
> problems. Not to mention the duplicate emails going out (once for the 
> new comment, once for moderation).

Forgot about the notification email.  Of course, you could turn that
option off (either manually via installation instructions, or
automatically in your plugin), and have your plugin handle all
notifications.
 
> But these two changes have received a great deal of positive 
> feedback. 
> Enough to make me think that if the WP developers are 
> incorporating the 
> modification to ping a site when a category is updated, that these 
> changes would be just as valid. But before I wrapped these and sent 
> these off to the WP team, I wanted to get feedback from this 
> list. 

The difference in type of change between the ping feature you mentioned
and the comment moderation is subtle but significant:

There is no other way to do the ping.  I don't mean functionally, I mean
the end result.  If I wrote a plugin to do the pinging on categories, it
would have the exact same effect (ping based on category) as the change
that was recently posted to the source.

On the other hand, I've already suggested a couple of things that I
would want the comment moderation to do; things that you were reluctant
(with reasonable misgivings) to add to the functionality.  Because there
would be different ways to go about handling per-post moderation, I
think that this is a feature best left to a plugin, even if the feature
is in high-demand.

Assuming that your changes were incorporated, would I be able to write a
plugin that allows the behavior that I described in earlier posts?  I
could write a plugin now that incorporates those features and the
per-post comment moderation, and wouldn't want to be required to hack
core code if your changes are incorporated but didn't allow for my
needs.

All of this is said without seeing any of the specifically proposed
changes, and is basically a comment on the criteria required for
incorporation of a feature into the core code.

> Now, if your update to change an 'e' to a picture of a donkey 
> also has 
> fairly widespread approval, then I would think that the WP 
> folks would 
> want to look at adding this in, too.

Now, come on, you know you want it.  :)

> >For example, if there isn't a hook (or it's in the wrong place) to 
> >prevent comments from going into the database in the first place 
> >(allowing custom comment filters???) seems a failing.
> 
> Actually, I don't see the comment plug-in hook in 1.2 either. Just in 
> 1.3, and after the database update is made.

Then I suggest to the devs that this hook be moved or a pre-update hook
added before 1.3 is released.

Owen