[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #58375: Turn comments off by default for attachment pages (or make is easier to do so without code)

[WordPress Trac]

#58375: Turn comments off by default for attachment pages (or make is easier to do
so without code)
----------------------------+--------------------------------------
 Reporter:  zodiac1978      |      Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement     |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal          |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Media           |    Version:
 Severity:  normal          |   Keywords:  needs-patch dev-feedback
  Focuses:  administration  |
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 If a new user is installing WordPress the first time, it lasts some time
 until the first spam comment appears. Typically, they now disable comments
 on **Settings -> Discussion**.

 First problem: this is just disabling the comments for ''future'' posts.

 Now they learn about bulk editing posts, which works fine.

 But the website is now online for some time and more media is uploaded,
 and now the spam comes to the next open comment form: **on attachment
 pages**.

 Not sure if attachment pages follow the setting from the discussion page,
 but there will be many media items with open comments.

 Now we have the second problem: On the grid view, there is no way to
 disable the comments at all (you need to follow a link to get to the
 single media edit page).

 On this page you need to customize the screen options to enable the meta
 box, and now you can disable the comments for ''this'' media item. This
 has to done manually for every media item with open comments (but there is
 no way to see if the comments are open - so you need to edit every media
 item).

 This could be a real pain for websites with many media items.

 **I would recommend changing the behavior and have comments on attachment
 pages turned off by default.**

 I think it will be easier to educate theme developers to turn them on
 again if the theme uses them (e.g. photography themes) as documented here:
 https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/07/06/comments-are-now-turned-off-on-
 pages-by-default/

 This is already discussed in the comments on this post.

 Related tickets: #12991 and #21391

 Another way could be to use the idea of this comment:
 https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12991#comment:22

 If turning the default to off is not possible, we could use the bulk edit
 to enable/disable the comment/pingback/trackback feature.

 The need for such a feature could be seen in the plugin directory, as
 there are more than one plugin for disabling comments on attachment pages
 (and more):
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/smart-attachment-page-remove/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments-rb/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/comments-plus/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments-on-attachments/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments-by-click5/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/no-page-comment/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-media-comment-spamming/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-comments-wpz/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/disable-post-comments/
 https://wordpress.org/plugins/close-comments-on-media-attachment/

 These add up to more than a million active installations.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58375>
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