Problem

You want to set commenting policy for your weblog.

Solution

Use the controls under the Feedback tab of the weblog's Settings screen.

Discussion

When Movable Type Version 3.0 was released, its most significant enhancements came in the area of comment and TrackBack management and moderation, providing publishers numerous means of controlling the community elements of MT-powered sites.

While the Comments and Commenters Listing screens provide the ability to manually tend to comments in a more efficient manner than previous versions, MT also added logic for applying a range of policies to these features on an individual weblog basis. These policies are set in the weblog settings along with other commenting preferences.

To begin click the Settings button on the Weblog toolbar, then the Feedback tag. Here we'll find numerous options to control how the system will handle comments.

This screen uses a dynamic interface to assist in changing configuration settings. Some options below will not be visible unless another option that they are dependent upon is checked.

• Accept comments from

  With this setting, you can control whether comments are on or off for the entire weblog. The ability to leave comments can be made contingent on the commenters authenticating themselves. "Off" effectively turns off comments for all entries in your weblog despite the reader's individual comment status. This setting affects access only to the comment system; other publishing is not affected.

• Authentication Status

  Authenticated systems supporting the TypeKey API require a key or "token" to operate. This control allows you to store your token in the authentication service. If you don't already have a token, click the Setup Authentication button to set up and install one. Not all authentication services support the automated form.

• Require E-Mail Address

  This checkbox forces a commenter to provide their email address as part of the authentication process.

• Immediately publish comments from

  You can control if incoming comments are immediately published or queued for moderation based on the commenter's status.

• E-mail Notification

  You can request that the system send an entry's author an email notification for comments with this control. For more see "Receiving Comment and TrackBack Ping Activity".

• Allow HTML

  This checkbox defines whether HTML is permitted in the comment body. If the box is unchecked and HTML is not allowed, all markup will be stripped before storing the comment.

• Auto-Link URLs

  When checked, all URLs will be transformed into links. This option is ignored if you have enabled Allow HTML in comments.

• Text Formatting

  Like entries, comments can use a text formatting engine. The pulldown menu specifies the text formatting plug-in to be used for weblog comments.

Choosing The Right Comment Policies

With so many options, weblog publishers will need to weigh various issues of inclusion, privacy, quality, and protection from abuse. Which policies you enable will depend on the type of community you intend to foster and your own preferences and tolerances.

This diagram is a simplified view of how to select the comment policy options in MT based on the level of protection from abuse and inclusiveness you want to establish. For the most part comment policy is set using the Comments and Comment Publishing controls in the Settings screen. This table defines the various comment policy levels that are available to you, starting from the most protective and ending with the most inclusive.