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Section Index

Comment Administration

The idea behind this section is to administrate comments that people leave on the front end of your site (currently only linked with Articles and Member Profiles). If you click on "Comment Administration" in "Admin Suite" you will be taken to the window shown below.

Administrate Comments

Select one of the two areas for which to administrate comments by clicking on either "Articles" or "Member Profile". We will only cover Articles, since the two are very similar and learning one will allow you to use both. Click on "Articles" and you will be directed to the window below.

The first option on this page is "Enable Article Comments". If the checkmark is highlighted green this means that users on the front end of the site can submit comments to articles. Conversely, if the x-mark is highlighted then members cannot submit comments. To change from one to the other just click on the darkened symbol and it will become highlighted.

The next option displays three links that allow you to specify how you want to display the comments. "Message Master List" puts all the comments in one big list where you can specify which approval status you would like to view (approved, rejected, pending, or all) from a pull-down list. You can also specify how many comments per page are displayed with a pull-down list to the right of "Approve Status" list.

The other two links allow you to categorize the comments. "Categorize by Article" lists all the articles that have been commented on and clicking on the "View" button to the right of the article allows you to view all the comments for this article. "Categorize by User" lists all the users that have made comments and clicking on the "View" button to the right of the user allows you to view all the comments that have been made by this user.

When you can see the list of comments (by one of the three methods listed above) you can edit each comment. If the checkmark is highlighted then the comment is approved, if the x-mark is highlighted the comment is rejected and when the question mark is highlighted the comment is pending. To change between these three states click on one of the two darkened symbols. Remember that a comment must be approved for it to appear on the front end of your site.

Next click the "Edit" button to the right of a comment and it will display the window shown below.

This window displays the Comment ID number, the Submitter of the comment and the Date Submitted. You can edit the two text fields ("Subject" and "Content") which will change how the comment appears on the front end of your website. If you are familiar with HTML you can select "YES" for the "Allow HTML" option. This allows you to enter HTML code in the two text fields. If you don’t want to put in HTML then select "NO" and your text will be properly formatted.

When you are finished editing this comment, you can click on "Preview" and a new window will pop up displaying the comment. Once you have decided if you are happy with the look, close the comment preview. If you are happy with it click "Update", otherwise you can make more changes, or if you want to start over you can click "Reset" and the text fields will be returned to thier saved values. Don’t forget to click "Update" when you are finished!!!!

Note: when you update from this area it only changes how the comment appears on the front end of the site. The original comment will still be intact in the Settings area.

After you have updated the comment, click on "Administrate Comments" in the top left of you window. Then click on the "Settings" button for the same comment you selected before. This will take you to the window shown below.

This window first displays some general information about the comment. "Comment ID" is the ID number of the comment you are viewing settings for. "Thread ID" is the ID number of the message that originated the thread that this comment is a part of (note this is the same as the comment ID if this comment is the root of it’s thread). If you click on the link "Show me the Thread Root" a new window will pop up that contains the comment with the thread ID number. "Parent Comment ID" is the ID number of the comment that this comment replies to (this is 0 if the comment is it’s thread root). "Section" is the section which the comment pertains to (currently Articles or Member Profiles). "Submitter" is the name of the member who submitted the comment. There is a link beside the name of the submitter; this will be covered in detail after the Settings section. The final bit of general information is "Date Submitted", which is exactly what it implies.

After the general information there are some options. The first option is the "Comment Status". This is the same status that was specified in the "Administrate Comments" window using the , and . The second option is "Display Before Moderation". If you want comments displayed before you have approved them click "YES", otherwise click "NO". Next is "Replace with Template". If you click "YES" here, when you reject a comment, it will be replaced with a general message on the front end of the site stating that the administrator rejected it. If you do not want this option implemented click "NO" (this means the rejected comment will simply disappear from the front end). If you want a specific rejection reason displayed type it into the "Rejection Reason" field (you must click "YES" on "Replace with Template" for this reason to appear).

Note: if you select "NO" when you reject a comment, all messages related to that comment will also disappear.

After the dividing line, is the "Original Comment Section". This displays the comment in its original form instead of the edited form that we discussed in the Comment Edit Section. If you wish to make changes to the Comment's front-end appearance (as before), but to leave the original message intact, click "NO" for the "Update Original Comment" option. If you want to change the original comment however, select "YES". You can now edit the comment freely.

When you are finished with your changes, don’t forget to click the "Update" button. If you want to return all the text fields to theier saved values and start over you can click on the "Reset" button.

Earlier, we mentioned the link beside the Submitter’s name. If you click on this link a new window will pop-up that is shown below containing some member information.

Here you can change a member’s posting access (the levels will be detailed in the next section) by using the "Change Access Level To" pull-down list. The other option "Flagged to be Banned" can be used as a way to keep tabs on a problematic user (this is explained in more detail in the next section). Don’t forget to click "Submit" when you are finished editing!!!! Click "Close Window" after you have submitted any changes.

Once you have updated the information click on the "Comments Sections" link at the top left of the window.

Administrate Submitter Access Control

This window is for controlling the users ability to access comments. There are four levels of user access, which are listed and explained in this window.

Here, you can also search for a user either by entering their full user name, a fragment there of, or you can simply click on a letter and all user names that start with that letter will be displayed. The other way to display users is by either selecting the "View All Banned" list, which displays all the banned users, or the "View Flagged to be Banned", which displays all users that have been flagged to be banned, but are not yet banned.

Once you have a list of users displayed you can change their access level by clicking on their access level and following the same process detailed above.

When you have finished changing user access levels, click on the "Comments Sections" link at the top left of the window.

Administrate Content Filter

The idea of this window is to block messages from being posted if they contain certain obscene words or words that might suggest an advertisement (http, www, .net, .com).

Note: above there is both "ass" and "asshole", but the "ass" filter will pickup words that contain "ass" and therefore "asshole" is redundant in this case.

To add a new word to your filter, type it into the bottom text field and click "Insert". If you want to change one of the existing words, then just edit the word in its text field and click "Edit". Finally if you want to remove a word from your text filter just click the corresponding "Remove" button.

When you are finished editing your comments filter, click on "Admin Suite" in the top left to return to the admin suite.