Do you really want ‘no comments’ on your blog?
How many users of pre-coded blogging platforms like WordPress and Blogger are wondering why, after many months of their blog going online, not a single post on their site has attracted a comment from a visitor?
Although only few of my own posts seem to inspire readers to leave their calling card by way of comment, I now understand you why only weeks earlier my blog was displaying no comments whatsoever.
You will notice that near the top of each post, appearing in small type just under the title, the words “Please leave a comment” whenever no comments have been made to date. Indeed, when I first launched the site you would have seen the words, “No comments.”
Tarski theme for WordPress by Ben Eastaugh
This had been written into the site’s default PHP code by WordPress to indicate a numerical count of zero. However, my visitors might have thought that all posts were closed to replies.
I looked around the internet and found the solution in the form of a WordPress plugin from the author of the Tarski theme for WordPress. Ben Eastaugh has provided a few lines of code by which WordPress users can modify “No comments” to appear as whatever text they wish to display.
It is advisable to write within single quotes a new line such as ‘0 comments’, ‘No comments yet’, ‘No comments so far’, ‘Comments here’ or ‘Leave a comment’. You decide, but I chose ‘Please leave a comment’. . . because I’m fussy!
You should copy and paste the following code to a text file, modify the line ‘Please leave a comment’, and save the file as ‘change_comment_text.php ‘. Then upload it to your plugins folder and activate it from your dashboard where it will appear immediately in your list of plugins. Thanks to Ben for this simple improvement and I hope the more interactive WordPress bloggers will see more comments appearing on their sites.
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Change Comment Text
Plugin URI: http://tarskitheme.com/
Description: Change comment text to something else.
Author: Benedict Eastaugh
Version: 1.0
Author URI: http://extralogical.net/
*/
function change_no_comments_text($text, $number) {
if (0 == $number) $text = “Please leave a comment”;
return $text;
}
add_filter(‘comments_number’, ‘change_no_comments_text’, 10, 2);
?>
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Tony, thanks for the idea about the “comments” text for Tarski. That wasn’t something that I had ever really considered, perhaps because I’m so “hard-wired” into seeing “No Comments” and thinking that’s normal.
Thanks for the code!
I had never thought about whether people interpreted “no comments” that way, but I can certainly see how that could be! Thanks for the code and for alerting us Tarski users to this issue!
Tony:
I really appreciate you taking the time to notify fellow Tarski users about this. I’ve implemented the code you and Ben provided; it will be interesting to see if anything changes!
Thanks!
Thanks for the code. Of course it wold be nice if one could actually cut and paste the code without encountering Javascript block.
There’s your inspiration for a new plugin… one that overcomes javascript blocking! Mine doesn’t block javascript, thankfully… just right clicking. It’s there for a good reason
Thanks, Tony! I must admit, I’d never really given the “comments” verbiage much thought. I’ve implemented the code on my site.
Hi and thanks for the snippet (and the comment in my blog)!
I’m a bit divided wheter to install the plugin or wait for the theme itself to include the possibility to edit the presentation of “zero comments”. What you have given me is some inspiration: since i write my postings in three languages — depending on what mood i happen to be when i post — i should also make the plugin aware of what language the presentation should be.
Time to dig out the Wordpress documentation! This must be possible.
Hi! I’ve just made my version of your plugin which takes my tri-lingual blog into consideration. Thanks again for your comment on my blog which fired it all off!
Source available (and explanations, if you can read swedish
on my blog.
Thanks, Tony. I think “no comments” is ok… thank you anyway!
cheers
sto
I had never thought about whether people interpreted “no comments” as “comments are closed/not allowed” or as “no comments yet”, and I have never had any feedback from my website visitors on the matter. However, I can see how displaying “no comments” under the post title can be confusing and I implemented code to display “Comments” instead of “no comments” when the comment count is zero.
Tony, thanks very much for bringing this to my attention. It certainly is friendlier sounding than a terse ‘no comments’.
Much appreciated, thanks.
John
Hi Tony
Cool code. But oh God I’m dim. How can I copy the code… can’t seem to use cut and paste? Can you give me a link direct to the plugin?
(Realising everyone else has mastered it… so apologies!)
SC
I totally overlooked that I’d disabled right clicking on the page for no good reason… well, actually, to deter the copying of parts of my draft novel which would probably be of little use to anybody else anyway. Sorry about that… I’ll send you the code…
Thx Tony. I like it. And I have now touched code for the first time!
Feeling rather pleased.
Thx again, SC
Thanks for sharing the idea. I made this change on both of my blogs. I am not sure that “no comments” discourages comments, but it sure doesn’t help!
Thanks, Tony. I appreciate the tipl. I think you are right about the offputting “no comments.”
Thanks for the tip! I noticed this issue on the default theme a couple years ago and hacked the template to change it, but the plugin is much nicer since I’m using Tarski for the time being.
Do you have a plugin for adding “will not be published” to the required email label? I think that discourages people because they might assume their email is going to be displayed to the world. If you do, please reply by email since you don’t have the subscribe-to-comments plugin
Also, regarding disabling right-click, are people that unaware of the workaround?
I’ve been so tardy in replying to your comment because of my preoccupation with the organisation of this blog. It’s very text-based and I was looking for a way of displaying posts and comments clearly across all screen sizes… I think I’ve found it. Back to your point about commenters’ e-mails, and I can only say that you should Google the point… I would assume from reading most blogs that the commenters’ e-mails do not appear to be visible, but if you’re unsure about this, look for an appropriate plugin. I have just added two great plugins, Brian’s threaded comments (http://meidell.dk/threadedcomments/) and Subscribe To Comments (http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/) to add functionality to this new WordPress theme, Wooden Mannequins which is fast, simple and search engine friendly, but basic in its features.
Good thinking, Tony! Thanks for sharing.
Reminds me of when GM tried to sell the Chevy Nova in Latin America. Unfortunately, “no va” means “doesn’t go” in Spanish.