Thread

Is there a way to moderate new visitors’ comments and auto approve the regulars? Since I trust the regular visitors, I want to automatically have EE approve their comments, but if this is a new visitor’s first comment, or if the user is not on the “safe” list, I would like to approve them myself.

Is there a way where I can add a “safe” list of emails I trust? Or do I have to use the Members feature? I don’t want them to register or anything.

Thanks in Advance.

I’d create a member group called ‘approved’ that would be excluded from comment moderation…

you could either run a query/cron to move members automagically or you can do it manually through the cp.

sorry, read your post a little fast, the above method would require registration.

Yea, I’d like to do something without registrations.. can’t I do a membership list manually without the members actually knowing? Or will they get emails and stuff?

They won’t get emails if you/superadmin register them but they’d need to log in anyway to be excluded from moderation.

oh that’s not going to work, I don’t want them to login.

I was hoping that EE could just approve them when it reads the email field and find out if they are members or not.

Thanks for your help though.

You would have to have some sort of registration process to do what you describe, otherwise EE (or whatever system) would have no way of knowing if the person who is visiting is approved or not. The only other way would be to use a process that sets a cookie but this will prove very unreliable as cookies get reset all the time.

I think you’re making more work for yourself than necessary. Why don’t you want people to register? Perhaps if you explained the reason behind that we could think of an alternative.

I do not want regulars to sign up and then have to login every time they want to comment because it can be hectic - even with the “save password” feature. Its only a blog, so why should they have to login?

Some blogs, I have noticed, have this technique - where if the blogger thinks a regular commentor is a “safe” commentor, they somehow auto-approve their comments.

I dont mind adding them as members manually as the list grows, i just dont want them to sign-up or login. Is it possible to hide the process from visitors?

UPDATE: Can’t EE check the email address of each posted comment, see if its on the “safe members” list and auto-approve it if it is, otherwise mark it for moderation?

I do not want regulars to sign up and then have to login every time they want to comment because it can be hectic - even with the “save password” feature. Its only a blog, so why should they have to login?

There are many reasons why, the most important being spam prevention. 

I dont mind adding them as members manually as the list grows, i just dont want them to sign-up or login. Is it possible to hide the process from visitors?

No. They would still need to sign in with a password.

UPDATE: Can’t EE check the email address of each posted comment, see if its on the “safe members” list and auto-approve it if it is, otherwise mark it for moderation?

This isn’t a built in feature. It would require a custom add-on. Feel free to leave a Feature Request for it.

With registration it prevents a person from having to enter their info each time. What you describe would require a person to enter at least two pieces of info every visit: Name, email, website, etc… Whereas a registered member returning to a site has to enter zero information. They just comment and go. Plus registration allows a profile which means you can add avatars, sigs, and other profile information that might make your visitors feel more at home.

Though the main benefit I see is that registration means returning visitors don’t need to do anything extra to comment. Every system is going to have its pros and cons. For EE what you describe can’t be done out of the box though a custom add-on could certainly accomplish it.

Ok, thanks! I will post about this in the suggested link.