Acting on Comments

From the Manage Comments screen you can act on comments, including publishing comments to your blog, unpublishing comments from your blog, marking comments as spam, or deleting comments entirely. Additionally from this screen you can reply to comments directly (new in Movable Type 4) and edit the contents of a comment.

Publishing Comments

Publishing comments is the act of making a moderated comment appear on your blog. To publish comments:

• In the comments listing table, select the comment or comments you would like to publish by checking the box next to each of the desired comments. Unpublished comments are identified by the yellow triangle symbol.
• Click the Publish button located in the action bar above the Comments Listing table. This automatically publishes the selected comment to your blog. Successfully published comments are identified by the green checkmark symbol.

Unpublishing Comments

Unpublishing comments is the act of removing a comment from your blog without deleting it entirely. To unpublish comments:

• In the comments listing table, select the comment or comments you would like to unpublish by checking the box next to each of the desired comments. Published comments are identified by the green checkmark symbol.
• Click the “More actions” drop down menu located in the action bar above the Comments Listing table and select “Unpublish Comment(s).” This automatically unpublishes the selected comment(s) from your blog. Unpublished comments are identified by the yellow triangle symbol.

Deleting Comments

Deleting comments will remove them from your blog and from your system. To delete comments:

• In the comments listing table, select the comment or comments you would like to delete by checking the box next to each of the desired comments.
• Click the “Delete” button located in the action bar. The system will ask you to confirm your deletion; click OK to confirm that you wish to delete the selected comment(s).

Marking comments as spam

Marking comments as spam will remove them from your blog and trigger an action for any spam reporting plugins that you have installed with Movable Type. To mark comments as spam:

• In the comments listing table, select the comment or comments you would like to mark as spam by checking the box next to each of the desired comments.
• Click the “Spam” button located in the action bar. The system will immediately mark the comment as spam and remove it from your blog.

Viewing and managing your spam comments

To view all of the comments that the system or you have marked as spam, locate the Quickfilters tool on the right-hand side of the Manage Comments screen and click on “Comments marked as spam.” From this view of the Manage Comments screen you can act on comments like you can in the main Manage Comments screen, but you you can also mark comments as “Not Spam” or “empty” your system of spam comments.

• Marking comments as not spam. To mark a comment or comments as not spam, select the comments by clicking on the checkbox(es) of your desired comment(s) and click the “Not Spam” button in the action bar. This will remove the spam flag from the select comments and publish them to your blog.

• Emptying spam comments. To remove all of your spam comments from your system, click the “Empty” button in the action bar. This does not require you to select comments and, after confirmation, removes all comments marked as spam from your system.