How to Set Discussion Options for Your WordPress Blog
On the WordPress Discussion Settings page, you can set the options (such as notification settings) for your posts, determine how comments and comment spam are handled, and specify whether you want to use avatars on your blog. The Discussion Settings page has six settings that you can configure for your blog, each of which I discuss in the following sections.
Default Article Settings
The Default Article Settings section is where you tell WordPress.com how to handle post notifications. Three options are available to you:
Attempt to Notify Any Blogs Linked to from the Article
Allow Link Notifications from Other Blogs (Pingbacks and Trackbacks)
Allow People to Post Comments on the Article
Other Comment Settings
The Other Comment Settings tell WordPress how to handle comments:
Comment Author Must Fill Out Their Name and Email
Users Must Be Registered and Logged in to Comment
Automatically Close Comments on Articles Older Than X Days
Enable Threaded (Nested) Comments X Levels Deep
Break Comments into Pages with X Comments Per Page
Comments Should Be Displayed with the Older/Newer Comments at the Top of Each Page
Email Me Whenever
The four options in the Email Me Whenever section include
Anyone posts a comment
A comment is held for moderation
Someone Likes one of my posts
Someone reblogs one of my posts
Someone follows my blog
The e-mail feature can be very helpful, particularly if you don’t visit your blog daily.
Everyone likes to get comments on their blog posts, and it’s good to be notified when it happens so that you can revisit that post, respond to your readers, and keep the conversation active. All four options in this section are enabled by default; you can easily disable any, or all, of them by deselecting the check box to the left of each option.
Before a Comment Appears
The two options in the Before a Comment Appears section tell WordPress how you want WordPress to handle comments before they appear in your blog:
Comment Moderation
In the Comment Moderation section, you can set options to specify what types of comments are held in the moderation queue to await your approval. Frequently, comment spammers try to spam your blog with a ton of links in the hope of promoting their own sites through your comment form.
You can set the number of links allowed in a comment before it’s tossed into the moderation queue to await approval. The default is 2. Give that a try, and if you’re getting lots of spam comments with multiple links, you may want to revisit this page and increase that number.
You can set keywords, URLs, e-mail addresses, or IP addresses to be flagged for moderation in the text box below the link setting.
In contrast to the Comment Moderation list, the Comment Blacklist is a list of words, URLs, e-mail addresses, and IP addresses that you want to flat-out ban from ever making it to your blog. Items placed here don’t even make it into your Comment Moderation queue; they’re filtered as spam by the system and completely disregarded.
Are you getting the feeling that comment spam is a real issue for bloggers? It’s huge — probably bigger than you imagine it to be. Much of the comment-spam prevention is done behind the scenes, so you don’t even see half of what’s going on. All the options on the Discussion Settings page are geared toward decreasing or eliminating comment or trackback spam from your blog.
If, during the course of your blogging experience on WordPress.com, you find that you’re having an issue with spam, you may want to revisit these options and make adjustments.
Comment Reply via Email
Select the box labeled Enable Sending Comment Replies via Email, and WordPress.com not only publishes your comment replies to your readers on your blog, but also sends your reply via e-mail to the reader you’re replying to. That e-mail contains the body of your reply and a link back to your blog.
Follow Comments
Select the box labeled Show a ‘Follow Comments’ Option in the Comment Form if you want to allow the readers of your blog to subscribe to individual comment threads on your blog. When you enable this option, a check box appears in your comments section allowing your readers to opt to receive e-mails every time a new comment is posted to a specific post on your blog.
This option also puts a comment subscription management page on your blog that allows readers to view and manage their comment subscriptions. This is a really great tool to keep readers coming back to your blog over and over again, and a great way to keep lively discussions going!
Follow Blog
Select the box labeled Show a ‘Follow Blog’ Option in the Comment Form if you want to give your readers an easy way to subscribe to your blog via e-mail. With this option enabled, readers who select this option receive an update in their e-mail box every time you publish a new post to your blog.
This is a fantastic way to keep your readers informed and coming back to your blog time and time again for more of your great published content.
Avatars
Avatars are photos or images that represent your commenters (and you) on your blog. You can choose to display avatars on your blog by selecting the Show Avatars option. You can also set the maximum rating for the avatars; it’s much like the movie rating system you're used to.
If your site is family-friendly, you probably don’t want to display R- or X-rated avatars on your blog. You can select G, PG, R, or X ratings for the avatars that display on your blog. You can also select an image to use as the default avatar for those users who do not yet have avatars assigned to their e-mail.
Comment Form
The text field here displays Leave a Reply by default, and it’s the prompt your readers see on your blog that encourages them to leave a comment. You can leave this as is, or you can type your own prompt in this box to change the wording that displays in your comment area.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
archive
1. (noun) A list of previous blog posts, in chronological order. 2. (verb) To place files or blog posts in a safer place (on DVD or another server) for longer-term or backup storage.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
attribute
Used in an HTML tag to give an instruction to a Web browser. For example, in This link goes to <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the <a> tag gets an attribute (href) and a value ("http://www.google.com") to go along with the basic tag. In this case, the attribute indicates to the browser that what comes next is a hypertext reference — in this case, a Web page.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blacklist
An often-centralized list of e-mail addresses, URLs, and IP addresses used by spammers that are then forbidden in any blog post on your blog. With an up-to-date blacklist, a lot of spam is stopped before it becomes a comment.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
block
To stop all contact with a MySpace user. He can’t comment on your blog page or send you any message that you actually receive.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blog
A combination of the words Web and log. Bloggers (individuals, groups, or businesses) post a chronological log of information. Content is determined entirely by the author(s) of the blog; many are personal journals.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blog post
An entry in a blog, possibly containing text, images, and other media.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogger
The author of a blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogging policy
Outlines what you’re allowed to post in your blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogging software
Technology that enables you to blog. Can be either hosted or nonhosted.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogroll
A collection of links used or recommended by a blogger.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
cookie
A short piece of computer code, stored on your computer, that enables Web sites to remember certain settings and information the next time you visit that site.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Dashboard
A kind of control panel in Blogger that shows you the blogs you’ve set up, giving you access posting, using help resources, or even creating another blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
definition list
A type of HTML list that gives a term and then its definition and has built-in spacing to lay out those elements properly.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
disk space
Amount of room available on your hard drive.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
domain
A domain is the address, or main URL, that people type in the browser to get to your Web site. The domain name you choose can’t be used by anyone else.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
domain registrar
A service that enables you to register a domain name.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
entry
An single posting in a blog containing text, images, or other media, or any combination of those things.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Facebook
A social-networking service that enables you to keep in contact with families and friends via the Web.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Flickr
A Web site that allows you to share, organize, edit, and otherwise manage your photos.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Friend List
Your virtual online address book in MySpace. You can become someone’s friend by either sending a fellow MySpacer a Friend Request or by being on the receiving end of a Friend Request from another MySpace user.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hosted services
Manages the data, software, and Web hosting of a blog; the blogger just manages the content.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
HTML
The computer coding used by Web designers to create Web pages.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hyperlink
A navigation tool that allows a user to go from one Web location to another by clicking. Hyperinks (or just links) are typically underlined.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hypertext reference
In HTML, the address that a hyperlink connects to when clicked. For example, in This link goes to <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the hypertext reference (href) is http://www.google.com. Hyperlink references can also jump to new positions on the same page, open a new e-mail message, or begin a file download.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
link
Short for hyperlink, a navigation tool that allows a user to go from one Web location to another by clicking. Links are typically underlined.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Mom test
A self-test that flags inappropriate blog posts. If you’d let your mom read the post, then it’s probably passed the Mom test. Specifically, don’t blog about topics you think will hurt others; don’t blog about others without their permission, even about topics you consider inconsequential; and don’t identify friends and lovers by name without their permission.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
MySpace
A social-networking service that enables you to keep in contact with families and friends via the Web.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
MySpace profile
Your MySpace identity. It can contain as much or as little information about you as you’d like.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
news aggregation
The ability to aggregate news by using RSS feeds. Having a news aggregator included with your blog package allows your site to pull in information from another blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
nonhosted service
Blog software that you set up on your own Web server. It allows you to take on all responsibilities related to maintaining your blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
ordered list
Contains items that must be listed in a particular order, such as a list of ranks or preferences. It may also indicate a list of steps for the reader to follow.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
pinging
An automated notification system for search engines and newsreaders, letting those services know that your blog has been updated. A ping occurs when one computer asks another whether it’s there; the second computer confirms its presence.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
post
1. (noun) An entry in a blog containing text, images, other media, or any combination of these. 2. (verb) The act of creating and/or uploading a blog entry.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
private profile
A MySpace profile that’s limited on who can view it, such as only people on your Friend List.

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public domain
The status of publications, processes, and product designs that are free from copyrights and/or patents and are available for anyone's use.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
social network
A service, such as Facebook or MySpace, that enables to keep in touch with people you know — and meet people you don’t know.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
spam
Unsolicited electronic messages sent in bulk that may be commercial, nonsensical, or malicious. In addition to e-mail spam, blog comments and blog forums can be targeted by spammers.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
tag
A relevant keyword associated or assigned to a piece of information, such as an image, a blog entry, or a video clip. Tags are usually chosen informally by the content creator or by the online community; they help give content to nontext media and organize information for ease of searching.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Trackback
A technology that tracks references to a blog posting that occurs on other blogs. They allow bloggers to link to blog posts on related topics.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
transparent
1. Being honest and truthful on your blog. Also means that you admit mistakes and engage in dialogue with readers who leave comments. Considered proper blogging etiquette. 2. Integration of applications, programs, and media from different sources in such a way that the end user is unaware that the content is not self-contained.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
unordered list
unordered list is a series of bulleted items and is used for lists that don’t require numbering.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
video blog
A blog consisting of video files, or the practice of placing a video file in a blog post.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
video-sharing service
A service, such as YouTube, that enables you to share video with others.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Web host
The Web server where you software, graphics, and other files live online.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Web server
Technology that looks at what Web page is requested and then feeds the browser the appropriate file. It does most of the hard work of serving Web pages to visitors coming to your Web site.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
whitelist
A list of preselected users who are allowed to comment on your blog.

Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
YouTube
A video-sharing service.