Site Visitor Commenting Issue

  • livdelesantis

    (@livdelesantis)


    1 year, 5 months ago

    Hello WP Community!

    So, we’re a writing blog and really want to support interactivity between our writers and our audience. I have been having an issue with site visitors being required to login to a WordPress or Gravatar account to leave a comment.

    Here’s what I’ve done to counteract this issue so far: have gone into Discussion settings and unticked ‘Users must be registered and logged in to comment’, have disabled the ‘Comment author must fill out name and email’ (anonymous comments are working, but we do want people to comment with their name if they wish), and have disabled the ‘let visitors use a Facebook or WP account to comment’ in the hopes that this will resolve the login issue. However, it appears that WP is mistaking our subscribers as having their own WP account, when they have only provided an email with which to receive post updates etc. I.e: they don’t actually have a password or official account. I’ve checked with subscribers who have had this issue – they have never had or created a WP/Gravatar account, they’ve only subscribed to our site using their email address.

    Temporarily, I have noted in a paragraph block above our comments section on posts that they either need to use a different email to the one they signed up to our site with, OR they need to leave an anonymous comment (and potentially sign off their name manually if they wish for their name to appear). This isn’t ideal, but it’s a fix whilst I’m seeking clarification.

    Is there anything I might have missed, or that I should try? Is anyone else having the same issue?

    Thanks a bunch!

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • George Appiah

    (@gappiah)

    1 year, 5 months ago

    Your site is on the WordPress.COM platform, which works differently from the “plain” WordPress software available here at WordPress.ORG that people download and install on their own hosting provider.

    Here’s a quick rundown of the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com: https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/difference-between-wordpress-org-and-wordpress-com/

    Please open a support ticket from your WordPress.com dashboard to have their support staff assist you: https://wordpress.com/help/contact/

    However, it appears that WP is mistaking our subscribers as having their own WP account, when they have only provided an email with which to receive post updates etc. I.e: they don’t actually have a password or official account. I’ve checked with subscribers who have had this issue – they have never had or created a WP/Gravatar account, they’ve only subscribed to our site using their email address.

    First, it’s WordPress.COM, not the WordPress software itself, that’s doing this.

    And those users surely have a WordPress.COM account, even if not for your website.

    What do I mean?

    When using WordPress.com, your site’s users — including your own — are created in the global WordPress.com database. So your site’s users are first WordPress.com users, and then they are assigned membership on your site. So while these users may not have created a WordPress.com account for your website, they surely must have done so for some other site or even for their own site.

    WordPress.COM is detecting those email addresses as having WordPress.com accounts (even though they may not have membership on your own site)… and asking these users to log in. I tested this myself on your site: I first tried to leave a comment using a Gmail address linked to my WordPress.com account and I was sent to the WordPress.com login page. Then I tried with a different email address that’s not linked to any WordPress.com account — and I was able to post a comment without being prompted to log in. (Please delete the pending test comment).

    Due to the aforementioned differences between the WordPress.com sites and WordPress.org sites, we’re unable to provide much assistance here at WordPress.org. If you need further help with this, please log in to your WordPress.COM account and open a support ticket so their support staff can assist you: https://wordpress.com/help/contact/

    Good luck!

    Thread Starter livdelesantis

    (@livdelesantis)

    1 year, 5 months ago

    Thanks George! Will follow up with the correct forum!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

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