Managing comments

The commenting functionality in Scratchpads is a valuable system that enables registered and/or anonymous users to comment on a piece of content (usually a node). Maintainers and editors of a site can control the comment functionality per content type and per user role. This means that a Scratchpad site might have comments enabled for a content type (e.g. taxon descriptions) but not for another content type (e.g. specimens/observations).

Comments permissions

Maintainers can change the roles that are permitted to submit comments to a site.

  1. From the Admin menu go to People
  2. Under Comment select the user groups, according to their roles, that you wish to be able to post comments
  3. If anonymous users are selected. Visitors of the site will be able to submit comments to be published. By default comments by anonymous users need the maintainer’s approval before published in the site
  4. Click Save permissions

Enable comments for specific content types

Enabling comments for specific content types will not override the access level settings described in the previous section.

  1. From the Admin menu go to Structure > Content types
  2. Click edit next to the content type you wish to modify comment settings
  3. Select Comment settings from the vertical tab menu
  4. Set specific properties for the comments of this content type
    • Closed: No comments can be submitted
    • Open: Anyone can submit a comment provided they have given access, as described in the previous section
    • Hidden: Comments can be submitted, but they are not published

Comment notifications

You can modify the settings that define when someone should be notified, via email, when a new comment is posted and also how the notification email is drafted.

  1. From the Admin menu go to Configuration > Comment notify
  2. Change settings accordingly and click Save configuration

Managing comments

Comments submitted by anonymous users are marked as unapproved by default and do not get published until a maintainer has approved them. To approve or delete comments go to

  1. On Admin menu go to Content > Comments
  2. All published comments are located and can be managed under Published comments
../_images/Comment_permissions.png
  1. All unapproved comments can be managed (approved or deleted) under the Unpublished comments section
  2. Numbers in brackets indicate the total number of comments under these two sections