Annoying WordPress stuff...

bySavant

1.5K followers

Updated 10 years ago

One of the most annoying things I have found with WordPress is the block of text that appears under the "Comments" form. You probably know what I am talking about, it looks like this:

I have been annoyed by this for quite a while, looking all through just about every checkbox in the setup and appearance parts of my dashboard to turn this off, all to no avail.

Finally I decided to just do what I knew best and kill it directly from my pages by editing the PHP code. This is not a practice I would recommend for the feint hearted however, but if you want to get rid of this annoying bit of test, here is what you need to do:

• Log onto WP Dashboard and go to Appearance and then Editor.
• Find the file in the list of templates (on the right side of the page) called Comments (comments.php)
• Look for the line of code on that page with the exact phrase

comment_form();

• It may be hidden inside a PHP container tag on the bottom of the file like this, <?php comment_form(); ?>
• or inside a conditional PHP routine, like this, <?php if ( comments_open() ): comment_form(); else : ?>
• Replace the text phrase comment_form(); with the following code:

comment_form(array('comment_notes_after' => ''));

• This replaces that annoying bit of text with an empty array and therefore because it is empty, the text disappears from your page. The actual line that you replace goes from this <?php comment_form(); ?>

to this <?php comment_form(array('comment_notes_after' => '')); ?>,

• or if it is within a conditional tag, from this <?php if ( comments_open() ):comment_form(); else : ?>

to this <?php if ( comments_open() ): comment_form(array('comment_notes_after' => '')); else : ?>

Your comments form should now have removed that annoying bit of text and look like this:

Be careful not to change anything else, and make sure you copy and paste EXACTLY the code I have shown you, with exactly the same text that I have shown. DO NOT add or remove any spaces, or leave out, or include other special characters. Copy and paste exactly what I have shown you.

For your own peace of mind, before you make any changes to this file, back up the original entire file, by this process:

• click somewhere in the window with the code in it,
• press Ctrl+A to select all the code
• press Ctrl+C to copy the code
• open a blank Text document (Notepad)
• press Ctrl+V to paste the code into the blank text document, then save it to your desktop as Comments_backup.txt

you can then make the necessary changes to the Comments file and test to see that all worked correctly. If it doesn't work, select and copy the backup file you had made and paste the original file overwriting the alterations you had made, then, PM me right away and I will help you sort out the mess.

All the best, hope this works for you as easily as it worked for me. :D