id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
12392	Move comment fields to meta data instead	Otto42		"Look at the comment table:
{{{
CREATE TABLE $wpdb->comments (
  comment_ID bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
  comment_post_ID bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
  comment_author tinytext NOT NULL,
  comment_author_email varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
  comment_author_url varchar(200) NOT NULL default '',
  comment_author_IP varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
  comment_date datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  comment_date_gmt datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  comment_content text NOT NULL,
  comment_karma int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  comment_approved varchar(20) NOT NULL default '1',
  comment_agent varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
  comment_type varchar(20) NOT NULL default '',
  comment_parent bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
  user_id bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
...
}}}
A lot of that is not actually being used on many sites and could be moved to standard meta data, available on demand, but not pulled out by default.

Specifically:

comment_author_IP - Used by Akismet and blacklist functions, included in emails sent to post authors/moderators, but once stored in the DB it's never really used again.

comment_karma - Used by some of the importers as a space to store temporary data. Not actually used by core for anything serious anywhere.

comment_agent - Used by Akismet and blacklist functions, but once stored in the DB it's never really used again.

These could be pushed to meta and thus still made available, but without them being in the main table.

This is a long term change, because some plugins would likely break. So the columns should be deprecated for a while first.
"	enhancement	new	normal	Future Release	Comments		normal