Disabling author field in comments makes "awaiting moderation" go away

[hakankpunkt]

If one disables the author field via

unset($fields['author'];

then writes a comment, the comment does not show up as "awaiting moderation" on the comment overview page.

Disabling the email and/or url field does not effect the "awaiting moderation" status.

[hakankpunkt]

I missed the closing brace:

unset($fields['author']);

[scribu]

I don't understand where the unset() line goes. Did you modify a core WP file?

[hakankpunkt]

I added this filter in the themes functions.php to disable some
fields including the author field. Please note, that only disabling
the author field is causing the bug.

/**
 * Disable comment fields
 *
 * @param array The fields array
 * @return array The fields array with the disabled comment fields
 */
function disable_comment_fields($fields)
{
	unset($fields['author']);
	unset($fields['email']);
	unset($fields['url']);

	return $fields;
}

add_filter('comment_form_default_fields', 'disable_comment_fields', 10030);

As a workaround I used following filter in the themes function.php

/**
 * Set a default author name for comments
 *
 * This is a workaround for this bug http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21877
 */
function set_default_author_name($data)
{
    return 'John Doe Default';
}

add_filter('pre_comment_author_name', 'set_default_author_name', 10050);

[scribu]

Much better; thanks.

Does this happen with the twentyeleven theme or just with your theme?

[hakankpunkt]

It happens with our theme and the Twenty Eleven theme. I just tested the Twenty Ten theme and it happens with it as well.

[hakankpunkt]

Just tested it with WordPress version 3.4.2 and the Twenty Ten theme and it happens with it as well.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Comments awaiting moderation are only displayed to their authors:
​http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.4.2/wp-includes/comment-template.php#L885

If comment author is logged in, then $user_ID is passed, and comments from moderation queue are still displayed (since [5238]), regardless of whether 'author' field is disabled or not.

If comment author is not logged in and 'author' field is disabled, then $comment_author is empty, and comments from moderation queue are not retrieved.

This sounds like expected behaviour, I don't see a bug here.

[nacin]

Nice investigation. I agree.

[hakankpunkt]

Sergey, thanks for the details. Now the behavior makes sense.