Default to "https://" in comment author URL field

[johnjamesjacoby]

One pet peeve of mine with commenting on other people's WordPresses, is on new sites I haven't commented on yet (or aren't powered by Jetpack Comments) that I need to type https:// in every Website field. Traditionally, this field is currently empty unless a cookie exists (see: wp_get_current_commenter()).

Tangentially, recent efforts across the web to SSL all-of-the-things (\o/) makes this field an interesting opportunity to gently nudge the web in the direction of https:// feeling more like the norm than the exception.

A plugin can easily enable this (and I'll likely make one today) but I'll offer up the idea here first.

Patch imminent.

[johnjamesjacoby]

Screenshot of https:// as default website when no cookie is present (and not logged in)

[johnjamesjacoby]

Update default URL value in wp_get_current_commenter()

[johnjamesjacoby]

A few caveats to this idea:

• The comment author URL field is optional, and having a default value in there is a user-impacting change
• We will probably want logic to avoid saving https:// alone as the comment author URL. This field is pretty lenient as far as input requirements are concerned, which is probably for legacy reasons beyond the scope of my suggestion.
• It's obviously less convenient for people who have http:// only URLs. That's also kind-of the point, though only as a friendly suggestion, obviously. <3

[johnbillion]

How about removing the default value altogether?

[johnjamesjacoby]

Replying to johnbillion:

How about removing the default value altogether?

There is no default value right now, not even http://. And users can enter a non-URL in that field, and it will encode it, but it isn't validated in any real way.