Wordpress user registration

Question

Hi, how do I restrict user to first create an account on my blog and then post/comment ?

Answer 1

In the Discussion Settings just check the Users must be registered and logged in to comment checkbox.

If you want to allow anybody to register, make also sure that under General Settings the checkbox Anyone can register in the Membership line is checked.

There is also a Plugin that allow user to use OpenID to login to your blog: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/openid/

Answer 2

On my Wordpress Blogs, I make sure that the following options are set:

Under Settings / Discussions set the following options:

• Check Users must be registered and logged in under Other comment settings

• Check Anyone posts a comment and A comment is held for moderation under E-mail me whenever

• Check Comment author must have a previously approved comment under Before a comment appears

This way only registered users who have previously commented under your moderation will have the rights to comment freely.

I also install a plugin called BanHammer (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ban-hammer) which allows you to check registered users against a known database of spammers, and also allows you to specify your own domains or email addresses to stop spammers from registering (it picks up the list from Wordpress' Comment Blacklist which is on the Discussion Settings Page.

Also, don't forget to Activate Akismet which will hopefully trap some (if not all) of the comment spam.