This is an advanced topic  for site bulders and editors.

Background:

There are two sides to comment management: managing comment and managing commenters. Controlling on which pages |.acceptComments.| tags appear is a training issue.
Whenever this tag is placed on a page and the page is viewed a comment family is created.  Initially the comment family is "Open" that is comment can be added.  Commenting on a page can be terminated by "Closing" the comments.  The existing comments will still be dispayed, but no more comments can be added.  Comments can also be "Hidden" that is they will no longer appear and no more can be added.  Finally they can be erased; however, the |.acceptComments.| should be removed first or a new comment family will just be created.   In addition individual comments can be deleted or hidden.
Commenters require both a unique email address and user name.  Once they sign up and and answer the acknowledge email they can post comments.  They can be blocked or deleted.  When blocked, all their comments will be hidden and any reply to them will become top level comments.   If they are deleted then their comments will also be deleted.  Note: if they are deleted the email address will NOT be blocked.

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Managing Comments on a given page:  When a CMS Administrator (not just user 'Admin') logs into the front of the site they see an additional display on the page which show the full comments.

• All comments, both visible and hidden will display on the full comment page of these special visitors.
• On each comment (where the |.commentAdmin.| tag appears in the ||full|| line), is a drop down with the choices of "Comment Visible", "Comment Hidden", "Delete Comment" and "Block Visitor & Remove Comments" followed by a check box "Closed"
  
  • If the check box is checked then the Comment Family is Closed and no more comments will be allowed on this page
  • Comment Visible means everyone can see the comment.
  • Comment Hidden means only Admin type uses will see the comment.  Any comment tied to it will also be hidden.
  • Delete Comment removes the comment permanently and makes any comments tied to it become top level comments (that is they have no parent comment.
  • Blocking the user means that user name and email address can no longer comment, all comment associated with the visitor will be hidden and dependent comment moved to the top level on this page.

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Managing Comment Families through the CMS: only user Admin can perform this function.

• Click on the Comments function in the CMS back end will bring up a list of the pages (and eventuall catalogs and products) which have comments enabled followed by their id number
• The Status can be changed between 'Active', 'Hidden' and 'Closed'.  This has the same effect as if it was performed on the page.
• If the comments are deleted then all the comment associated with the page will be deleted.  (remember the note above, pull the |.acceptComments.| tag first.

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Manging Commenter through the CMS: only user Admin can perform this function.

• User Admin can search by user name or Email address among all the visitors who have completed the sign up process. 
• The status of the commenter can change from Active, Blocked and Pending or Blocked.
  • Blocking a user here impacts all the comments they have made on all the pages in addition to blocking their future comments.
  • If a visitor is unblocked then can comment again, but their comments will not be restored or relinked with the other messages.
  • When a visitor signs up they request to be notified if someone comments on a page where they have commented ("Any Comment"), when someone comment on their comment ("Notify on replies") or Never  ("Do not notify").  This can be changed here.
  • Their password can also be changed.
  • If it is changed here the change is reflected back to the "Members" table as well.
• If a visitor is "blocked then all comments are deleted and they can re-used the email address.  Normally this would be used if the visitor didn't want to wait to sign up again while they were pending.

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