Extension:Comments

MediaWiki extensions manual - list

Comments Release status: stable
Implementation	Parser extension
Description	Adds <comments> parser hook tag that allows commenting on articles
Author(s)	David Pean Misza Jack Phoenix
Last version	2.7
MediaWiki	1.18+
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download snapshot (Git master) Git [?]: repo summary tree code changes
Parameters $wgCommentsDefaultAvatar
Tags <comments />
Added rights comment commentadmin
Hooks used Debug MagicWordwgVariableIDs ParserFirstCallInit ParserGetVariableValueSwitch User
Check usage and version matrix
Bugs: list open list all report

Comments extension adds the <comments> parser hook tag to allow commenting on articles where the tag is present.

Comment actions are logged to Special:Log/comments, but by default they're hidden, just like patrol log entries.

Majority of the code fixes were done by Misza and Jack Phoenix.

Right now this extension requires MySQL DBMS, but patches to add PostgreSQL/Oracle/etc. support are more than welcome!

Dependencies

• New database tables: Comments, Comments_block and Comments_Vote — these tables currently cannot be created by running update.php, the official MediaWiki updater script, but instead you have to create them manually!

Installation

1. Download the files into $IP/extensions/Comments
2. Create the three required database tables (see comments.sql for the schemas)
3. Add
   require_once("$IP/extensions/Comments/Comment.php");
   into the wiki's LocalSettings.php
4. Installation can now be verified through the wiki's Special:Version

Usage

• <comments /> — basic comment form, sufficient for most things
• <comments allow="Derfel,Jack Phoenix,Misza" /> — only allows the users Derfel, Jack Phoenix and Misza to submit comments
• <comments voting="Plus" /> — prevents users from rating comments negatively (thumb down), allowing only positive (thumb up) votes

Comments of the Day

The extension also comes with a "Comments of the Day" feature (<commentsoftheday />), which by default is not enabled. You can enable this feature in the wiki's LocalSettings.php, by adding the following after the require_once() line:

require_once("$IP/extensions/Comments/CommentsOfTheDay.php");

If the nocache argument is passed to the parser hook (like this: <commentsoftheday nocache=true />), the parser hook will not use memcached and will just fetch the data from the database instead of cache. This is useful if you want to show the most up-to-date data, but it can be very server-intensive.

User rights

This extension adds two new user rights, comment (which allows posting comments) and commentadmin (which allows deleting user-posted comments). By default, everyone, even anonymous users, can post comments, but only users in the commentadmin group can delete them.

User points

This is relevant only if the SocialProfile extension is installed and $wgUserLevels is properly configured.

• $wgUserStatsPointValues['comment_plus'] — amount of points to give out when another user gives "thumbs up" to your comment.
• $wgUserStatsPointValues['comment_ignored'] — amount of points to give out when another user adds your comments to their ignore list (Special:CommentIgnoreList).

Parameters

• $wgCommentsDefaultAvatar — path to an image which will be displayed instead of an avatar if social tools (SocialProfile extension) aren't installed. Should be 50x50px.

Hooks

Comments extension adds two hooks, Comment::add and Comment::delete.

Hook name	When it is called	Parameters
Comment::add	After a comment has been added into the database, on the bottom of Comment::add function	&$commentClass (instance of Comment class) $commentID $pageID
Comment::delete	After a comment has been deleted and the caches have been purged (function delete on class Comment)	&$commentClass (instance of Comment class) $commentID $pageID

Internationalization

Message	English default	Description
comment-comment	Comment	This message might be unused.
comments-db-locked	<h3>Adding Comments</h3>The database is currently locked for routine database maintenance, after which it will be back to normal. Please check back later!	Displayed if a page contains the <comments /> tag while the database is locked.
comment-voted-label	Voted
comment-loading	Loading...
comment-auto-refresher-enable	Enable Comment Auto-Refresher
comment-auto-refresher-pause	Pause Comment Auto-Refresher
comment-reply-to	Reply to	This message is followed by the user's username whom you're about to reply to. For example, "Reply to Jack Phoenix".
comment-cancel-reply	Cancel
comment-block-warning	Are you sure you want to permanently ignore all comments from	Displayed in a JavaScript popup alert when the user is about to ignore someone's comments. This message is followed by either MediaWiki:Comment-block-anon or MediaWiki:Comment-block-user, depending on the fact whether the user is an anonymous one or not.
comment-block-anon	this Anonymous user (via their IP address)
comment-block-user	user
comment-sort-by-date	Sort by Date
comment-sort-by-score	Sort by Score
comment-show-comment-link	Show Comment
comment-manage-blocklist-link	Manage Ignore List
comment-ignore-message	You are ignoring the author of this comment	Shown in the output of the <comments /> tag instead of the person's comment if you're ignoring the said person.
comment-you	You	Note that there is a space before the word.
comment-reply	Reply
comment-login-required	You must be logged in to add comments
comment-post	Post Comment
comment-submit	Add your Comment
comment-score-text	Score
comment-permalink	Permalink
comment-delete-link	Delete Comment	Shown to Comment Administrators only.
comment-anon-name	Anonymous User
comment-anon-message	{{SITENAME}} welcomes <b>all comments</b>. If you don't want to be anonymous, <a href="$1">register</a> or <a href="$2">log in</a>. It's free.	Shown above the comment form to anonymous users. $1 is the URL to Special:UserLogin, $2 is the URL to Special:UserLogin/signup.
comment-ignore-item	<a href="$1">$2</a> on $3 <a href="$4">(unblock)</a>	Shown on Special:CommentIgnoreList. $1 is the URL to the blocked user's user page, $2 is the name of the blocked user, $3 is the timestamp (when the user was blocked) and $4 is the URL to the unblock form.
comment-ignore-no-users	There are no users currently blocked.	Shown on Special:CommentIgnoreList if you haven't blocked anyone's comments.
comment-ignore-remove-message	Are you sure you want to unblock user <b>$1</b>'s comments?	Confirmation message, shown when the user is about to unblock someone's comments on Special:CommentIgnoreList. $1 is the username of the user whose comments the user has blocked.
comment-ignore-unblock	Unblock
comment-ignore-cancel	Cancel
comment-ignore-title	Comment Ignore List	Title of Special:CommentIgnoreList, as shown on the said page.
commentignorelist	Comment Ignore List	Title of Special:CommentIgnoreList, as shown on Special:SpecialPages.
commentslogpage	Comments log	Shown on Special:Log/comments if comment logging is enabled.
commentslogpagetext	This is a log of comments	Shown on Special:Log/comments if comment logging is enabled.
commentslogentry		Do not translate this into other languages!
commentslog-create-entry	New comment	Shown on Special:Log/comments if comment logging is enabled.
comments-create-text	[[$1]] - $2	Do not translate this into other languages!
comments-time-ago	$1 ago	$1 is one of the following messages: MediaWiki:Comments-time-days, MediaWiki:Comments-time-hours, MediaWiki:Comments-time-minutes or MediaWiki:Comments-time-seconds
comments-time-days	{{PLURAL:$1|one day|$1 days}}
comments-time-hours	{{PLURAL:$1|one hour|$1 hours}}
comments-time-minutes	{{PLURAL:$1|one minute|$1 minutes}}
comments-time-seconds	{{PLURAL:$1|one second|$1 seconds}}
group-commentadmin	Comment Administrators	Shown on Special:ListUsers. Members of this group can delete other users' comments.
group-commentadmin-member	Comment Administrator	Shown on Special:ListUsers. A "Comment Administrator" is someone who is a member of "Comment Administrators" user group.
right-comment	Submit comments	Shown on Special:ListGroupRights
right-commentadmin	Administrate user-submitted comments	Shown on Special:ListGroupRights

TODO list

1. HTML output is not valid XHTML - would be nice if it were but we can live without that
2. Would be nice if there was a Special Page that gives a overview of all uses of the comments extension on all pages (for an adminstrator to be able to moderate easier)

Version history

Version	SVN revision	Release date	Comments
2.7	r115137	4 May 2012	Fixes bug #34345, so "Delete Comment" links work again.
2.6	r111059	9 February 2012	Don't show voting buttons to users who don't have the "comment" user right.
2.6	r111040	9 February 2012	Fixes bug #34284 — redirect the user to the page they came from by sticking the returnto parameter to the URL.
2.6	r111037	9 February 2012	Don't show "reply" links to users who aren't allowed to comment.
2.6	r108577	11 January 2012	Removed the usage of deprecated LanguageGetMagic hook.
2.5	r108296	7 January 2012	First version that fully supports ResourceLoader and thus requires MediaWiki 1.18 or newer.
2.4.1	r108295	7 January 2012	Bugfix to Special:CommentIgnoreList: anonymous users can now be removed from the comment ignore list.
2.4.1	r97062	14 September 2011	Initial public release, phase II changes: initial ResourceLoader support added wfLoadExtensionMessages() cruft removed CSS is no longer loaded in Comment::display(), but rather in the main extension setup file initial ResourceLoader support used $this->getTitle() instead of SpecialPage::getTitleFor( ... ) when appropriate removed unused legacy (ArmchairGM) ChangeToStep() function from Comment.js JavaScript file rewritten to be more object-oriented i18n JS globals loaded via the MakeGlobalVariablesScript hook in displayComments() using Title::getArticleID() instead of Title::$mArticleID in displayComments() $wgCommentsLog variable was removed; comment logging is now unconditionally enabled, but hidden, like the patrol log removed Comment::$title and Comment::setTitle() + the related code from displayComments() as unused added initial support of normal MW parser hook args to displayComments() removed Comment::$Userid and Comment::$Username in favor of $wgUser->getId() and $wgUser->getName() — addslashes srsly sucks. This fixes the annoying, ages-old doubleslashing issue: when [[User:Testing "for XSS]] would submit a comment, it'd show up as "Testing \"for XSS" and the link would be incorrect new <commentsoftheday /> parser hook, see CommentsOfTheDay.php; load that file separately in your wiki's LocalSettings.php if you need it, it's not loaded by default
2.3	r1750 (ShoutWiki SVN)	21 July 2010	Expanded documentation, fixed an old FIXME (a better error message is now displayed if user doesn't have 'comment' user right instead of the "log in" message), removed unused $this->parser variable, fixed a bug in display() by removing the usage of $wgTitle ($wgTitle points to Special:CommentListGet instead of current page...^demon was right, $wgTitle is evil)
2.3	r1570 (ShoutWiki SVN)	29 March 2010	Documentation update, renamed a few variables and tweaked French (fr) translation
2.3	r1555 (ShoutWiki SVN)	27 March 2010	Spacing tweak in the main extension setup file
2.3	r1436 (ShoutWiki SVN)	17 February 2010	Removed an unused variable ($sk), changed some double quotes to single quotes, renamed a variable and broke some long lines in CommentClass.php
2.3	r1433 (ShoutWiki SVN)	12 February 2010	Removed unused $wgComments variable and add semicolons to JS variables
2.3	r1432 (ShoutWiki SVN)	12 February 2010	Fixed a bug in Special:CommentIgnoreList — it would return a "no such special page" error and was doing infinite looping by trying to redirect anons into itself instead of Special:UserLogin. Also changed a while() to foreach(), as per MediaWiki's coding conventions
2.3	r1425 (ShoutWiki SVN)	6 February 2010	Tweaked CommentClass.php so that it shows voted.gif if you have voted for a comment; partially reverts r848 (once again)
2.3	r1422 (ShoutWiki SVN)	31 January 2010	Tweaked Finnish (fi) translation of 'comment-reply-to' message
2.3	r1412 (ShoutWiki SVN)	28 January 2010	Shortened some long lines while → foreach, per MediaWiki's coding conventions Removed PHP4-isms (hooks in CommentClass.php) Trimmed trailing spaces
2.3	r1377 (ShoutWiki SVN)	16 January 2010	Added two new Dutch (nl) translations and fixed "Problem at line 108 character 19: Use '===' to compare with '0'." in Comment.js
2.3	r1361 (ShoutWiki SVN)	5 January 2010	Fixed E_PARSE introduced in r1357
2.3	r1357 (ShoutWiki SVN)	5 January 2010	Initial Dutch (nl) translation and tweaks to French (fr) translation
2.3	r1335 (ShoutWiki SVN)	19 December 2009	Removed usage of deprecated ereg() function in CommentClass.php in favor of preg_match()
2.3	r1334 (ShoutWiki SVN)	19 December 2009	voted.gif, which was removed in r848, was added back
2.3	r1323 (ShoutWiki SVN)	12 December 2009	Coding style nitpicks
2.3	r1307 (ShoutWiki SVN)	5 December 2009	Version 2.3 — no longer requires SocialProfile
2.2	r1292 (ShoutWiki SVN)	28 November 2009	Fixed a fatal + PHP 5.3 bitching (Warning: Parameter 3 to displayComments() expected to be a reference, value given in ..\includes\parser\Parser.php on line 3243)
2.2	r1262 (ShoutWiki SVN)	7 November 2009	General coding style cleanup Shortened lines in the JavaScript file Bumped version number to 2.2 Removed useless $max_link_text_lenght global in CommentClass.php Capitalized SQL keywords Tweaked error suppression/restoration else if → elseif Tweaked French (fr) translation
2.1	r1237 (ShoutWiki SVN)	18 October 2009	Removed backwards compatibility code for the parser hook, as per r55838
2.1	r1084 (ShoutWiki SVN)	4 July 2009	Fix for previous commit, r1083.
2.1	r1083 (ShoutWiki SVN)	4 July 2009	New configuration global, $wgCommentsDefaultAvatar, for setting the URL of a default avatar which will be used on non-social wikis + bumped version to 2.1
2.0	r1082 (ShoutWiki SVN)	3 July 2009	Removed silly default AUTO_INCREMENT values from the SQL file
2.0	r1081 (ShoutWiki SVN)	3 July 2009	Fixed some E_STRICTs by suppressing warnings Renamed some functions, removed a deprecated one Added some class_exists() checks here and there so that this extension can be enabled for non-social wikis JavaScript rewritten so that it doesn't require YUI anymore. Ideally those display statements should be moved into function changeOpac but that function doesn't know if it's supposed to show or hide something...
2.0	r1066 (ShoutWiki SVN)	2 July 2009	Added the Comment::delete hook into Comment::delete() for Extension:LinkFilter
2.0	r1064 (ShoutWiki SVN)	2 July 2009	Added the Comment::add hook into Comment::add() for Extension:LinkFilter
2.0	r1038 (ShoutWiki SVN)	26 June 2009	Fixed some E_STRICTs in CommentClass.php
2.0	r1036 (ShoutWiki SVN)	22 June 2009	Tweaked variable name as per the coding conventions
2.0	r1023 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Removed displayCommentScorecard() function, related code snippets and some unused code from function display()
2.0	r1022 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Removed EOL whitespace and some commented-out code
2.0	r1021 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Cleanup & documentation to main class file
2.0	r1020 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Added a semicolon after a function call in Comment.js
2.0	r1019 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Cleanup to AjaxFunctions file — removed class_exists() checks for Publish stuff (we don't want that) + changed all $Comment variables to $comment as per coding conventions
2.0	r1018 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Changed $ to document.getElementById in Comment.js
2.0	r1017 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 June 2009	Removed a line which was commented out from Comment.js
2.0	r943 (ShoutWiki SVN)	21 May 2009	Removed EOL whitespace and added copyright
2.0	r920 (ShoutWiki SVN)	7 May 2009	Removed a fixme comment from Comment.js
2.0	r895 (ShoutWiki SVN)	2 May 2009	Changed urlencode to htmlspecialchars in Comment::display(). Code by Pinky
2.0	r894 (ShoutWiki SVN)	2 May 2009	Very odd CSS fix for an odd CSS issue. Reply/permalink links were misaligned in Monobook, Modern etc. but not in Nimbus or Monaco. This fixes those links for Monobook, Truglass, phpBB and partially for Modern (looks like it needs 40px or something). Nimbus and Monaco both override this later on back to 10px so it's also looking good on those skins.
2.0	r893 (ShoutWiki SVN)	2 May 2009	Added a space after every semicolon in Comments.css; no functional changes
2.0	r872 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Added plurals for time-related messages ('comments-time-days', 'comments-time-hours', 'comments-time-minutes' and 'comments-time-seconds')
2.0	r871 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Tweaked the wording of the 'comment-anon-message' internationalization message
2.0	r870 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Cleanup to JavaScript file (double quotes → single quotes where appropriate, add missing semicolons, tweak spacing and so on)
2.0	r869 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Fix show_comment JavaScript function — now actually shows the previously-hidden comment in addition to hiding the "you are ignoring the author of this comment" message
2.0	r868 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	JavaScript fix — alert would previously say "object Object", now it actually says "ok"
2.0	r867 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Added internationalization messages 'group-commentadmin' and 'group-commentadmin-member' for Special:ListUsers
2.0	r866 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Removed an unnecessary closing span tag for XHTML compliance in CommentClass.php, function display()
2.0	r865 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Removed $wgAnonName global — replaced by 'comment-anon-name' internationalization message Check for wfReadOnly() rather than for $wgReadOnly in CommentClass.php, function display()
2.0	r864 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Cleaned up HTML output a bit Cleaned up retarded internationalization construction (related to the comment auto-refresher feature) Grammar fixes for French (fr) translations
2.0	r863 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Converted a raw SQL query to use the Database wrapper class in CommentClass.php, function getCommentList()
2.0	r861 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Use wfReadOnly() rather than $wgReadOnly + bumped version number from 1.1 to 2.0
1.1	r860 (ShoutWiki SVN)	25 April 2009	Totally removed the updateStats() function and calls to it in CommentClass.php
1.1	r854 (ShoutWiki SVN)	24 April 2009	Commented out the updateStats function in CommentClass.php, we don't need nor want it
1.1	r849 (ShoutWiki SVN)	24 April 2009	Call functions of Vote and Publish classes only if said classes exist in Comments_AjaxFunctions.php
1.1	r848 (ShoutWiki SVN)	24 April 2009	Removed references to voted.gif — no such image wfMsgForContent → wfMsg Tweaked internationalization messages Add myself into authors Semicolons & spacing for the JavaScript file
1.1	r847 (ShoutWiki SVN)	24 April 2009	Changed a double-equals comparison operator in Comments_AjaxFunctions.php to triple-equals comparison operator to fix a bug
1.1	r829 (ShoutWiki SVN)	18 April 2009	Spacing, removed some unused globals, fixed userlogin links for non-English languages (canonical name is not CamelCased), converted Title::makeTitle to SpecialPage::getTitleFor
1.1	r668 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 March 2009	Removed unused globals, add spacing, changed some DB_MASTERs to DB_SLAVEs, converted a raw SQL query to use the Database class + XHTML compliance
1.1	r667 (ShoutWiki SVN)	13 March 2009	Cleanup to AJAX functions file — removed unused globals, added spacing and changed one DB_MASTER to DB_SLAVE
1.1	r450 (ShoutWiki SVN)	20 January 2009	Added internationalization messages for Special:ListGroupRights ('right-comment' and 'right-commentadmin')
1.1	r352 (ShoutWiki SVN)	28 December 2008	General code cleanup, coding style cleanup, marked one function as public static to stop PHP from whining, changed double quotes to single quotes, used DB_SLAVE instead of DB_MASTER for read queries, used MediaWiki's Database wrapper class whenever possible and added some newlines to HTML output
1.1	r262 (ShoutWiki SVN)	6 December 2008	Added calls to Database::commit() whereever needed
1.1	r172 (ShoutWiki SVN)	14 November 2008	Merged r3449 from Wikia codebase: "spam check no longer compatible..remove for now"
1.1	r137 (ShoutWiki SVN)	14 November 2008	Fixed a minor display bug by adding a linebreak to Comment::displayOrderForm() output right before it is returned and removed an unused global ($wgUploadPath) from the same function
1.1	r136 (ShoutWiki SVN)	30 October 2008	Added missing $wgUploadPath global declaration to Comment::display() in CommentClass.php
1.1	r135 (ShoutWiki SVN)	30 October 2008	Added new images directory, moved all images there and changed paths in CommentClass.php accordingly
1.1	r132 (ShoutWiki SVN)	29 October 2008	Loaded AJAX functions file in the main extension setup file
1.1	r108 (ShoutWiki SVN)	17 October 2008	Initial French translation
1.1	r72 (ShoutWiki SVN)	9 October 2008	Missing internationalization message 'comments-time-days' added
1.1	r70 (ShoutWiki SVN)	5 October 2008	Removed dependency on GlobalFunctionsNY.php and removed CSS duplication
1.1	r67 (ShoutWiki SVN)	4 October 2008	Fixed some database declarations again ($dbr should be used for slaves and $dbw for master)
1.1			First working version by Misza
1.0			Initial cleaned-up version of extensions/wikia/Comments/ by Jack Phoenix