How to Allow Users to Edit Their Comments in WordPress

Do you want to allow users to edit their comments in WordPress?

By default, WordPress doesn’t allow users to edit their comments. This can be frustrating if the visitor spots a spelling or grammar mistake after posting their comment.

In this article, we will show you how to allow users to easily edit their comments in WordPress for a short period of time.

Why Allow Users to Edit or Delete Their Comments?

Allowing users to comment on your posts is a great way to get more engagement and keep people coming back to your WordPress website. However, users can’t edit or delete their comments by default.

This can be a problem if a visitor wants to fix a simple mistake like a spelling or a grammatical error. Some users may also want to modify their comments to add or remove something.

With that said, you may want to allow people to edit their comments for a short period of time after posting, such as within the first 5 or 10 minutes.

This time limit is important, as it stops link builders and spammers from abusing the comment section by going back and adding links to comments you have already approved. A time limit also stops people from changing parts of the comment thread so that it no longer makes sense to other readers.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily allow users to edit their comments.

Allowing Users to Edit Comments in WordPress

The easiest way to allow users to edit comments in WordPress is by using the Comment Edit Lite plugin. This simple plugin works out of the box and lets you set your own time limit.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Comment Edit Lite plugin. You can see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for detailed instructions.

Upon activation, users can edit their comments for the first 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, users can no longer change their comments.

To change this time limit, go to Settings » Comment Edit Lite in your WordPress admin area.

You can use any time limit you like by typing a number into the ‘Edit Timer in Minutes’ field. However, we recommended setting the limit to under 30 minutes since we want to allow users to fix errors right away.

If you change the time limit, then make sure you click on the ‘Save Options’ button to store the changes.

With that done, we recommend testing the plugin by posting a comment on any of your WordPress blog posts.

After submitting the comment, you will see a ‘Click to Edit’ link and a countdown timer below the comment text. The timer shows how much time you have left to edit the comment.

Simply select the ‘Click to Edit’ link and then make your changes.

Just be aware that the plugin doesn’t let you change the name, email address, or website URL you originally entered when posting the comment.

When you are done, click on the ‘Save’ button to update the comment.

If you want to delete your comment instead, then go ahead and click on the ‘Delete’ button. This will open a popup asking you to confirm that you want to delete your comment.

Go ahead to click on ‘OK’ to remove the comment.

We hope that this article helped you to learn how to allow users to edit their own comments in WordPress for a short period of time. You may also want to see our proven ways to make money online blogging and our expert picks for the best social media plugins for WordPress.

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