Moderation

Moderate comments in Wagtail

Choose a policy

Policy	Behavior after guest email proof
Review all	Queue every new message
Review guests	Queue guests; normally publish registered authors
Publish immediately	Publish eligible submissions without routine review
Apply rules	Review/reject matches; normally publish unmatched text

Suspicious guest signals can still require review. Rule rejection wins when Apply rules is active. Phrase rules are not applied by the other policies. Guest confirmation always precedes moderation. Changing policy leaves old queued messages in their current state.

Queue and decisions

Open Comments and search directly above the list. Expand Filters to choose Site, status, date or Page; applied advanced filters open automatically and their count remains visible when collapsed. Reset filters returns to the default pending queue. Service links, including Site settings, email delivery and permissions, are grouped under the cog Management button. The same menu appears on every Commentail admin page, including settings, cards and confirmation pages, with destinations limited by your permissions and a link to Comments. Site and discussion settings are grouped into discussion, appearance and email sections. The group-access editor separates the target group/Site, moderation capabilities and management rights; checkbox labels sit beside their controls. Filters are grouped into Site/Page, status and date range sections. Floating menus close on outside click or Escape; Escape and close buttons return focus to their trigger. Opening and closing motion follows the reduced-motion preference. Counts respect permitted Sites and active filters. Open a message to see its author, state, text, action journal and any pending author revision.

Opening a comment carries the current search, Site, Page, status, date range and list page into its card. Back to results returns to that selection, including after a moderation decision, author revision decision, mail retry, or cancelling or confirming text erasure. Successful single actions stay on the card. Direct card links offer All comments and return to the default queue. Context travels in links and forms, so tabs are independent and return navigation works without JavaScript. If moderation empties the last list page, the existing pagination returns to the nearest available page while preserving the filters.

The Page filter opens Wagtail's standard searchable chooser instead of loading every discussion Page into the list. Choosing a Page does not grant permission to its comments; Site grants still bound the resulting queue.

Action	Effect
Approve	Publish a pending comment or approve its author revision
Reject	Keep content private; optional reason is author-only
Hide	Reversibly hide published content
Restore	Restore hidden content
Erase text	Permanently remove text, retaining replies and a deleted placeholder

Moderators cannot change another author's text or propose replacement text. The list, including All statuses, supports bulk approve/reject for pending comments, hide for published comments, restore for hidden comments, and permanent text erasure for any non-deleted comment. Checkboxes and buttons respect each comment's status and your Site permissions. A button is enabled only when every selected comment supports that action; Select all selects eligible rows on the current page. The panel above the list shows Selected: N and offers Clear selection. For a nonempty selection, expand Action availability to see the required status and permissions of unavailable actions. The live count and clear control require JavaScript. Without JavaScript, management links, filters and action guidance stay visible; selecting rows and submitting actions still works. The Page chooser keeps Wagtail's existing behavior. The server rechecks the entire selection and rolls back all changes if any row is no longer eligible or permitted. A batch accepts at most 100 identifiers. Successful actions preserve the list filters and pagination.

If a moderation action fails because statuses or permissions have changed, or a comment is no longer available, Commentail shows Action not completed with an explanation and Back to results. The link preserves search, filters and pagination and reloads the current results; it never repeats the failed action. No part of a failed bulk action is saved, including audit entries and queued mail. Already-reviewed author revisions also offer recovery instead of another decision. If all Commentail access has been revoked, the recovery link opens the Wagtail dashboard. Recovery links work without JavaScript, and error pages retain HTTP 400/403/404 statuses without revealing unavailable comments.

Single and bulk text erasure first open a confirmation page showing the number of comments and an irreversible-erasure warning. Cancel leaves text and revisions unchanged; bulk cancellation returns to the same list filters and page. Confirming erases the selected comments' text and revisions, preserving replies. Confirmation works without JavaScript, and execution rechecks current permissions and states. Author revisions are decided individually. Pending revisions keep the old published text visible. Closing a discussion does not remove its moderation queue. Logs record actions without copies of comment text.

Group permissions by Site

The standard Wagtail group create/edit form includes Comment permissions by site. Users also need Wagtail admin access. Capabilities are View, Moderate, Hide/restore, Delete text, Settings and Rules. Moderate permits retrying eligible failed mail. Normal Page-edit rights are additionally required to configure a Page.

Rules are shared project-wide: granting Rules through a Site row permits management of the common list affecting every Site using Apply rules. Grant it deliberately. There are no per-Page moderator grants. The separate group-access editor inside Comments is superuser-only; ordinary group forms use Wagtail's group permissions. Direct action URLs enforce the same boundaries as the visible buttons.

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