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I'm working on a rather odd implementation that stretches the limits of WP a little - its a healthcare site where patients are a custom post type and procedure requests related to each patient are stored in comments on that post. I started off by storing alot of data in commentmeta, but I want an easier way to access it than having to pull from a meta table. I'd also like to be able to use the built-in functions where available (wp_insert_comment can set most of the fields in wp_comments table through the arguments passed to it).

My question is - where are these other values set and accessed in WordPress? Specifically, I'm curious about:

  • comment_karma
  • comment_type
  • comment_approved

I have one meta value I want to set, which I'm hoping to use comment_type for. I also want to set a flag on each request to show whether or not it has been confirmed and responded to. It seems like comment_karma would work well for this, as it is completely unsused, although I'm not sure if it can be set directly with wp_insert_comment.

Are there any consequences I should be aware of when doing this? Would I be better off just adding additional columns to the table, or does this approach sound like it would work?

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  • There was a short movement to remove it for version 3.1 ... but since some systems still hook onto it, it's staying there for now.
    – user19256
    Commented Aug 14, 2012 at 20:59

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comment_karma

This field is used by a few plug-ins to help you manage your comments. There are a few good articles explaining its exact use floating around on the Internet. But you should note that this field is actually just not used. As Mark Jaquith said once, it's a "there if you want to use it this."

There was a short movement to remove it for version 3.1 ... but since some systems still hook onto it, it's staying there for now.

comment_type

Is this a comment, a trackback, or a pingback? This helps theme devs separate out the different types of "comments" in the front-end display.

comment_approved

Is the comment pending moderation, spam, or approved by the author? Just helps you manage what is and isn't OK for display on the site.

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  • comment_karma - no idea, doesn't seem meaningful in current code;
  • comment_type - this marks pingbacks/trackbacks, empty for normal comments;
  • comment_approved - approval (0 or 1) and spam (spam) status.

On your usage - why not just create custom post type for procedures? Comments are much less flexible than posts and kinda single-purposed in nature.

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  • I found you can set comment_karma through wp_insert_comment() - so that's good for me. I thought about a custom post type, but the structure of comments (threaded, built-in capabilities, and automatically tied to a post) was so close to what I needed, I hoped not to have to reinvent that wheel.
    – goldenapples
    Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 20:56
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comment_karma can be used like Stack Exchange votes but I did not see any plugin utilises it before.

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