Here you, as the Administrator can decide if comments are allowed, if pingbacks and trackbacks are acceptable, and what constitutes Comment Spam. On this SubPanel you also control the circumstances under which your blog sends you e-mail notification of certain events at your site.

Usual settings for an article:

Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article (slows down posting) : If you check this box, WordPress will send out a ping to a site or article you have linked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink) to in your post. Your mention of their site or article will show up in the comment section of their site, if that site allows pingbacks. The notfication occurs during the process of publishing your article to the internet. An article with many hyperlinks will slow the posting process as WordPress contacts all of the sites before the post is published.

Allow link notifications from other Weblogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) : This setting tells WordPress to accept or decline the pings from other sites which may reference your site or an article on your site. If this box is checked, pingbacks and trackbacks will appear in the comments section of your posts.

Allow people to post comments on the article : If you wish to allow all of your posts to be commented on, then select this option. Remember that this can be overridden on individual articles. Comments can also be controlled by making an article PRIVATE, which requires the appropriate password before a comment is allowed. If you don't wish to allow comments uncheck this option.

Email me whenever...
These 2 options allow you control of when you will receive an email in regards to comments about your articles:

Anyone posts a comment:

Turning this option "on" means every single comment posted will generate an email to you. If you get a lot of comments on your blog, you may find yourself with a very full Inbox. If you wish to micromanage your comments, then by all means, activate this option by checking the box.

A comment is approved or declined: Check this box if you want WordPress to notify you when comments have been approved or declined. This is useful if your blog has multiple authors and each author is authorized to allowed or decline comments. That way, you, the owner of the site, can review what comments are being allowed or denied.

Before a comment appears...
These options give you even more control over the instances of when and how comments are posted:

An administrator must approve the comment (regardless of any matches below): Selecting this option forces comments to be approved by a blog user or owner having the proper User Level to approve comments, even if the comments appear to be spam . See the Comment Moderation options below regarding spam.

User must fill out name and email : This is more useful as a way to force spammers to do a bit of extra work. In reality, the name and email address are not verified in any way prior to the comment being submitted. Most legitimate commenters are more than willing to fill out a name and email address.

Comment author must have a previously approved comment : When this box is checked, comments are only posted if the comment author's email address matches the address of a previously approved comment, otherwise, the comment is held for moderation. Comments from blacklisted email addresses (those listed in the Local Spam Words Text Box) are held for moderation regardless of whitelist status.

Comment Moderation:
In the Comment Moderation section you specify these options to help you deal with Comment Spam.

Hold a comment...if it has more than x number of links : Not too long ago, comment spammers would have five, ten, or more hyperlinks in their comment spam. This made it very easy for bloggers to quickly screen comments but spammers recognized that and commonly use only one or two hyperlinks. You can enter a number in this box to tell WordPress how many links you allow in a comment before holding it for moderation.

Comment spam words/Comment moderation : You can add your own spam words which will filter the comments when posted. For an extensive and updated list of frequently used spam words and phrases, check the article on Spam Words and consider adding these to your own list.

Local spam words text box : This is your local list of spam words which you can edit as you wish. You can have IP addresses, keywords, or email addresses in this box; virtually anything that would uniquely identify the comment as an item of spam.

Check past comments against moderation list : This will check previously approved comments against the current moderation list and tell you which comments are suspected to be spam. This is useful if you just changed the moderation list.Comment blacklist : Exactly the same as comment moderation, except comments which match these words will be deleted without warning. You may want to use this as a last resort, as genuine comments can end up deleted (WordPress 1.5 and later)

Update Options button:
Click this button to ensure that any changes you have made to your Options get written back to your database. If you find that later on, you are getting spam or email when you thought you had changed your options, you may have forgotten to click on this button. Once you click on it, a confirmation text box will appear at the top of the page telling you that your settings have been updated.

If you find your Spam settings or Comment controls are too stringent, they may need to be changed. Revisit this page to make the appropriate changes, then, remember to click the Update Options button to ensure the new settings are saved.

Additional WordPress Resources:

For additional WordPress support and assistance, we recommend visiting the WordPress Support sites at: http://wordpress.org/support/ and http://codex.wordpress.org

For access to the WordPress Forum (which may provide further support tips), visit http://wordpress.org/search/?forums=1 or http://wordpress.org/support/