Karthik asks…
“Is it possible to change the ‘Leave a comment’ text to something else that’s personalized to the content of the site?”
It sure is! In your WordPress Admin dashboard, go to Settings > Discussion and scroll right to the bottom of the page. Under the “Comment Form” header, enter new prompt text and click Save Changes.
Update Feb 2017: You may not see this option on the mobile version of WordPress Admin. If so, switch to desktop instead.
Best wishes,
James
James Riddett 
Thank you
No worries!
There isn’t an option called “Comment Form” under Discussion in settings.
It’s at the very bottom of the Settings > Discussion page.
These are the only headers available under settings > discussion page
Default article settings
Other comment settings
E-mail me whenever
Before a comment appears
Comment Moderation
Comment Blacklist
You don’t have the following headers underneath those (further down the page)…
Follow Comments
Follow Blog
Markdown
Avatar Display
Gravatar Hovercards
Maximum Rating
Default Avatar
Comment Form (Prompt)
?
Yah. Got it.
There are two different settings panels.
One by clicking settings> Discussion.
Other by hovering over settings> Discussion.
I got the full list by hovering.
Thanks again for your help.
That’s very odd! On all the WordPress.com websites I administer, both the clicking and hovering routes takes you to the same (full length) page — the web address is the same. All WordPress.com websites should function the same way as they’re all running on the exact same platform. So that’s a real mystery. Ah well, at least you can now change the prompt :-)
Best wishes,
James
The web addresses are different. Well yeah. I did learn to do change the prompts.
Wow, that’s a real curiosity. Would you mind emailing the two links to me? Naturally, I won’t access them, but I’m curious to try and work out what’s going on there.
I’ll mail them. Not immediately, but later. Really sorry about this – we are on different time zones. It’s about 1.30 am here.
Oh goodness, no rush! Tomorrow is fine :-)
No need to email the links! I think I’ve worked out what’s going on. I suspect you’re using the centralized WordPress.com system where you can easily jump around different sites you own/administer. If you edit Settings > Discussion from there, you only get the headings / options you mentioned. If you access Settings > Discussion from the Dashboard of your website (what they call WP Admin) you also get the additional headings / options I mentioned. I wish they would keep it simple — users now have two different ways to use WordPress.com and it just complicates things unnecessarily, in my opinion.
You’re right. Is there a way of shifting back to the normal system from the centralised version?
Yes, if you click the WP Admin link from the menu (top left) you should go back to the normal version.
Aaah! Thank you for this! I was googling it, and the first hits were all several years old (some were 10 years old) and all told me to do complicated things that I couldn’t understand. Which I know wasn’t right because I *was* able to change it a while ago, but then I forgot. I’m reblogging this to try to push it up in the search results.
Reblogged this on emma wolf and commented:
Just so I don’t forget (again) how to do this…
You’re very welcome Emma and thanks for the reblog! :-)
I can’t seem to find this option on my self-hosted wordpress. Would anyone know if this is only available for wp.com.
Hi Nandan, you could try updating your WordPress version to the latest, if you haven’t already. If this doesn’t do the trick (or you’re already up to date), you could try searching your theme’s files for the phrase that is currently being shown above your comment form (often “Leave a Comment” or “Leave a Reply”). You can change the phrase, upload the file to your server and hopefully this will do it.
A good place to look for the phrase is your comments.php file, which I think is part of your theme files (as opposed to the WordPress “core” files”). I’m a bit vague on this as it’s been a while since I dealt with self-hosted WordPress installations. Hope this helps.
I read more and I think this customisation is not available for self-hosted thing. But I could find a way to customise it. Infact after WP 3.0, it is now much more flexible.
https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/comment_form has all the details. Thank you for your response James. Wishes.
Yes indeed, even if it’s not an option within WordPress Admin you can always change the wording directly in the WordPress files. You’re very welcome Nandan.
Hi, has this option been removed since/?
Searched both the settings page(wp admin and the other one) but can’t find it anywhere
Hi, no it’s still in the same place. If you scroll right to the bottom of the following page, you should see it:
https://yashovardhan99.wordpress.com/wp-admin/options-discussion.php
All the best,
James
Thanks! Found it, seems like there was some problem displaying it in the mobile version. Switched to the desktop version of the site and it worked!
Thanks!
Oh great tip — have added it to the post. Thanks!
Hi,
My comment form seems to be missing. Everything is there except for that option.
Checked my plugin and everything.
Hope you can help!
Thanks
Hi Nicolette, check your Settings > Discussion page in WP Admin. The third check box “Allow people to post comments on new articles” should be checked. If it’s not, check and scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.
If the option above was already checked, it might be that your individual posts have got comments switched off. When editing a post, scroll down until you see a Discussion panel. “Allow comments” should be checked. If not, check it and update the post. Hope this helps. Let me know :-)
All the best,
James
Thanks James! I must’ve unticked it somewhere along the way!
Nicolette :)