How to Change Comments Closed Message on WordPress

by Rian

On WordPress, the default behavior for comments section has an oddly hidden notification message. It is only shown when a post already has some comments, and the comment section must be closed for future submission. It simply reads: “Comments are closed”. It sounds obvious and communicates to the fact why the comment field is not visible, but the site moderator or designer is not given control over the text message itself — which is, again, weird.

The good news first: it can be altered. However, the bad news: you do need to work with the child theme.

1. (opt) If your child theme does not have a comments.php file, do copy it over from parent theme.
2. On the child theme’s comments.php, look for the message that was displayed. On my particular theme, the actual snippet read like this:

<?php
if ( ! comments_open() && 0 !== (int) get_comments_number() && post_type_supports( get_post_type(), 'comments' ) ) :
?>
	<p class="no-comments">Comments are closed.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

3. Change the message (in HTML format) to your liking. Again, in my particular case it is now changed to:

<p class="no-comments">Comments are automatically closed after 30 days.</p>

4. (opt) Using the stylesheet, you can change the fonts, padding, and etc. for the message box.
   

Because of the transitions in the WordPress world — from Classic to Block Theme — it may not apply the same for some of the new development. In my case, I prefer the paper medium-like design, and didn’t see much benefit in moving toward Gutenberg Editor and Block Theme. It’s the case of ‘if it gets the job done ……’ I suppose.