WordPress Plugin: Semi-Private Comments

This plugin masks comments so that a user can only see comments written by himself or by an admin. Admins can see all comments.

This was written to make my trivia contests more interesting; by masking the contents of comments from everyone but the person who wrote the comment and admins (where "admin" = anyone with the ability to edit users), users cannot copy answers from other users. This gives everyone a fair chance at answering questions before the contest ends.

But, there is nothing in the plugin that is specific to trivia contests, that's just what I use it for.

How it works:
The Create Post page gets a "Make comments Semi-Private" option. This can be turned on and off at any time. When a user visits a post with Semi-Private Comments turned on, the plugin compares the user's current IP address with that of each comment. If the IP addresses match, the comment is displayed as usual. If the IP address doesn't match, a substitute comment message is displayed instead. The message text is configurable on the Admin pages, but defaults to "This comment is hidden".

You can also change the plugin to work off of WordPress user IDs, but that only makes sense if all your visitors are registered on your blog.

Installation:
1. Upload `semiprivate_comments.php` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
3. Optionally, change the "comment hidden" text in the Admin settings page.

See It In Action:

See this thread.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Does this work with previous versions of WP?
A: I don't know. This was written for v2.5.1, and works for all versions since.

Q: If a user comments from one computer then comments from a different computer, his first comment is hidden !
A: Yeah. Sorry.

Here's a link to the latest version: Download.

The version on the WordPress site does not work on WordPress 3.

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