Often, WordPress site owners will disable comments on old blog post to reduce the amount of spam they receive. The option to do this is found with the <strong>Settings&gt;&gt;Discussion</strong> section of your WordPress dashboard. However, this does raise an issue when it comes to allowing users to post comments on older posts because they won't be able to post a comment at all. There is a way to keep comments open on some posts, while turning them off on others.
<h2>Disabling Comments on Older WordPress Blog Posts</h2>
When you start to receive a ton of spam comments on older posts, you want to go to the <strong>Settings&gt;&gt;Discussion</strong> section of your WordPress dashboard.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-7477" src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Discussion.png" alt="Discussion" width="168" height="209" />

Once you are in this section, you will want to scroll down to the <strong>Other Comment Settings</strong> section. Here, you will find the "Automatically close comments on articles older than" option. Just check this box and enter the number of days you want to use.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-7478" src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/OtherCommentSettings.png" alt="Other Comment Settings" width="828" height="145" />

After you have changed this setting, just click the "Save Changes button at the bottom of the page. This will disable comments on any posts older than the number of days you entered, which can drastically reduce comment spam.
<h2>Using the Override Comment Deadline Plugin for WordPress</h2>
Sometimes, there are posts you want to leave comments open on for a very long time or forever. When this is the case, you need the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/override-comment-deadline/">Override Comment Deadline WordPress Plugin</a>. This plugin will make it easy to keep comments open on any post you don't want to follow the rule you just set for comments in the discussion section.

Once you have installed and activated the plugin, you will have an option in the post edit screen called, "Override Comment Deadline." This option will allow you to check the box next to "Keep Comments Open" and they will never be disables on that specific post.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-7479" src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/KeepCommentsOpen.png" alt="Keep Comments Open" width="285" height="157" />

Now you can use the settings in the discussion section, along with the Override Comment Deadline plugin to help minimize comment spam without shutting them done on every post.