Eliminating comments altogether?

You are going to have to find all the code that will allow someome to comment and just block it out. I have not used that theme before.

Do other themes permit this? I’m surprised it’s not a standard option — even Blogger lets you turn off comments.

It’s not about “permitting” – it’s about the code within the themes. Most theme developers assume that the majority of their users are 1) going to want comments, as most WP users do and 2) don’t know how to ADD the code, but assume that they can find it and delete it if they want to get rid of comments.

You can turn off comments in wordpress under the Options tab. You can even choose to turn them on or off for individual posts. But to remove any and all traces, you have to manually go in and delete the comments code in the theme you’re using.

You can remove the forms and stuff that let people leave a commment from your theme files, but that won’t disable comments.

I’ve written a plugin to disable comments on all posts, but there’s a few wrinkles in it which I’m ironing out before I release it properly. It will disable all comments/trackbacks perfectly well, however. If you drop me an email I will send it to you — my email is on my website, https://beingmrkenny.co.uk/.