making comments visible to the public

This is theme dependent, but try:

Admin Dashboard>Settings>Discussion>Default article settings>Allow people to post comments on new articles

NOTE: Review carefully how to stop comment spam…it (and will) can hose your site.

They might be accidentally turned off on a per post basis. Make sure the comments section on your post edit screen allows it.

Once above (what I posted is done) create a test post and attempt a comment – if working, then new posts will have comments – again review all the discussion settings

seacoast, i did check the allow people to post way back when i started the site. if you want to go on, please be my guest – please remember it is still in the building progress: https://www.savvytalk.net

yep, created a post and then test commented. it doesn’t show up – only when you’re inside the dashboard

I see the comment, click the bubble…did you want to have all comments show without clicking to see comments?

yeah, mom doesn’t like the bubble, she just wants all the comments to show without clicking the bubble

This can be done with default theme but requires some coding…is mom familiar with PHP, HTML, and CSS?

she’s not, but i’m a novice, but somewhat familiar with html and css. where do i put the code and what does it say….

The PHP part is very important when customizing a WP site…