Detail the process of configuring comment settings in WordPress to minimize spam and foster constructive user engagement.

Configuring comment settings in WordPress is essential for managing user engagement, reducing spam, and creating a positive environment on your website. Effective comment management can promote constructive discussions, build a sense of community, and provide valuable feedback on your content. Conversely, poor comment settings can lead to a flood of spam, offensive comments, and ultimately a negative user experience. Here's a detailed process of how to configure comment settings to minimize spam and encourage constructive engagement:

1. Accessing Comment Settings:
- In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to "Settings" and then click on "Discussion." This page contains all the settings related to comments on your website.

2. Default Article Settings:
- These settings control how comments are handled for newly created posts and pages.
- "Allow people to post comments on new articles": This checkbox controls whether comments are enabled or disabled by default on new content. Unchecking this box will disable comments on all new posts. You should usually enable it, unless you do not want comments on any of your pages or posts.
- "Automatically close comments on articles older than [number] days": This feature is helpful for managing old posts, where the discussion is less likely to be ongoing. Setting a number of days will automatically disable comments on older content, preventing future spam on these posts. You can set the number of days based on your needs, common times are 30, 60 or 90 days.
- "Show comments cookies opt-in checkbox, allowing comment author cookies to be set": This option lets users choose whether they want to save their name and email address in a cookie. If you use the checkbox, users will have to actively decide to save this information.
3. Other Comment Settings:
- These settings control the global behavior of comments on your website.
- "Users must be registered and logged in to comment": Checking this box will only allow logged-in users to comment, which reduces the amount of spam and makes it easier to manage. However, this may also reduce engagement from readers who don’t want to create an account. You should use this wisely based on your audience’s preference.
- "Users must have a previously approved comment": Enabling this will automatically approve comments from those who have had a comment approved previously, helping to build a trusted base of commentators. You may want to enable this if you have a more trusted group of commentators.
- "Comment author must fill out name and email": Require commenters to enter their name and email. While this doesn't stop all spam, it does help to reduce some automated spam submissions. This option should usually be enabled, unless you want to make commenting very easy to do.
- "Comment author must also have a verified email address": Requiring that users verify email addresses before they post can further reduce the likelihood of spam comments. This will require users to go through another step, however, so you should only enable this if you’re having issues with a lot of spam.
- "Enable threaded (nested) comments [number] levels deep": This setting enables users to reply to each other's comments and will determine how deeply threaded (nested) replies are allowed. Enabling this can increase the user discussion and engagement, as people can directly reply to each other and create longer threads.
- "Break comments into pages with [number] top level comments per page": If you expect a large amount of comments, breaking comments into pages improves site speed and improves overall usability. If you get few comments per page, it’s not necessary to use this feature.

4. Email Me Whenever:
- "Anyone posts a comment": Choose whether to receive email notifications when someone posts a comment, which can be very helpful in monitoring and responding to comments quickly. If you are actively managing your comment system, this can be very helpful.
- "A comment is held for moderation": You will also receive a notification if a comment is being held for moderation, which you should usually have enabled. This allows you to check and approve those comments manually.

5. Before a Comment Appears:
- "Comment must be manually approved": This is the most powerful spam-fighting tool. When enabled, you need to manually approve each comment before it’s displayed on your site. This is a great way to ensure all the comments are constructive and high quality, and that spammers and offensive comments do not get through.
- "Comment author must have a previously approved comment": If you enable this in addition to manual approval, you will only need to review comments from new commenters, as all returning commenters will be automatically approved. This greatly reduces the effort of manually moderating every comment.

6. Comment Moderation:
- This section allows you to add specific words, URLs, or names that will automatically place comments into moderation.
- "Hold a comment in the queue if it contains [number] or more links": Enable this to filter out comments that are mostly links and potentially spam. A good practice is to set a low number like two links or more.
- "When a comment contains any of these words in its content, author name, URL, email, IP, or User Agent, it will be held in the moderation queue": Use the textarea to insert keywords, URLs, IP addresses, etc. If the comment uses any of these specified words, URLs, or IPs it will be put in the moderation queue for manual approval.

7. Comment Blacklist:
- "When a comment contains any of these words in its content, author name, URL, email, IP, or User Agent, it will be marked as spam": This section is similar to Comment Moderation but comments here are treated as spam and they will not be published at all and be marked as junk comments instead, to reduce even having to review these comments.
- You can use the textarea to insert keywords, URLs, IP addresses etc. that you do not want on your website. When a comment includes anything mentioned here it will be automatically marked as spam.
8. Avatar Display:
- Choose to show user avatars (profile images) next to the comments. You can choose default avatars and enable Gravatar to show registered users’ images if you want. Showing profile images provides a more personal user experience.
9. Using Plugins:
- Akismet: This is a popular plugin that will automatically filter out spam comments by using the Akismet service to detect spam from global user data. It is highly recommended.
- Other Anti-spam Plugins: There are several other anti-spam plugins you can use that use different techniques to combat comment spam.

Examples of Configuration:
- A typical small blog might configure the comment settings to require the author to have a verified email, comment must be manually approved, and all links over two should go into moderation. They will also use Akismet to automatically handle a large amount of spam.
- A large community forum might configure comments to allow nested comments up to three levels, require registration and a previous approved comment, but all comments will have to go through moderation first as well. They also use a large blacklist with spam keywords, names, URLs etc. to further prevent spam content.

By carefully configuring comment settings you can balance spam reduction with user engagement, creating an environment that promotes healthy discussion, feedback, and a sense of community on your website. Regular monitoring and updating of these settings, along with the use of relevant plugins, will keep your website clean and enjoyable for users.