This is a gap in the current system. Comments are used for things other than pure comments. There is a type field, but not the sort of registration you get with posts, taxonomies, etc.
Comments don't have a staatus, they have Approved, which is overloaded as status now.
The steps to address were outlined a while ago. Comment type for comment, which is an empty string, needs to be moved to type "comment", which requires some migration.
Registration functions need to be built, and any place with hardcoded comment functionality needs to be switched to use the registration system.
Same with approved being used as a true status.
Good idea. There seem to be a lot of comment related requests...
Building a better system for people to build on top of is the best way to address it.
Related: https://github.com/calmPress/calmpress/issues/170#issuecomment-435193493
@David is this something that could be addressed as a plugin first? I would strongly recommend starting that way if possible, that way we can iterate there and recommend the plugin for testing.
If you'd like to put something up on GitHub under the ClassicPress name, let me know and I'll create a repository for it.
ClassicPress/custom-comment-types
is one idea for the name.In order to be considered for merge into ClassicPress core, the plugin should have excellent automated test coverage and consistent code style.
N.B. We've created https://github.com/ClassicPress-research for this purpose, so this repository would live there instead.
This is a hard one due backcompat. Specifically, when WordPress identified it, they determined that a breaker issue is that the comment comment type(default) is an empty string and would need to be converted to type 'comment' as a migration.
But I could spec it out I suppose.