Hide comments entirely except for a set of users in my membership site.

Hi @drenglishadam,

Thank you for your interest in wpDiscuz and for contacting us.

I'm really sorry, but wpDiscuz doesn't have such feature. 

If you're a developer you can do it using the following wpDiscuz shortcode:  

function my_wpdiscuz_shortcode() {
  if (file_exists(ABSPATH . 'wp-content/plugins/wpdiscuz/templates/comment/comment-form.php')) {
      ob_start();
      include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-content/plugins/wpdiscuz/templates/comment/comment-form.php';
      return ob_get_clean();
  }
}

add_shortcode('wpdiscuz_comments', 'my_wpdiscuz_shortcode');

Thanks! so is it possible to install the plugin but disable it so it doesn't appear on every page and just use this code when appropriate?

Hi @drenglishadam,

Please let us know would you prefer to disable the whole commenting part for non-members or you'd like display comment WordPress commenting form for these members?  

I prefer to disable the whole commenting part for non members

@drenglishadam,

You should use some additional code for this purpose. Something like the following one I'm providing below: 

$user = wp_get_current_user();
   if ( in_array( 'subscriber', (array) $user->roles ) ) {
       comments_template();
}

In this example, the comment section is disabled for the subscriber user role. 

Thank you so much! 

Just to confirm, this extra code enables or disabled it for subscribers?

@drenglishadam,

The code I've provided is disabled the commenting for subscribers.