Blacklist *worked* for me, but I was still having to go through and delete the spam comments. Now, I have a plug-in that requires a preview before posting, and there are some other hacks that Kathy Kinsley set up that are sort of like the blacklist. I haven't had a spam comment since she set them up.

The rebuilding thing really seals the deal for me. I couldn't bear to make a change to my layouts because I'd have to wade through a rebuild session of over 2,000 pages. No such problems now.

Yeah, I can see how the WP preview would prevent automated spamming. However, I guess Blacklist is growing enough that very little is now getting past it. On average, I have to delete only about five comments per week.

I've also got only half as many posts as you, so rebuilding isn't as bothersome for me. But I can see how it will eventually get to that point. I can't figure out why WP should be more efficient at that, however; they're both rebuilding mySQL databases, aren't they?

It could be that PHP is just faster than PERL at the same task. I don't know enough about either language to know for sure.

I'm a modified B2 user meself. B2 is like the proto-WP (wordpress is based on it - I'm sure you're already aware of that). The "modified" part is about (at this point) a zillion of my own hacks

But what I've seen of Wordpress, and what I know of B2 - it's pretty impressive software. PHP and opensource - can't go wrong with that.

Oh, about rebuilding. I know nothing of MT, but when it comes to WordPress, the front-page (what shows up when the user goes to your blog) is simply built dynamically every time the page is viewed. So older, archived posts aren't ever rendered (rebuilt isn't the right term) unless they are looked at.

For instance, on Thinklings, if you want to look at one of the archived posts it renders it just the same as the current posts - by extracting the post content (and comments if specified) from the database and rendering it based on your template, skins, etc.

Not sure if that makes sense.

Bill is right. With MT, at least as I understood it, changes you made to your template, for instance, would have to be "rebuilt" on every one of the individual entry archives, which is why you had to "rebuilt" when you edited a post, for instance, or made a template change.

Here's some further explanation of the dynamic vs. static, as well as other features of WP.
http://wordpress.org/about/features/

Now, from what I understand, the newer version of MT has some sort of workaround for dynamic content.

Bill, that makes sense. I suspected the answer was going to be along those lines.

I think what that means is that you can't FTP onto a server hosting a WP blog and see the archived posts, either individually or by category/date. That would obviously free up a bunch of server space. However, it also might complicate archiving for backup purposes, although I assume WP has a built-in tool for doing this.

I'm guessing the server load is heavier for a WP blog, but the difference probably isn't discernible (unless you're, say, Glenn Reynolds! ;-)

As one of the MT users who have made the jump to WP, I love WP.

My only concern when deciding to change is my total ignorance of PHP. I could safely mess around with MT because it was basically HTML, but I am too frightened to try and give my blog a really distinct look because I am afraid I am going to blow something up by accident. I am trying though.

The newest version of MT (last time I looked) gives you the choice of dynamic pages and static pages, but of course you will have to shell out a few bucks.

Part of my main reason for switching was the spam. MT-Blacklist was failing me totally. I started getting quite a few spam at the WP blog but I made a few very simple changes and I haven't had any for quite some time. *Knocks on cyber-wood*

Christopher, you really shouldn't be intimidated by PHP. For one thing, all the PHP code is doing is pulling data from the database and placing into those good old standby HTML tags. PHP is just the "wrapper" around those tags, like PERL is the wrapper around HTML tags in CGI apps like email forms and such.

Having said that, I'm not responsible if you succed in blowing something up! ;-)

I know WP is the flavor of the day, but don't everyone go and forget good ol' Nucleus (and its cousin blogCMS).

Nucleus is a little weak in comment management, but its templating system is FAR superior to WordPress. You really do need to know some php if you want to tinker and do much with the stock WP template. Not true with Nucleus -- an MT or GreyMatter user should "get" the templating system fairly quickly.

As for backups, Eric -- backing up the mySQL database is your WP or Nucleus equivalent of ftp'ing in and downloading all those static files MT generates. On a control panel driven server, often that backup is about a two-click procedure. If you have shell access, it's not much more complicated (some might say it's easier).