This blog’s back up again, but the spammers are still hitting my MT comments file, according to my web stats log files.
I’ve just blocked several more IP addresses, all coming from Nevada / Las Vegas. I apologise if there are really people from that state trying to read my blog, but in one day I don’t expect thousands of pageviews from people in that part of the US, unless it was an automated attack.
Which leads to another point: After years of using MovableType and endorsing it, I feel like moving to WordPress.
Why? Here are my pros:
**Time.** I simply don’t have the time to upgrade MT every time a new version comes out. Whereas with WordPress, I can go to my Cpanel and automatically upgrade it without having to upload any new files.
**Comments mess.** I think it was a mistake for me to switch, midway, to the new Typepad comments system. My old comments are still in my database, while the new comments are stored over at Typepad. It’s neither here nor there.
**Comment spamming**, even with a built-in blacklister, is still hitting my site hard. I wouldn’t mind switching to a PHP platform instead of having my Perl/CGI comments file attacked all the time and causing my websites to be inaccessible…
**Familiarity.** I am familiar enough with WordPress, having used it at work and toyed with it at home for years. It’s reliable, responsive, and has the power of the crowds behind it. I loved MT, but somewhere along the way it lost momentum and became all big and corporatised. I used to donate to it when it was still free. Then later I realised I needed to pay more to get professional help.
And as a long-time user I haven’t felt like I belong to a special “MT community”. I used to feel that way in the early 2000s, but not anymore.
Cons:
**Databases.** I don’t like the idea of WordPress requiring 1 database per blog. I have quite a few blogs on this platform. Which means I need to set up 1 database. Troublesome, but not entirely difficult to do; it just creates some inertia.
**Design.** I stuck with MT because I was familiar with how the templates worked. But that was a few years ago when things were more straightforward and I was more into hard coding. Now it makes less difference if I switched to WordPress. Plus, there are many more WordPress templates than MT ones, which tend to look pretty similar to each other.
Obviously I am writing of the top of my head, because I don’t have time (nor much interest) to dig through technical details anymore. If I’m wrong on any points, let me know. Basically I want something that gives me the least trouble and is the easiest to set up and update.
In the meantime I’m getting on with my job search, homework, travel plans and the big move to Fonty.