Note that these are really configuration recipes, code changes are considered 'developer talk' and should be restricted to the forums.

Problem: I don't want people to comment on my archived entries.

Solution: Two things.
1) Disable in configs and Rebuild site.
2) Alter Entry Archive templates so that {{entryform}} is not displayed. Note that removing the template does not prevent someone from maliciously submitting a comment (its tricky but possible).

Discussion: GreyMatter will check the configuration file to see if comments should be allowed, even if the form isn't present on the html page. That means that a hacker cannot try and post comments if you have them turned off. Note that if you turn off comments but do not rebuild your files you will still see the comment form displayed.

Problem: I would like to get a better search engine rank.

Solution: Put the {{entrysubject}} field in the <title> header of the entry pages--that way each blog subject is listed on the page so the search engines can see it. It works well for Google--might be a good idea to include that as the default config in the new version.

Discussion: Something should go here.

Problem: Why doesn't banning by ip seem to be very effective?

Solution: Try to see if you can find commonanlity in the various i.p.s and you may be able to ban a range of them. For example if you noticed that you have already banned ips 10.0.0.12 and 10.0.0.19 you could enter into the Banlist 10.0.0.1 and you would ban 10.0.0.10 - 19. However, you may be banning legitimate viewers of your site.

Additionally you may feel certain goegraphic regions do not need to see your site, all arguments aside, if you lookup the i.p.s and see the 90% of your spammers are coming from say, Indonesia, you could ban the range of i.p.s that correspond to that group. Try doing a google search for more information about i.p. and global goegraphic location.

Discussion: We are at the mercy of the webserver to tell us the i.p. of the request (through the REMOTE_HOST environment variable. However, the webserver can be 'fooled' and given a bad i.p. (google: ip spoofing) also those users that use dialup or non-premium dsl/cable usually do not have a static i.p. (companies love to charge for this convienence). This means that banning by ip is usually ineffective to prevent spammers, but can usually be usefull against nuisance users (most work places will be using static i.p.s) and if you notice a patter you could ban a range of i.p.s.