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I'm poking around in some MT settings (trying to figure out why my blog doesn't get spam any more, since the MT4 upgrade, but Vardibidian's does), and I came across a couple of semi-cryptic field names in the MT database. Searching online for those field names yielded info about what they mean, but only indirectly.

So as a public service to anyone else who may be looking for this info, I figured I would mention here what they mean. If you're not searching for MT database field names, this entry is probably irrelevant to you.

The cryptic fields:

blog_server_offset

Time zone offset, which explains why the numbers are negative. Note to database designers: if your field designates a time zone, please name it something like "time zone" or "tz." Naming it "server offset" does not clearly indicate that it has something to do with time zones.

blog_status_default

Default publishing status for new entries: 1 for unpublished, 2 for published, 3 or maybe 4 for scheduled (I'm a little unclear on the details). Here, again, naming it something like "blog_entry_status_default" or "blog_publishing_status_default" might have made it a little easier to figure out what it refers to.

I briefly considered documenting the rest of the fields here, too, but I think most of them have fairly self-explanatory names, especially if you compare them to the GUI controls in the MT settings pages.