Nothing automatically becomes the linkblog. The only reason blog 4 is the linkblog upon installation is because that's how the installer sets it up. If you delete blog 4 then you have no linkblog, but, each blog can have it's own linkblog. For example I once ran a blog where blogN always had blogN+1 as it's linkblog (2 had 3, 4 had 5, etcetera...).

As to deleting a number: wipe out blogN and it will be gone forever - the numbers don't get recycled. Thus if you have 5 blogs and delete number 4 and number 5 the next one created will be number 6.

Okay, so what I've done is swapped two of the blogs around in the admin panel. I made the default linkblog into the third blog, and I've made a new blog which I want to use as a linkblog:

blog ALL <-- unused
blog A <-- first blog
blog B <-- second blog
default linkblog <-- is now the third blog
new blog <-- is going to be used as a linkblog

However, the third blog seems to be different because by default there are no trackbacks being listed, so it seems that what is, by default, the linkblog, is using a different template. I'm not sure how to change it so it appears the same as the default blogA and blogB.

Also, not sure if this has any bearing on any answers that might be offered, but in the admin panel, I currently have each blog set to "Use as default linkblog -> NONE" because I'm not planning to actually run the linkblog yet.

jj.

That is a subtle difference in how the installer sets up blogs versus the default status for a new blog you create. The installer is over-riding the default settings. An example is that all the blogs had names and descriptions and stuff when you installed the program, but creating a new blog gives very generic names and descriptions and stuff.

The only way to make it so that each newly created blog comes up with trackbacks checked (or pinging each of the pingables or any other condition you'd rather change) is to go to your database and change the default values for the appropriate field in the appropriate table.

I don't have the names of the fields in front of me but they're somewhat intuitive. I use phpmyadmin for all this sort of stuff, so if you go in there and look at the evo_blogs table you will find a field named something like "blog_trackback" that probably has a default of "0". Change it to a "1" and all future blogs will default to the new condition.

Not using a linkblog on all your blogs won't change what happens when you create a new blog. BTW that's another field in the evo_blogs table: which blog ID to use as your linkblog. I think the default there is "0" which equates to "none" in the back office.

Thanks, that was extremely informative and helps to clear up some of the backend issues of how everything comes together, which I'm still trying to get a grasp on. Festina lente, I guess.

jj.