Under Reading:
Since you should be using a theme, most of the settings in “Reading” are already taken care of. However, if you are not using an advanced theme, this is where you can set your home page to display either a static page that you specify, or your latest posts.
Under Discussion:
This is where you control if and how people comment on your blog posts. You can control if they must be signed in first to comment, or if you want to hold a comment for moderation before it gets published. You can also set a “blacklist” of words to prevent certain comments from being published. Be sure to also get akismet.com if you allow commenting, to prevent spam.
Finally, you can chose whether or not to include “Avatars.” Gravatar is a type of Avatar that puts a little profile photo beside a person’s blog comment. In the “Discussion” area you can chose to have these Avatars or not.
