use_ratings - should this type use the rating system (not functional now) ?
show_pre_publ - should articles of this type be shown on the View Articles page prior to their publication date ?
show_post_expire - should articles of this type be shown on the View Articles page after their expiration date ?
heading_only - show only the heading, never the body of the article
allow_comments - allow comments for this type ?
show_image - should topic images be shown on the View Articles page ?
show_avatar - should avatar of the creator be shown on the View Articles page (not functional) ?
show_author - should the author name be shown on the View Articles page ?
show_pubdate - should the publication date be shown on the View Articles page ?
show_expdate - should the expiration date be shown on the View Articles page ?
show_reads - should the numer of article reads be shown on the View Articles page ?
show_size - should the article's body size be shown on the View Articles page ?
Discussion/participation
This started with me wanting to add a new article type with an expiration date for "events". After hard-coding those changes, I realized that other types were desirable as well. For example, Classifieds would be considered articles with no body and bounded with both start and stop times.
Moving the types into a database table gives the admin the ability to create new types without mucking with the php code.