WILLisms.com: In Defense Of Trackbacks.

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In Defense Of Trackbacks.

A terse defense of the trackback feature:

Dean's World is considering taking away the trackback feature from his blog, due to an overload of trackback spam ("over a hundred trackback spams a day").

We would urge him not to do it. Trackbacks are a crucial part of the blogging experience. They allow blogs to communicate in a community-type setting. They make it easy to follow a "conversation" on a topic. It is a very real shame that Powerline, for example, once had trackbacks but now doesn't. It seems like there could be a software solution to the problem.

We would urge all bloggers to keep their trackbacks enabled. If there is an abundance of spam, change the software, but keep the trackbacks.

UPDATE:

Outside the Beltway agrees: trackbacks are important.

Also, the main thing that can really be irritating about trackbacks is people who send a trackback ping with no actual link. That's tacky and unclassy and lame. But that's a whole different matter from trackback spam.

Posted by Will Franklin · 8 April 2005 12:29 AM

Comments

I haven't seen a prank smashed with such ferocity and swift since me and my buddies tinkered with 2-liter coke bottle bombs in highschool.

Man, was that stupid.

Posted by: Hoodlumman at April 8, 2005 10:12 AM

What blogging engine does he use? I have Wordpress with a few select plugins. Despite up to 2000 attempted comment spams a day, none gets through. I have all trackbacks sent to moderation so trackback spam is dealt with very quickly. "Mass Edit Mode, Invert Checkbox selection, delete all marked, repeat as necessary."

Posted by: Korgmeister at April 10, 2005 10:24 PM

Hey Will,
You know I'm just effing with you with all the trackbacks...I won't be offended if you delete the excess ones! ;-)

For the record, I completely agree - blogs without trackbacks are frustrating, but blogs without comments just plain piss me off. And comment registration (other than Typekey) is a complete pain in the ass. How many UID/passwords should anyone have to keep track of--especially since email addresses do change at times!

Posted by: Beth at April 12, 2005 01:06 PM