Comments on: Trackback to Guide Beginners

Trackback to Guide Beginners

cbrody — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:35:08 -0800

Beginner's guide to trackback. Old news to most here, but with even Radio Userland now implementing the technology, trackback has the potential to be another kind of spam, with gratuitous self-links popping up all over the place. When everyone can blog, will the Blogosphere be the next victim of Usenet's neverending September? Whether providing "community support" or "publishing tool", how long before popular bloggers are forced to implement Bayesian trackback filters?

By: cbrody

cbrody — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:36:08 -0800

Or you could just turn it off.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 02:41:35 -0800

(I don't mean to derail, but I just wanted to say that the first snarkier-than-thou mefite who pops in to say how sick they are of the neologism 'blogosphere' gets a smack in the back of the head. Thank you.)

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 03:03:12 -0800

I don't know. I use TrackBack once in a while, but it's rare, and only when I think I actually have a valid topic, which could be open to disagreement.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 03:05:42 -0800

Oh, and I've not got an issue with 'blogosphere' per se. I guess it's as good a term as any. ducks for good measure

By: costas

costas — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 05:22:43 -0800

Trackback is a good first attempt at "closing the loop" between different web content systems. However, it is too restricted IMHO: limited to text only, and open to everybody that talks TB --i.e. the receivers are wired to accept everything from everybody. I think TB 2.0 could and should do more to hasten the arrival of the semantic web. Blatant self-plug: my newsbot uses TB to add-back information to a user's weblog. I think it's a decent first step, but it's hitting the limits of TB itself...

By: JollyWanker

JollyWanker — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 06:45:17 -0800

cbrody: how long before popular bloggers are forced to implement Bayesian trackback filters? And here I thought Irony was Dead... The much touted democratization of publishing leaves some A-list Cabal members wringing their hands over the traffic increase when people do actually link to them? And how did the "popular" bloggers get to be popular in the first place - what's the definition of "popular blogger"? (To be fair to somebody whose blog I do occasionally read because (1) he writes about OS X and (2) he can actually write, linking to Rael Dornfest like that without any annotation seems to imply that you think Rael's doing something to filter out Trackback traffic; I don't see anything there that indicates that and wonder what made you draw that conclusion?) (Oh, and stav, "blogosphere" isn't any worse than the root, "blog," which I continue to believe is the single most cringe-inducing invention of the Internet Age, an age notable for introducing cringe-worthy buzzwords...

By: scarabic

scarabic — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 10:31:23 -0800

Yea, TB, as the unfortunate initials suggest, is a plague.

By: cbrody

cbrody — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 10:59:03 -0800

JollyWanker, that sentence can be read two ways. Try reading it the other way (the first link in the full sentence gives a clue.) Re costas' comment, I agree. Trackback makes the previously one-way web two ways, and opens up new possibilitites for interconnectivity.

By: djwudi

djwudi — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:41:19 -0800

Speaking of TrackBack and spam (and gratuitous self-linking), I got TBSpammed yesterday. By a Greek port authority, no less. Why? No clue. Of course, the solution was easy enough. Delete. *poof*

By: costas

costas — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:49:55 -0800

djwudi: the coincidence is too much, since I live in Thessaloniki... I am sure the spam is probably from a compromised machine, knowing the state of IT in most state organizations in Greece --unfortunately Greek hackers are more up-to-date... There should be a corollary to that Asimov (or was it Clarke?) truism: "every communications technology advance enough is inundated with spam". If the Echo/Atom/whatever people get their act together about a uniform weblog posting standard I am sure you'll see spam on weblog comments as well. Right now, most forums are only protected by security-through-obscurity or paid full-time sysadmins...