After Gutenberg

While I have complained repeatedly about trackback failing to work for either my Movable Type or WordPress weblog, trackback spam has flooded other sites recently. Some discouraged webloggers have decided to disable the trackback function altogether.

Solonor Rasareth points to instructions by Paolo Ordoveza on how to ensure that trackback functionality is shutdown for your Movable Type weblog.

I also have commented on other (actually, not on #3) recent proposals for how to deal with trackback spam, to include:

1. the no follow approach
2. PingLinks
3. Tagback

There is considerable discussion as to whether trackback should be considered dead. As one pundit has put it,

“We can put up any impediment, and the link-spammers will simply cruise their Jag down to their scenic-view corner-office, push a few keys and escalate.”

The developers of trackback at Six Apart have been noticeably quiet on the subject, although at least one independent MT developer, Phil Ringalda, has accused Six Apart of killing their own creation.

Where I thought TrackBack shone was as an unembarrassing way of leaving a comment that says “Hey, I said something about this too, over here.” By turning that awkward bit of self-promotion into something technological, and slightly less personal and needy, TrackBack opened up a way to let interested readers follow more of a cross-blog thread. But because they wanted to let TrackBack be anything, not just what it was, and because (I think, based on some really wide open sloppy holes at the start) they didn’t really think about the potential for abuse at all, it’s wound up being pretty much meaningless.

In any case, it might be advisable to wait and see what develops. Will it be possible for developers to maintain some ability for weblogs to provide a means to converse rather than soliloquize.

So, if it’s broke, then don’t fix it… just yet.

A bit later…
Solly is trying some of the different options, e.g., Wouldya Lookit That!.