Selfish TrackBacks
Posted May 18th, 2003 @ 03:04pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I'm going to call posting a TrackBack to someone's site but not actually linking to their site a "Selfish TrackBack." If it has a name somewhere already, I apologize for not knowing it. Case in point: this article at Rob Watkins.me.uk. He posted a TrackBack to one of my articles - effectively "making my site link to him," but could not extend the same courtesy by linking to my site in the article.
Perhaps it was an oversight and one he'll correct, and I've left a comment alerting him of this, but nearly 5-10% of my TrackBacks are "Selfish" these days. It's getting annoying.
Donate Life
Posted 18 May 2003 at 4:04pm #
I think I've done that once. I wasn't really aware it was bad, that is, I was trackbacking to you in the same spirit that I would leave a comment, not in the sense that I was really talking about the same thing as you. I do see how it could be taken the other way though.
Posted 18 May 2003 at 4:17pm #
Really, though, I use MT's trackback discover feature. So, it looks through the links in my post and trackbacks to those posts. This results in all of my trackbacks being non-selfish. Of course, this is really me being lazy 😛
Posted 18 May 2003 at 4:33pm #
Yeah, that's pretty much contrary to the whole point of trackbacks. Definitely bad form...
Posted 18 May 2003 at 5:01pm #
I really don't get trackbacks. I understand the pinging to get recognition at pub. time, and I understand that it can be useful to continue the 'discussion', but I don't see why I need 10k of TB info on every page.
All of my TBs are on the entries themselves. This whole TB scheme seems like something of limited usefulness, unless y'all know of some way of leveraging it for greater interconnectedness?
Posted 18 May 2003 at 5:15pm #
Eli, what are you talking about, "10k of TB info on every page"?
i greatly appreciate receiving a TrackBack just as I appreciate getting comments. I like to blog in part because I like to think out loud, and engage others in conversation. If someone links to me, ostensibly because they've said "I agree" or "I disagree" or whatever, then that's part of the conversation. A TrackBack thus allows me - and anyone else "following" the conversation - to see what others have said just as if they'd left a comment. In effect, they have - it's just on their blog and not mine.
Posted 18 May 2003 at 5:24pm #
I have edited my post to link you on it, probably forgot as I was using the MT interface to post and not w.blogger. I don't TB that much anyway, but it seemed apt in this situation. Have edited my post and linked you in the relevant section anyway :-).
Posted 19 May 2003 at 4:33am #
My humble apologies — I did this just the other day, regarding the 'edit page' links. The worst part was, I left a comment pointing to the same post I pinged you from — and I should know better than that! Can I claim momentary insanity (stupidity)? 😉
Now, off to find a wet noodle to flog myself with…