Trackback Etiquette

February 22, 2004 10:36 AM

Trackback etiquitte- is it considered bad taste to make a trackback on your personal blog to an FPP you posted? I was going to TB to the Nader thread I made earlier on my site but I'm not sure if this would be considered TB spamming and/or self-linking.
posted by XQUZYPHYR to Etiquette/Policy at 10:36 AM (11 comments total)

Don't see why it would be, I've done it before a couple of times IIRC and no-one complained. I think as long as the link to your site is not in the main post itself, then it's fine.
posted by adrianhon at 10:52 AM on February 22, 2004

My intuition says to link to it so that your blog's readers can find it, but perhaps not using the trackback mechanism in that particular case.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:34 AM on February 22, 2004

I wouldn't have a problem with anyone else doing it, but whenever I post something to both metafilter and my own weblog, I don't cross reference either way.
posted by nthdegx at 1:05 PM on February 22, 2004

I don't think it's a problem really, I wouldn't do it it the things you posted were exactly the same, but otherwise it seems like it would be ok. If you're saying something different, or including more conversation of your own on your own blog then I think trackback is appropriate, as it should link to other places on the net where people are talking about the same thing.
posted by rhyax at 2:38 PM on February 22, 2004

I thought that was precisely how trackback was intended to be used.
posted by mischief at 4:02 PM on February 22, 2004

If you make a post on your site about the mefi post, it would seem appropriate. Doing it just to get visitors from mefi is kind of slightly abusing it, no?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:41 PM on February 22, 2004

Trackback autodiscovery always pings the thread when I point at something and stick a [via] in there. I reckon that's fine. Sometimes I point to a particularly good thread itself. That's also OK, in my humble.

My take : when trackback is a consequence of you saying 'hey, looky here!' it's good. If it's you saying 'come look at me!' it's not, so much.

Or, what mathowie said.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:26 PM on February 22, 2004

Extending XQ's question, for what purpose then is trackback intended?
posted by mischief at 7:56 PM on February 22, 2004

It's a dessert topping and a floorwax, mischief!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:22 PM on February 22, 2004

Well, hey, that explains everything! Thanks, stav! ;-P
posted by mischief at 6:53 AM on February 23, 2004

Since I can just as easily click on the user's name and then immediately go to his website that way, the added trackback seems both redundant and harmless. Or stated in verse:

Users will read what they will
and pass on what they will ignore.
Thus it has been since the first
and so it shall be evermore.

Trochaic tetrameter, no less!
posted by vraxoin at 1:38 PM on February 23, 2004