Would it be possible to get trackbacks turned back on?

April 3, 2005 1:21 PM

Would it be possible to get trackbacks turned back on at some point? Also, a small bug: existing trackbacks have disappeared. I'm not sure whether that happened when trackbacks were initially disabled or when the comment-closing feature was added, but they're all gone.
posted by monju_bosatsu to feature requests at 1:21 PM (12 comments total)

Isn't trackback just a persistent url? All posts and comments have those.
posted by orthogonality at 1:36 PM on April 3, 2005

Not exactly. Prior to March 17, 2004, if you wrote an entry on your blog referencing the url of the post, a trackback to your entry would appear below the comment box on the post page. Matt disabled the trackback functionality when some joker embedded a Rod Stewart midi in his trackback. I was just hoping that we might get that feature back at some point.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:45 PM on April 3, 2005

Trackback is prone to so much spam and gaming that I would honestly have to spend a full week (40 hrs) rewriting the trackback system, and I'd just rather not spend my time that way. It was nice to see new blogs talking about posts every once in a while, but it wasn't a killer feature in my opinion overall. I see more and more people turning it off on their blogs, so I think its use is on the decline.
posted by mathowie at 2:48 PM on April 3, 2005

What about just including a link somewhere on the page to a technorati search for that url? Something like this after the timestamp: pings
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:10 PM on April 3, 2005

Of course, I guess I could just use the technorati bookmarklet.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:51 PM on April 3, 2005

That's too bad; I would really like to see trackbacks turned back on at some point, if it's possible.
posted by gd779 at 5:21 PM on April 3, 2005

Most of the spam I get is trackback spam; I don't blame Matt if he'd rather avoid that particular mess, however much I myself would like to see trackback functionality restored.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:33 PM on April 3, 2005

Hey monju, at least you got an answer!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:40 PM on April 3, 2005

Yeah, but was it the best answer? Maybe if we had a feature where people could link the best answer to their MeTa query and then people could click it to go directly there?

*prepares to be sent to burn in hell*
posted by dg at 10:04 PM on April 3, 2005

Would it be possible to get trackbacks turned back on at some point?

If you want my body and you think I'm sexy....
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 11:32 PM on April 3, 2005

if(you like my body) && (you think i'm sexy) {
...
}
posted by quonsar at 5:33 AM on April 4, 2005

I didn't do it
posted by angry modem at 7:12 PM on April 4, 2005