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July 12, 2006
Trouble with Trackbacks
Sigh. I'm again trying to figure out what in the world to do about trackbacks. (If that's Greek to you, stop reading--this won't be very interesting.)
When I began this blog, I accepted trackbacks. The only trackbacks I got back then were, well, unsavory: pornography, mortgage, poker, and so on. It's not that I can't remove them, just that it takes more time to monitor the trackbacks and the spam responses (about similar topics) than I have to offer. So I decided not to allow them.
When the blogswap began, I decided it was time to revisit that decision. Now, less than a week later, after finding somre really offensive material attached to this blog, I'm revisiting it again. No more trackbacks, period--that is, unless Movable Type has a tool I'm not currently using to manage them better.
So, my sincere apologies if you inadvertantly followed one of those links (they should be down by now) and sincere thanks to Amitai for calling this out.
Posted by davidkippen at July 12, 2006 01:31 PM
Comments
Well thanks for clearing that up for me. Trackbacks are still a mystery to me. When I saw that some of my posts were collecting trackbacks, I took that to indicate people were reading and linking. Then I found the trackbacks were going to thinks such as recipes, gardening equipment, but nothing as colorful as yours. I wasn't aware we could edit them out.
When the blog swap began, there was a little more education into their use but they're still mysterious territory. It took about 1.5 hours to handle that part of posting Frank Mulligan's contribution on the first week.
I read somewhere that trackbacks are supposed to add value to the blog or increase its visibility or something. If what you and I have experienced are the payoffs for them, maybe it's time to abandon their use, at least for the blog swap. Who has the time?
Posted by: Yvonne LaRose at July 16, 2006 08:56 AM
Honestly, they're kind of a mystery to me, too. I understand how they're supposed to work quite well but I can't understand why there aren't good filters out there (now somebody will correct me that there indeed are) that can filter out key words like...well, the kind of key words you'd want filtered out. So I'm with you, Yvonne: I'm done with them.
Posted by: David Kippen at July 19, 2006 03:07 AM
Honestly, they're kind of a mystery to me, too. I understand how they're supposed to work quite well but I can't understand why there aren't good filters out there (now somebody will correct me that there indeed are) that can filter out key words like...well, the kind of key words you'd want filtered out. So I'm with you, Yvonne: I'm done with them.
Posted by: David Kippen at July 19, 2006 03:25 AM