Jeremy Zawodny is ready to disable his TrackBacks support. The stasndard arguments apply—consumer bewilderment and spam—and Jeremy cites them by linking to others' arguments. there's some good opposition to his finality in the comments, which he doesn't plan to disable, as far as I know. Personally, I think TrackBacks foster self-promotion more than dialogue. Spam aside, linking offsite to follow the conversation is just too disruptive.
Zawodny Killing His TrackBacks
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. The self-promotional aspect of it is absolutely true, I've never seen trackbacks used in any other way. Lance's desire to "own" his response doesn't need a dedicated mechanism -- comment briefly and then include a link to your blog, if such ownership is truly important. Trackbacks, unlike comments, needlessly fragment discussion.
Posted at 4:46AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Kevin Bjorke
1. "TrackBacks foster self-promotion more than dialogue" - true, but TrackBack also fosters ownership. If I'm just making an offhand comment (such as this one) I'm likely to just leave a comment (such as this one). But if I'm going to make any sort of involved, complicated, or verbose comment, I'll blog it myself and send a Trackback. In that case *I* own the comment.
Posted at 4:46AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Lance Lavandowska