In My Experience... | TrackBack Pings = Comments? I guess so. (3574)

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TrackBack Pings = Comments? I guess so.
[ Posted by Dan on February 03, 2003 | 9 Comments ]

In a short discussion about TrackBack pings being displayed JC said...

I wonder if it might be worthwhile (or even possible) to combine comments and TrackBack... if someone does a TrackBack on your post to display it in line in the comments, as if it were also a comment, which, in a way, it is.

To which Adam replied...

I agree, TrackBacks are comments and should be displayed as such.

Stop! Consider the context. In the redesign, I'll be providing a place for people without regard to any articles or categories (well, ok, I've made a category called 'Ping Me' so that people can ping it). I had this idea before LazyWeb came along, and there's some discourse on the merits of what I'm trying to do as opposed to the LazyWeb meme. I'm hoping folks like Josh, Milbertus, Josh (a different one), Adam, Paul and JC will ping the category when ever they post to their sites. That's better than simply linking to their sites. But who knows if people will use it.

Now, those TrackBack pings won't have the same referential (semantic?) value as a comment on a particular post, however, TrackBack pings on individual posts will (and perhaps should be shown inline like normal comments). Same technology, two vaguely different applications there of. We'll see how that works out. :)

I agree that TrackBacks aren't always comments, but when they are in the context of an entry, they usually are.

I'm using TrackBac to maintain the "Powered by" sidebar on http://mtamazon.sf.net/. There are lots of other applications where TrackBack is used and has nothing at all to do with an entry or a comment.

-Posted by Adam Kalsey on February 3, 2003 08:06 PM

I alwo agree that I need to stop starting comments with "I agree."

-Posted by Adam Kalsey on February 3, 2003 08:07 PM

Heh. Please be more disagreeable as your 'agreeableness' makes being at this site un-annoying making it less, 'internet like.'

heh

-Posted by Dan on February 4, 2003 08:45 AM

Well, you're really talking about two very different animals here. Maybe you need a different name for a site-ping.

-Posted by jc on February 5, 2003 09:29 AM

Yeah, it's in how you name stuff. I'll be attempting to better label things as I implement the new design.

-Posted by Dan on February 5, 2003 09:39 AM

Your "site ping" is really more of a targeted link to the site. It would take be more incentive for someone to follow the link of they get a preview of what they're going to see - the site link will give them this. A normal link wouldn't, so this could theoritcally get more traffic going to people who ping your site.

-Posted by milbertus on February 5, 2003 10:15 PM

Hmm... actually, it's a bit like a mini-syndication, isn't it? Except instead of syndicating all posts, you're only syndicating the ones people feel are particularly targeted for your particular audience.
And if that's stating the obvious, I apologize, I've ingested a bit more than the recommended daily dosage of caffiene for a herd of african elephants in the last hour. Vacuum pots (http://www.harioglass.com/taste/mcoffe.htm) are your very very very good friend.

-Posted by jc on February 5, 2003 11:54 PM

I am exactly in line with JC's view that it's mini syndication, and that's what I'm going for in the redesign.

-Posted by Dan on February 6, 2003 09:31 AM

ia/ tried this a while ago, but then removed it because the site is practically a news aggregator in itself:
http://iaslash.org/node.php?id=7031

It will be an interesting experiment for a regular blog. I'm anxious to see how it works.

-Posted by Joshua Kaufman on February 6, 2003 11:27 AM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).