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11 November 2005 12 Comments

Textpattern and Trackbacks

To me, trackbacks are critical for blogging. Textpattern does not agree with me though. That is the reason I left Textpattern. According to Textpatterns FAQ:

Q.

Does Textpattern support Trackback or Pingback?
A.

No.

We investigated the possibility of supporting Trackback, and concluded that it simply can�t be done securely. Trackback is an open invitation to spam.

It would be relatively easy for someone to develop a Trackback plugin. There appears to be very little demand, however.

Apparently they aren’t looking in the right place because almost every blogger I know uses Trackback. Frankly, I thought about going back to Textpattern a few weeks ago but soundly rejected that notion in my own mind by revisiting the Trackback/Pinback issue.

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12 Responses to “Textpattern and Trackbacks”

  1. Vinnie Garcia 12 November 2005 at 7:44 am #

    I’ve been on textpattern for 8 months now and honestly I don’t miss Trackback at all. Sure I might get one or two less links but it’s not that big a deal, and I haven’t had to deal with comment/trackback spam at all since I installed it, which I think says a lot.

  2. Vinnie Garcia 12 November 2005 at 8:44 am #

    I’ve been on textpattern for 8 months now and honestly I don’t miss Trackback at all. Sure I might get one or two less links but it’s not that big a deal, and I haven’t had to deal with comment/trackback spam at all since I installed it, which I think says a lot.

  3. Aaron Brazell 12 November 2005 at 2:11 pm #

    Well, to be honest, I did a sample migration from WP to Textpattern and some 3000 spam comments were turned into published content. I would have to rewrite the import script and I just don’t feel like doing that.

  4. Aaron Brazell 12 November 2005 at 3:11 pm #

    Well, to be honest, I did a sample migration from WP to Textpattern and some 3000 spam comments were turned into published content. I would have to rewrite the import script and I just don’t feel like doing that.

  5. Stuart 13 November 2005 at 12:32 pm #

    I know that this exists but my German isn’t brilliant so I’ve never actually tried it.

  6. Stuart 13 November 2005 at 1:32 pm #

    I know that this exists but my German isn’t brilliant so I’ve never actually tried it.

  7. Alex 13 November 2005 at 5:18 pm #

    “All the captcha in the world won’t fix Trackback.” – Matthew Mullenweg

    Trackback and Pingback are open invitations to spam. There is no way to fix them, they are broken by design. (WP relies on post-hoc whack-a-mole games like keyword filtering to cut down on trackback spam; it’s expensive, inefficient, and error-prone).

    When a better replacement comes along, we’ll look at implementing it in Textpattern. Until then, as I wrote in the FAQ, there’s nothing stopping someone creating a plugin.

  8. Alex 13 November 2005 at 6:18 pm #

    “All the captcha in the world won’t fix Trackback.” – Matthew Mullenweg

    Trackback and Pingback are open invitations to spam. There is no way to fix them, they are broken by design. (WP relies on post-hoc whack-a-mole games like keyword filtering to cut down on trackback spam; it’s expensive, inefficient, and error-prone).

    When a better replacement comes along, we’ll look at implementing it in Textpattern. Until then, as I wrote in the FAQ, there’s nothing stopping someone creating a plugin.

  9. Aaron 13 November 2005 at 6:14 pm #

    Options, options, my dear Alex. I want to make the choice for myself. Please don’t make the decision for me. This is not socialism.

  10. Aaron 13 November 2005 at 7:14 pm #

    Options, options, my dear Alex. I want to make the choice for myself. Please don’t make the decision for me. This is not socialism.

  11. aldahlia 22 March 2006 at 1:50 am #

    Is it really appropriate to pull the socialism card when complaining about FREE software?

  12. aldahlia 22 March 2006 at 1:50 am #

    Is it really appropriate to pull the socialism card when complaining about FREE software?