Textpattern and Trackbacks

by Aaron Brazell on November 11, 2005 · 12 comments

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.

{ 12 comments }

1 Vinnie Garcia November 12, 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 November 12, 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 November 12, 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 November 12, 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 November 13, 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 November 13, 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 November 13, 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 November 13, 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 November 13, 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 November 13, 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 March 22, 2006 at 1:50 am

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

12 aldahlia March 22, 2006 at 1:50 am

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

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