Building Trackback into plasticbag.org...
A few days ago I wrote a post on trackback and how incomprehensible it was. And then I got two or three more people to explain it to me and it turns out I understood it all along. The reason I was so dumbfounded was that it seemed like such an unlikely and ungainly solution. It was almost as if someone had written documentation for the process of 'Opening a can of beans with a banana'. You understand the objective (you must open the can of beans), you understand what a banana is (yellow, pointy, looks a bit like a winkie) and you understand what a can is (tuna and beans come in them). And yet when you try to bring all three elements together, fundamental connections just don't seem to be being made...
Anyway - the concept is now firmly embedded in my psyche. And just like everyone else with trackback enabled, I have been thinking about how to show off my new functionality and how proud of it I am. So where to start? As with any other design process you try to work out what the thing that you're trying to design actually is. And that's when the shock bit happens - you realise that trackback is an automation of the process of saying, "So and so is talking about this post!". That's all. Nothing more. And you realise that when you write those words on your site, you never consider it to be something that consitutes a discrete kind of technology at all. In fact, it's not anything different from the stuff you normally post...
This interests me a lot. It seems like the way we've come to build trackback into the our sites works on the principle - first and foremost - that for the purposes of the weblog reader it does constitute something additional - value- / functionality-added. But it's not! In fact the only reason we're segregating it from the body of our posts is because it's got a different name. Most of my site is comprised of 'includes' of one kind or another, but I never feel the need to draw attention to that fact. And I don't think one should do that with trackback either.
So here's how it's going to work. This site is totally Trackback enabled (or at least I hope it is - I haven't tested it very much yet). But you won't see a trackback URL for hand-pinging anywhere - if you can see it operating - if you can see the gears spinning - then as far as I'm concerned, the design has failed. Every trackback ping will be presented as if it were part of the post it's linking to rather than an appended piece of information. And that's not just on the individual post's page, but also on the index page of plasticbag.org itself. Obviously this places restrictions on the amount of information that I can display wiithout de-emphasising the rest of the content too heavily, but I think its the best approach.
And the best thing? Hopefully you'll never see the word 'trackback' on this site again...
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
You probably should update your archive templates to show the trackback entries, instead of just the main index page. Otherwise the trackback links aren't available to anyone who goes directly to the entry, and disappear entirely once the post "scrolls off" the main page.
→ Posted by: Liz at January 29, 2003 9:21 PM
Which templates are you talking about Liz? As some of you have probably already noticed, the monthly archives aren't really working properly yet. Or they're working properly but they're not in the relevant templates yet. But the trackback pings should be visible on this page...
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at January 29, 2003 10:41 PM
Now you're talking! It's weird, but you were also right when you wrote your first impressions about trackback, because while it was only a generic routine link in the bottom of every post, its purpose was pratically invisible. when you open the door and let the content show itself, gotcha. it hardly seems what it was as a single trackback link.
→ Posted by: nando at January 30, 2003 12:02 AM
If you go into the templates page in mt management, you'll see the list of index templates, and below that, a list of archive templates. If you select the "Individual Entry Archive" template, you can add the same code to it that you did on the main index template.
→ Posted by: Liz at January 30, 2003 12:08 AM
Ah...but just noticed that you've already done it. :-)
Never mind...
→ Posted by: Liz at January 30, 2003 12:09 AM
What's the URL I must ping to trackback your post?
→ Posted by: JoeyT at January 30, 2003 1:10 AM
Hmm, I kind of like how you arranged the Trackbacks, Tom -- less clicking and thinking for the reader.
→ Posted by: Mark at January 30, 2003 5:49 AM
Joey - I think the point of what I'm saying is that I'm not going to put that URL publically on the site anywhere. You can use auto-discovery and then that should work. Or alternatively you can dig around in the search code and try and find it if you want...
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at January 30, 2003 9:31 AM
It's a very nice implementation of Trackback - looks nice and minimal. I'm not sure I like getting rid of the Trackback URL though. Yes, it's ugly and dumb but some people use it and it seems that you're making Trackback less useful just so it's a bit prettier.
→ Posted by: Phil at January 30, 2003 10:09 AM
In fact, it now occurs to me that the Trackback link could/should be hidden behind a link, rather than printed in full all ugly-like on the page. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this sooner... I'll do it on my sites when I get a moment. I guess the downside is that hordes of people who don't understand Trackback might try clicking the link, which will do nothing...
→ Posted by: Phil at January 30, 2003 10:12 AM
But won't that take you just to a page with an error message? There don't really seem to be any good implementations at the moment that don't have some kind of cost associated with them. My feeling is that this is one of those circumstances where the prototype implementation gains ground and becomes established when it just shouldn't. Trackback becomes a complete (albeit clunky) thing - complete unto itself - with auto-discovery.
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at January 30, 2003 11:13 AM
Yes, auto-discovery is the only and perfect answer to Tom's concept. JoeyT: I've tried to ping the post permalink and it didn't work, you got to set auto-discovery on. I'm thinking maybe it would be nice to put a box in the blog telling the blog is full trackback enabled but you have to set auto-discovery on. Tom: thanks for you idea, I'm starting using (and testing) your solution on my blog.
→ Posted by: nando at January 30, 2003 11:33 AM
I'm with Nando: there needs to be some sort of indication that trackback is there, and not everyone will want to turn autodiscovery on... I've ended up setting my site to display any trackbacks at the end of the post, but left a trackback link in place for people who need the url. which is a bit of a mess...
→ Posted by: Jack at January 30, 2003 4:09 PM
Here you can leave your mark
→ Posted by: cherly at July 6, 2006 5:10 AM