This is blog stuff, so if you don't care, skip to the next post.
It appears as part of their site redesign, the Powerline guys have eliminated trackbacks. (For the uninitiated, a trackback sends a link to another person's post to show that you've commented on what they've written about.)
Boo! Hiss! Bah!
No comments and no trackbacks? Not very friendly.
I've noticed a lot of Blogspot blogs also don't have trackback. Harvey at Bad Example explains adding the trackback function to your site for various blog software including blogger. If you blog and don't already have trackback, go there to figure it out. You'll like it.
Update: Captain Ed has more on the trackback spam problem MT blogs are experiencing.
Update 12:35: WILLisms has been following this issue all over the blogospere and makes a great point.
For emerging blogs, trackbacks are crucial for cultivating a base of readers, then occasionally reminding those readers visiting the larger blogs to "come home."
But trackbacks have a more important purpose. They allow blogs to engage in "conversation" about ideas, letting people discover new perspectives outside the entrenched mainstream of blogs. And make no mistake, as blogs become increasingly mainstream, without interactive tools such as trackbacks, there will be a handful of mainstream blogs, much like the mainstream media, that set the agenda on their own.
In short: Save the trackbacks!
Trackbacks take me all over the place in blogland... I love WILLisms.com because his trackbacks take me places I would have never known to go to! That is how I got here. I don't have my own blog. I get most all my news from blogs because I can't stomach the main stream media!
Posted by: Zsa zsa | April 18, 2005 at 12:35 PM
Yeah, MT trackback spam is annoying, but if it gets to be a serious problem, there's always the option of shutting off MT trackbacks & using Haloscan. You lose the autodiscovery feature, but as far as I know, Haloscan isn't targeted by spammers (yet).
On the other hand, it looks like Kevin of Wizbang has found an MT hack to put trackbacks in a cue for posts more than two weeks old:
http://wizbangblog.com/archives/005697.php
Posted by: Harvey | April 18, 2005 at 06:09 PM
Hi there!
Me again! Thanks for the mail. That made me feel good! That was sweet of you! I really do use trackbacks! It is fun to get on your favorite blogs and go! WILLisms.com and Townhall.com have my favorite news! Usually WILLisms.com has interesting trackback places to take me... I really hope you all continue as long as it is not too much trouble! . . . Thanks again...
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