The Problem With Pingbacks

John Scalzi

Small housekeeping note: In the last couple of days it’s become clear that “pingbacks” — notifications from other sites that they are linking to posts here — are being used for spam purposes, so I have disabled the ability for pingbacks to be displayed. What does this mean for you, the faithful reader of the site? Almost nothing, as legit pingbacks were very rare in any event. But for those of you who noticed the spammy pingbacks, this is me letting you know they’ve been dealt with.

— JS

8 Comments on “The Problem With Pingbacks”

  1. “The Spammy Pingbacks” is the name of my new TechnoBebop all-kazoo bluegrass band.

  2. For Bob Dye above said: Me too.

    I guess the web is something new under the sun, but human nature is not new. Maybe we were always doomed to spam, trolls and social disinformation media.

    Somebody once said the world economically works by incentives, that all else is just preaching. You’re on your own with that one.

  3. Yeah, disabled these for my clients as well. Too much spam and click bait type ping backs.

    WordPress has some cool features that the current security situation on the internet make useless.

    Hope the rest is all good :)

  4. I appreciate our host fixing all the problems before we even notice them. If only he served more tangible refreshments. :)

  5. Thank you. Truly, I’m not interested in investing in electronic currency, supporting random pages, or purchasing sure-fire-get-rich-NOW video infomercials for my personal library (act now, get 2-for-1 for an additional processing and shipping fee, which exceeds the cost of the original product).. Currently, I’m enjoying a ping-less Summertime banana-ice cream-whipped cream Burrito. Have a nice week.

%d bloggers like this: