Trackback is Dead. Are Comments Dead Too?
Tom Coates,
PlastigBag,
Apr 27, 2005
Without saying "I told you so" let me ponder for a moment where we go from here. Trackback and comments are suffering for the same reason: they provide a means to allow spammers to put their content on your site (the same is true of spam email, expect their content goes into your inbox). So how do we address this? First of all, it seems to me, is that we need to change the location of the comment. If I make a comment on your site, where should my comment go? On my site. Yes, my site, even if I used a comment box on your site to make the comment. How do we do that? Ah - therein lies the trick. Your site need to know somehow where my site is located. Which means that my browser needs some way to tell it, some way to say "My comments go 'here'". If we can get that functionality (any volunteers? ideas?) we can stop the spam problem dead in its tracks. OK, so now my comment is on my website. How does your website know that I've made the comment. It harvests it and - since we've included a 'replyto' element in our RSS item - associates it with the original post. You, of course, don't harvest from everybody in the world (that would defeat the purpose). You only harvest from your friends (as defined in, say, your FOAF file). My comment makes it to your website if - and only if - there is a chain of social contact between me and you. And so we get the other half of the equation - social networking with a purpose. And, may I say it, this is the semantic social network. (Now that I've given this away I can just hear the rush of parasites lawyers to the patent office).
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