(Based on a comment that I left on Adam’s Blog–although this is a greatly expanded version).

The debate continues in the ‘Sphere over the usage of open trackback parties/posts. Basically we are talking about (as best as I can tell) situations in which Blog A links to Blog B (and Blog C, D, E and F) not because Blog A happened to see something on Blog B of note, or that was relevant to something written on Blog A, but because blogs A, B and so forth have agreed to link to one another. The post on Blog A may have nothing to do with the post of Blog B. Indeed, it is likely that the posts on the various blogs have nothing to do with one another.

This has caused some consternation in the Blogosphere because these types of inter-linkfests have the effect of boosting the TTLB ratings of the blogs engaged in the interlinking (in a way that can be interpreted as jobbing the system–or, at least, violating the spirit of the concept of interlinking). This has caused NZ Bear to alter the way the EcoSystem scans inline trackbacks and have even made him consider recalibrating the way the system counts links.

(BTW, for the record: I think that a link should be a link, should be a link).

The objection to the trackback party concept is simply this: the trackbacks/links from one post to the next have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. I normally have ignored the trackback party links in a given post, but this morning I jumped from my place to Florida Masochist who linked to a story about next-generation DVDs. His post did deal with that topic, and I noticed a series of links at the bottom of the post, so I decided to see what the linked post at Don Surber’s site was about. It was about Paris Hilton. I then hit the link to Adam’s Blog, to find a generic discussion of open trackback posts.

Now, all well and good, and everyone should be able to link as they wish–however, it seems to me this kind of linking violates the basic concept of the trackback–that the reason one sends a trackback in the first place is because one has posted something of similar content on one’s own blog and one wants the author of the post (and the readers of that post) that there is more conversation on the same topic at the other end of the trackback.

As it is, when I see a list of links at the bottom of a post that I know to be there simply to create links, I normally don’t click them because I know that they aren’t going to take me to another part of the same conversation. If I wanted to surf blogs to see what might be out there, I would rather click on a blogroll.

Note: the reason I went to the Florida Masochist was because he had linked to me and sent a trackback. I always go to sites that trackback me, because I want to know what their take is on either what I have written or on the topic about which my post was based. This strikes me as the purpose of interlinking and trackbacking–that nifty idea in the Blogosphere that interlinked posts form a kind of conversation. If, however, the interlinked posts have nothing to do with one another, that isn’t much of a conversation.

(And yes, you know you are an incurable blogger when you care about stuff like this).