[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #32653: Improve Linkback Presentation

[WordPress Trac]

#32653: Improve Linkback Presentation
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 Reporter:  dshanske          |      Owner:
     Type:  enhancement       |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal            |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Pings/Trackbacks  |    Version:
 Severity:  normal            |   Keywords:
  Focuses:                    |
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 The current default presentation for linkbacks(pingbacks and trackbacks)
 does not encourage their use. Currently,the presentation looks something
 like this:

 […] A pingback example. […]

 People have complained that the utility of linkbacks has been overshadowed
 by their use as a vector for DDOS attacks and spam.

 The recent improvements to Press This show we can do better in
 presentation of linked content.

 The pingback specification is a bit vague in terms of presentation
 suggestions, stating: "Bob's blog also retrieves other data required from
 the content of Alice's new post, such as the page title, an extract of the
 page content surrounding the link to Bob's post, any attributes indicating
 which language the page is in, and so forth."

 I am proposing by default we switch to a default with improved readability
 and more consistent with the user experience on other websites.

 For example, a basic linkback should display the author/site name, the
 name of the linked content, etc, rather than the summary, and that
 information stored as comment meta. This would look more like a citation.

 That display could be (optionally) progressively enhanced by other
 factors, for example, page markup such as MicroFormats, Microdata, or
 OpenGraph(popularized by Facebook), etc to add a better experience if the
 linked site supports it.

 The basic point is that linkbacks are unusable by people in their current
 form, but the idea of letting people know you linked to their content is a
 good one. It encourages conversation and interaction. I think we just need
 to make it a better experience. Otherwise, everyone just turns it off.

 I'm aware the above could be done by a plugin(and may start as a 'feature'
 plugin), however I think the basic structure of this change belongs in
 core.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/32653>
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