[wp-trac] Re: [WordPress Trac] #3205: WordPress tries to pingback itself when editing article linking to other on same site

[WordPress Trac]

#3205: WordPress tries to pingback itself when editing article linking to other on
same site
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 Reporter:  david72   |        Owner:  anonymous
     Type:  defect    |       Status:  reopened 
 Priority:  low       |    Milestone:           
Component:  General   |      Version:  2.0.4    
 Severity:  minor     |   Resolution:           
 Keywords:  pingback  |  
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Changes (by david72):

  * resolution:  wontfix =>
  * status:  closed => reopened

Comment:

 OK, I accept that this is a feature that more advanced users may find
 useful. :)
 (And thanks for acknowledging that this was not a bug or cracking
 attempt.)

 However, I think it would be useful if the fact that WordPress pingsback
 itself, and would therefore cause these mysterious comments to appear,
 were documented somewhere in the new user documentation (even a brief
 explanatory note in the control panel). As a fairly new user of WordPress,
 I was genuinely puzzled and somewhat alarmed by this behaviour until I
 worked out what seemed to be happening. People new to blog software (who
 probably don't even know what trackbacks and pingbacks are, and that
 included me until recently) shouldn't encounter "nasty surprises" until
 they become more experienced and actually start hacking at their WordPress
 setup properly! WordPress is a very user- and novice- friendly piece of
 software, so this does come as a genuine unexpected surprise to the
 unwary.

 I would like to reiterate my suggestion that, if the pingback structure
 allows such metadata to be carried, the fact that these "mysterious
 comments" *are* pingbacks should be made very clear to the user when
 entering the comment moderation control panel, as new users are unable to
 recognise what a pingback looks like. As I said, from their brief and
 cryptic appearance, seemingly sampling snippets of my articles, at first I
 genuinely feared they were some kind of automated comment spam or crack
 attempt, as there was nothing to indicate their genuinely non-malevolent
 nature or that they were pingbacks.

 I forgot to note in my initial report that I had disabled commenting
 entirely, and I would cordially suggest that in this case, attempting to
 self-pingback is, if not a bug, at least an undesired feature (as the site
 admin has clearly specified that they don't want to receive *any*
 comments), although perhaps it is not possible for the pingback mechanism
 to be aware that the site does not accept comments at all before
 attempting to send?

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Ticket URL: <http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3205>
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