I’ve been debating back and forth with myself about whether or not to send TrackBack pings to sites I link to on eXtremities. My interpretation of TrackBack is this: it lets you read other posts inspired by the one you’re currently reading or written about a similar topic. The other interpretation is that it lets every page contain links to every page linking to it. I don’t think the second version is very useful. What I want in reading a TrackBack is more information or thoughts about a topic. Otherwise following a ping to my linklog just gives you a page linking back to where you found it. Great if you want to click in circles all day, but not very constructive.
My inclination is to only send TrackBack pings when I have something to say about a post, not just whenever I link to one.
Daring Fireball has a lot to say about this. My feeling is that lists of referrers are interesting but not altogether useful, whereas TrackBacks would be used to provide easy extra reading material on a topic. In that vein I almost think people should delete incoming TrackBack pings that don’t have anything but a link in them.