I pointed to Daring Fireball’s Trackback critique, but I didn’t comment. On the Internet, if I don’t do it, someone else will, and this article did. It’s a very well thought-out response.

To summarize: John Gruber’s criticisms of TrackBack are valid, but his referrer system has its own problems. It trades increased ease on the sending side for lower quality on the receiving side.

To improve TrackBack, it should be made easier. I don’t see why all comment forms on sites with TrackBack couldn’t be changed into combined comment/TrackBack forms. TrackBack would almost disappear to the web surfer; it would just be Remote Comments.

I hope to find a way on my own site to integrate comments with static main pages. (I have a few ideas.)