Posted 2:13 PM by Robert

Continuing the discussion...

... in an echo chamber?

"Trackback" is a sometimes thing. It is supposed to identify the URL's of sites that have linked to a particular post. But the function often seems not to work. Most bloggers don't have "Trackback" - including this one. [Anyone who links to this blog and would like a back-link is invited to send an e-mail to that effect.]

In some cases the "Trackback" workings seem a tad mysterious. Brad DeLong's "Trackback," for example, seems to only reveal the URL's of sites that have linked to his posts and had nice things to say about them. Now, that would be high technology, wouldn't it? Curiously, the Good Professor's Website Policy makes no mention of his blocking unfavorable links (unlike his adamant insistence that accusations of Nazism be polite accusations of Nazism). So it appears his readers are suppose to trust him that no such blocking is going on. And I, for one, want to go on record as firmly believing that the Good Professor wouldn't do something so, well, misleading and petty to the readers who trust him and who he values and respects in his own way.

Now of all the total of twenty-six posts currently on Professor Delong's blog - posts that run from "Doug Besharov on Welfare Reform" to "When Filtering Algorithms Attack!" exactly three are revealed to be linked by some other site in the "Trackback" - all of those links adoring.

Life is good!