All,
I seldom write code for myself. Ok, that's not true. I write code for fun so it is almost always for me. What is true is that I seldom use code I write. I often wonder who has found code I have written helpful and how they are using it. It would be nice if I could get a /msg anytime myself or one of my nodes is referenced (trackback).

I did some research and found a couple of nodes on the topic (Node trackbacks? & Proposal: A "Cited/Linked by" list). They are not exactly what I was looking for but it seems I am not the only one thinking about this.

Setting aside the technical issues outlined by GrandFather and chromatic, is this a pipe dream or a possibility?

Cheers - L~R

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Trackbacks Revisited
by eric256 (Parson) on Jan 29, 2008 at 20:58 UTC

    I like it! ;)

    Couldn't it be as simple as adding a table with two columns, source node id, destination node id and then any time a node is updated, parse out id:// and get a list of nodes it references, then update the reference table?

    Then we could have some UI stuff added that show links from this node, and links to this node.


    ___________
    Eric Hodges
Re: Trackbacks Revisited
by kyle (Abbot) on Jan 29, 2008 at 22:23 UTC

    I like this idea, but I might want an exception made for self-references. I don't really want to get a notification when I refer to myself (ideally, I already know about the reference and don't need notification). Another way to say this is that I think the reference counter should avoid cycles.

Re: Trackbacks Revisited
by ambrus (Abbot) on Jan 30, 2008 at 07:20 UTC

    So you want that someone (even AM) can send thousands of messages to monks by just a single http request?

      ambrus,
      The user isn't the one sending the message, the system would be. Presumably, spam detection and throttling would be part of a solution to prevent this sort of thing. Perhaps only those who have selected "notify me when someone links to one of my nodes" in their user settings would get such messages.

      It is important to flesh out the technical hurdles. I am more interested what the gods and devils have to say with regards to the chances of something like this happening at all.

      Cheers - L~R

      That could be easily addressed in at least 3 ways. Only apply references to approved nodes, only allow X references per node, default to not sending a message when a new reference is created. I think some combination of those would stop most attempts to use this as spam.


      ___________
      Eric Hodges