[xrd]

At first, I didn't get it. Pingbacks, isn't that from the 90s?

Then, I thought: does this mean the bar for joining a conversation on my publication is that you have to publish something too?

That seems like a nice bar to set for asking both parties in a conversation to be fully engaged. Trolls seem like they will be too lazy to do that.

[wiml]

Right, this is effectively an updated version of pingbacks (pingbacks from ca. 2000, webmention from ca. 2010). See last month's HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26258557

[52-6F-62]

Which is closer to how opinion and editorial columns operate in traditional/print publications.

General reader responses are curated into a "Letters to the Editor" section, whereas the real discussion tended to happen between columnists in their respective columns.

That in contrast to what seems to be the popular misunderstanding—that columnists' opinion columns are summaries of an entire publication's political and philosophical stance.

[hashkb]

I think modern TV news has eroded all trust that organizations can have more than one opinion / host a civil debate. It's prudent now to assume every news organization has an agenda, no matter how it (says it) conducts itself.

[52-6F-62]

I was pretty explicitly discussing print.

But it's not new for an outlet to have a general agenda. That was virtually always the case. I'm without a doubt that the agenda of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine has an agenda in bolstering the niche railroad model industry.

Thankfully, again, editorial rooms are not monoliths. They are ever-changing. The brand and the voice are respected and all attempts are made to remain consistent within that until any major direction changes are decided upon (again, not a dictated decision, but generally one with communal input from various sides of the publication). Don't mistake an image for the summary of ideas published anywhere.

It's also important to mind that a single publication may group several related ideas into an avenue and publish to speak for that larger avenue.

Working within the industry I have my critiques... but these kinds are unceasing, yet as inaccurate every time.

It's a terribly cynical method of assessment to attribute the basest, worst traits of an individual to a large and varied group. (It would also be inaccurate because no individual inherits the traits of the class by default excepting critiques of the medium itself which I don't gather is the problem in this case)

[hashkb]

I know. My point is that TV news is so bad that people don't trust the NYT because they assume everyone there is also essentially a Fox News host.

[giantrobot]

If a show has a host rather than an anchor(s) it's an opinion/editorial show.

[yaml-ops-guy]

Which is how it's been seemingly forever (or at least the age of the television), but I think media literacy and its pedagogy-beyond kind of vague notions of what the "news" is has failed a generation of this distinction, and many more important and built-in nuances of mass media communications.

Not helping matters was the lightswitch flip to 24-hour news and the blurred line between news and "news".

-A J-School grad turned engineer.

[slightwinder]

Pingbacks come from the blogging-world. Originally the concept started with traceback in 2002 and evolved over time. It basically is a mean to create a kind of decentralized conversation where each persons response is hosted on their personal space, instead of a central one. Because of this communications are far slower and smaller, compared to a forum or services like twitter. But they are also usually more focused and of higher quality, because responses tend to be full fledged articles, written to an uninformed audience, instead of some direct responsing text-barf.

[javajosh]

Implies an interesting lower bound to on-boarding friction, especially for anonymous services. Counter-intuitive, but clearly a thing.

[leephillips]

Exactly. This kind of thing encourages substantive conversations.

[xpe]

It seems to me it requires some technical setup. I have no illusions that such things correspond with substantive conversations.

[leephillips]

I don’t see why the necessity for setting things up means that the system would not encourage a better style of online conversation. Especially if services are developed for less technically adept people.