Tag: Wordpress woes

There is an option available on my editing page, next to “Allow Comments,” that says “Allow Ping-backs and Trackbacks.” Sometimes a perverse spirit tries to tempt me into clicking that. I am deterred by the thought that if I click that option, WordPress will accuse me of “writing code” and something terrible will happen to this blog. All I know about writing code is that I must never do it. Oh, brother–what would happen if I accidentally clicked “Allow Pingbacks and Trackbacks” instead of “Allow Comments”? (He shudders.)

I’ve looked up “pingbacks,” but nothing that I’ve read has given me an understanding of what a pingback is. My wife tried, this morning, to read me an instructional post about pingbacks, but I kept getting hopelessly lost, two sentences into it. “Something terrible will happen if I try it,” I said. Eventually she agreed.

So there are no Ping-backs here, let alone Trackbacks, nor are there ever likely to be any. For all I know, a Ping-back will result in microscopic blue type on a grey background, virtually invisible. Or it might cause the rest of my hair to fall out. Unlike Elfego Baca, this blog does not have nine lives. So I have to be careful with the only one it’s got.