Tread lightly on the things of earth

I admit I've been thick-headed about it, but I've finally made progress at understanding TrackBack. Here's my attempt at explaining TrackBack to a friend.

A preliminary detail: If TrackBack is turned on in a blog's config, every blog entry is automatically assigned a TrackBack URL as it's saved. That TrackBack URL is easy to determine by clicking the TrackBack link in the entry. For example, the TrackBack URL for this entry is http://maikimo.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/180.

1. Create a new entry in your weblog having to do with, say, your learning to understand TrackBack.
2. In your new entry's "URLs to Ping" field, paste my "TrackBack, Jack" entry's TrackBack URL (immediately above), then save your entry.
3. Then observe the result at my "TrackBack, Jack" weblog entry.

The result is a snippet of related discussion from each weblog that has pinged the original entry, kind of a "meeting of the minds" on the original entry's page.

Looked at another way, doing a TrackBack ping is like a supercomment; that is, a comment is for making a small isolated contribution to someone's blog entry, whereas a TrackBack ping is like making a comment so important you created your own blog entry for it.

BTW, any "too much trouble" objection disappears if in your blog's Blog Config > Preferences you've selected "Turn on TrackBack auto-discovery," because then step 2 is automatic if you've linked to my entry anywhere in yours.

(I know this is an incomplete understanding of TrackBack, but it's a start. Further clarification welcome.)

See also here and here from the MovableType Support Forum.