And of course, Ben of MovableType is not unaware of Pingback:

In current implementations of TrackBack, the user sending the ping must take some action: either by selecting the post he wishes to send a TrackBack ping to via a pulldown menu, or by retrieving the ping URL and pasting it into the entry form. And yes, we agree on the point that transparency is the ultimate goal*.

But note the emphasis on "current implementations"--there is nothing inherent in TrackBack that would prevent an implementation from making it completely transparent.

Interesting. Let's see where he goes with this. He does raise a concern with more automation though:

* (I do worry slightly about the impact of content management systems fetching and scanning every external link in an entry to determine if it's ping-able. But that's not really the issue.)

Hmm - I suppose if a site gets heavily referred to, that's a double-Slashdot-effect? And this investigative process has the potential to add more overhead to the publishing process. But.. hmm, until I see some convincing ConsideredHarmful arguments, I think the flow producing qualities of this sort of thing are worth it.

shortname=ooobic