"In its misguided efforts, it has destroyed the community that it sought to create." Well put! Very comprehensive and well written piece. In the end it is always about money isn't it?
dreadpal
· 1 year ago
Very thoughtful and detailed post. I've never found the Digg "management" to be overly concerned about democratization, but rather, they are frequently heavy-handed. Their "irreversible" decisions seem to suggest that the management is autocratic and considers their "business model," such as it is, to be the final word in social media. As you point out, there are a number of flaws in the original idea, and one wonders how these guys plan to keep growing. As for users "gaming" the system, it's likely the Digg folks were for it before they were against it. After all, Digging your friends' posts tends to increase traffic to the site, which was likely what they wanted until they built up the critical mass. Now, as you indicate, maybe the avant-garde are a bit too avant for a mainstream buyer/investor. It'll be interesting to see what unfolds over the next few weeks and months.
Chris Hoolley
· 1 year ago
Nice article. Since digg is killing their web, and now you're gonna get banned (like I did, and I wasn't even close to a power user or digg gamer) I stumble thumbed this one :-)
blah
· 1 year ago
Oh please. Whether digg is broken or not is not the question, the question is if people are knowingly, intentionally gaming the algo. And if there is reasonable proof beyond doubt that they are doing it. They should be banned, and that should go for everyone, regardless of their status as a digger. I am one of the top 100 users,a nd i just registered couple of months ago (sometime this year), and that's how easy it is to be a top user, by using scripts. When I first started using digg, I was advised that get your submission promoted the best thing to do is to use greasemonkey scripts, and these are advices from top diggers (I won't give any names). These so-called "top-digger" makes use amount of money by submitting client's website. I always did it and still do for the fun of it and occasionally promoting my own blog.
I was banned once because of script. I honestly didnt know at that time that script was against the TOS, I thought it was needed for a better user experience. Anyways I got my account back after requesting for it. since them I removed all of my greasemonkey scripts and the firefox add-ons. I realized I don't need those bullshit, i love digg too much to screw around with them, and I enjoy being a digger with my current account and I would like it to stay that way.
There is absolutely no justification for people to still using scripts specially after digg made announcements about it twice, if they do they deserve to be banned.
Okay maybe I will give a name... :) Specifically look for user profile of "sirpopper" Registered April 2008, 58,000 diggs 5000 submissions, tell me this is not a scam! :)
Oh did you know top user participate in group burrying submissions by twitter and IM so that their own submission has better chance of making it to the frontpage?
Erin
· 1 year ago
Very well-written and great points made in this post. I think you get to the underlying problems that many people have with Digg. My one disagreement, and note that I have only been a Digg member since earlier this year, is that I spend an average of 7 hours on Digg everyday, and have yet to get a story onto the home page. Therefore, I get somewhat disgruntled when I read about users that are "most committed." But that aside, well done.
Anrkist
· 1 year ago
I'm a bit conflicted on the matter. On one hand you want everyone to get a fair shake but on the other, if you start banning your top users... how does that give others the motivation to try harder, they will eventually get banned themselves. I don't think people should try and circumvent the rules set in places by the site though. You can say that many of these top diggers are what made the site, you can make that claim but how do we know the site would not be just as popular or more-so had the "democracy" of the little people panned out?
When all is said and done, they can't really bitch about being banned, they broke the rules.
Melanie
· 1 year ago
Disclosure - I am a Digg user (or tried to be) who HAS been banned. Before posting a single comment or digging a single story. I created an account last week, and tried to log into it later, only to find it was kapoot. I got an email back from their support (after some doing) stating that it was related to the IP it was created from. Which was a public coffeeshop. Which I informed them of, and haven't heard back.
A lot of effort to try to use a site I never even got a chance to try. :/
Steve
· 1 year ago
Yelp does something similar. They pull people's reviews from businesses. In some cases, after Yelp has contacted that business trying to sell them advertising with no success.
Pete Cashmore
· 1 year ago
Incredibly detailed and well-phrased - thanks David!
Jim Gaudet
· 1 year ago
That's why I have moved to Mixx. Come on over...Let's get the traffic built up so that it is bigger that Digg.
cornelius
· 1 year ago
I think it's wrong when you are dilling with a site that has been built on the user, and it was and still is, I think all the user need some respect. diggs point just made someone track slow down, made some hard working people lose a lot of quility links to there site, and like the saying time is money, online links is money
LP
· 1 year ago
You ignore the rumors coming out that top Diggers were being paid $700 to digg a story with an additional $500 if the story made the front page. Again, these were rumors and who knows if they are true or who was involved. But considering this made the whole Digg system less credible in my eyes.
If the rumors are true, it makes the banning of a few power users who might be profiting off the system more understandable.
Dainis Graveris
· 1 year ago
I wasn't there , when Digg just launched - huge thanks for this great article! Explained many things and I think digg should release their own scripts maybe to create the site more usable. Bad thing that digg do not assess top user high meaning.
Mark Drapeau
· 1 year ago
Great article. Good journalism.
Joel Strellner
· 1 year ago
I remember watching that show originally, and I felt it was kind of shady of Kevin that he did not disclose that Digg was his.
Watch that clip you posted above again, there was no place that he even implied that it could be his, his comments made it sound like a third party company that he wasn't involved with.
And by the way, there are companies working on properly crowd-sourcing, Twitturly, is one of them. We can already see exactly what is popular (without any of the gaming issues Digg faces), we are now just trying to find the best way to categorize and present the information. You'll probably hear more on how we are going to do that when we release it.
Juan Carlo RodrÃguez
· 1 year ago
Wow Dave! Excellent journalism! This kinda convinced me not to join Digg; think I'll hold on to StumbleUpon. Congratulations!
pcgenome
· 1 year ago
Thumbs up for a great article
I have been banned from Digg twice in the past month and a half. The first time took place right after i tried a script that apparently conformed with Diggs API. I read the reviews and figured it was worth trying. I used it once to shout a random story to 30 of my friends. The following morning I was banned permanently. I had been fairly active on Digg prior to my ban (5000 diggs, 400 comments 32 submissions and 200 mutual friends in half a year of membership) so naturally I was horrified to learn that I did not exist anymore. Digg support replied to my pleadings with two responses that generally amounted to a cold shouldered "F#$k Off" I started a new user account and made damn sure I removed the script that got me banned in the first place. I was so paranoid that I made a point of checking out any submission before Digging it. One month later and about 450 diggs into my new account I was banned again. This time I was informed of my egregious abuse of the Digg TOS. I tried to find out what that meant because I had done nothing that to my knowledge amounted to TOS violations. I felt betrayed twice over by someone I felt close to. I sent Digg support screen shots of my firefox addon list to show them it was empty and asked at the very least to know what I did to warrant a second banning (I was honest about my reincarnation), I was bluntly informed that they don't want to go into details and that their decision was irreversible. This second betrayal convinced me that Digg was no longer the friendly place I assumed it was and that any time and effort spent on their site might end at any moment without my having any say-so. Goodbye Digg, I will miss you until you get replaced by a venue that is more in tune with its community.
milos
· 1 year ago
A truly democratic content masher will have to find a way to determine the value of a story based on consumption patterns, not submission patterns. Once it all becomes a competition of who's top digg-dog, or worse a money-making scheme and PR tool, it's genuine purpose and use is lost - to bring to the forefront content that people have spent most time reading through. It's simple really. If you spend 1 minute, 5 minutes or 10 minutes of your time on the web to read an article or view multimedia content or click through a series of links (that would be interesting - favourite funnels), then that's the popular i.e. top content (I don't give two pence on who's the top digger). Once subdivided and categorized on the front pages, it's just as good, and eliminates the human irrational need for recognition and pride through social action on the web, in a situation where you need rational representations of personal preferences. Perhaps Google will surprise us at some point...
jordan
· 1 year ago
Due to the nature of online contribution(i.e. you must be sitting in front of a computer or web-enabled phone to do so), those with more time to surf will always float to the top in terms of quantity of contribution. Of course, this does not speak to quality, which is totally different. True web egalitarianism isn't really possible, since not every user has eight hours a day in which to sit in front of a machine. However, this does not mean that the top-level contributors should either be placed on a pedestal or tossed into the bin, with everyone else left to thrash about in the just-in pages. The real challenge lies in how to engage all users in some way, and it cannot be solved with a simple algorithm.
All Comments
I was banned once because of script. I honestly didnt know at that time that script was against the TOS, I thought it was needed for a better user experience. Anyways I got my account back after requesting for it. since them I removed all of my greasemonkey scripts and the firefox add-ons. I realized I don't need those bullshit, i love digg too much to screw around with them, and I enjoy being a digger with my current account and I would like it to stay that way.
There is absolutely no justification for people to still using scripts specially after digg made announcements about it twice, if they do they deserve to be banned.
Okay maybe I will give a name... :)
Specifically look for user profile of "sirpopper"
Registered April 2008, 58,000 diggs 5000 submissions, tell me this is not a scam! :)
Oh did you know top user participate in group burrying submissions by twitter and IM so that their own submission has better chance of making it to the frontpage?
When all is said and done, they can't really bitch about being banned, they broke the rules.
A lot of effort to try to use a site I never even got a chance to try. :/
If the rumors are true, it makes the banning of a few power users who might be profiting off the system more understandable.
Watch that clip you posted above again, there was no place that he even implied that it could be his, his comments made it sound like a third party company that he wasn't involved with.
And by the way, there are companies working on properly crowd-sourcing, Twitturly, is one of them. We can already see exactly what is popular (without any of the gaming issues Digg faces), we are now just trying to find the best way to categorize and present the information. You'll probably hear more on how we are going to do that when we release it.
I have been banned from Digg twice in the past month and a half. The first time took place right after i tried a script that apparently conformed with Diggs API. I read the reviews and figured it was worth trying. I used it once to shout a random story to 30 of my friends. The following morning I was banned permanently. I had been fairly active on Digg prior to my ban (5000 diggs, 400 comments 32 submissions and 200 mutual friends in half a year of membership) so naturally I was horrified to learn that I did not exist anymore. Digg support replied to my pleadings with two responses that generally amounted to a cold shouldered "F#$k Off"
I started a new user account and made damn sure I removed the script that got me banned in the first place. I was so paranoid that I made a point of checking out any submission before Digging it. One month later and about 450 diggs into my new account I was banned again. This time I was informed of my egregious abuse of the Digg TOS. I tried to find out what that meant because I had done nothing that to my knowledge amounted to TOS violations. I felt betrayed twice over by someone I felt close to. I sent Digg support screen shots of my firefox addon list to show them it was empty and asked at the very least to know what I did to warrant a second banning (I was honest about my reincarnation), I was bluntly informed that they don't want to go into details and that their decision was irreversible. This second betrayal convinced me that Digg was no longer the friendly place I assumed it was and that any time and effort spent on their site might end at any moment without my having any say-so.
Goodbye Digg, I will miss you until you get replaced by a venue that is more in tune with its community.
True web egalitarianism isn't really possible, since not every user has eight hours a day in which to sit in front of a machine. However, this does not mean that the top-level contributors should either be placed on a pedestal or tossed into the bin, with everyone else left to thrash about in the just-in pages.
The real challenge lies in how to engage all users in some way, and it cannot be solved with a simple algorithm.