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526 Comments
- kevinrose, on 07/09/2008, -45/+783Hi All - As we've discussed in the past (see link below) there are a number of factors that go into story promotion. A few specific factors affecting this story were diversity of digging activity, the number of buries in relation to Diggs, and the overall increase in Diggs that are occurring on the site recently. This story was an outlier case which happens from time to time, but it did eventually reach the home page. Sorry for the confusion.
More info: http://blog.digg.com/?p=106- slightlyoffbeat, on 07/09/2008, -10/+134and there is your answer digg
- Snuff99, on 07/09/2008, -11/+2now stew foo, ya babies.
- brjohnson789, on 07/09/2008, -15/+4wtf ever, all I know is a controversial story should have made it to the front page for all i know (and no I don't know how they 'weight' diggs/buries), there was a bunch of bitching, and now 'voila' the story is there.
- tama00, on 07/10/2008, -1/+6so what are you guys doing for lunch?
- frenchkick, on 07/09/2008, -7/+38there...you can all rest easy now...justice is done
- Larsonal777, on 07/10/2008, -6/+3Yes... I love how digg gets compleeeetely riled up when it seems something is unfair towards democrats... even though the VAST majority of ALLL the front page stories are democratic... wow.. that is all i can say... wow... I swear people are loud complainers growing up... then when responsibility comes they quiet down and become MORE conservative. Notice the more... that doesn't mean you ARE conservative... just that I've notice people shift right as they get older/get more responsibilities.
- potterboy, on 07/09/2008, -29/+21Thanks for clearing that up, but I'm still a little unconvinced.
- FTWmovin2canada, on 07/09/2008, -52/+10Holy crap and Kevin posts a comment.
- ericdano, on 07/09/2008, -16/+4Yeah, it will be another 6 months to a year until you see another........
- FTWmovin2canada, on 07/09/2008, -34/+5I'm actually getting dugg down for being surprised seeing the founder of digg commenting? Wow, my mistake.
- jobobshishkabob, on 07/09/2008, -2/+26You are getting dugg down because it's not that uncommon.
- ILoveVerdi, on 07/09/2008, -8/+36Great, now everyone can stop flipping out.
- jaymzdean, on 07/09/2008, -26/+4If I'm not mistaken, the number of diggs shown for each digg article is NET.
That is, the number of buries has already been factored in.
So how, exactly, does this explain anything?- benman587, on 07/09/2008, -1/+7The number of buries does not change the Digg count. I think Reddit does it that way.
- crodulfo, on 07/09/2008, -2/+7so its not like the comment digg buttons?
why not? - RealmDown, on 07/09/2008, -3/+13Then there needs to be a bury counter.
- gavin422, on 07/09/2008, -2/+3@RealmDown: I originally dugg you because I like the idea, but now I'm not so sure. There is already so much mob mentality at Digg - people digg stories because other people digg them. Do we really want them doing the same for buries?
- worminater, on 07/09/2008, -42/+130Stupid conspiracy theorists. Get a life.
- Kronk42583, on 07/09/2008, -9/+5its idiot like these that make me want to kill myself every time there is a monster quest or UFO files on the history channel, a once addictive and great channel.
- droog9277, on 07/09/2008, -2/+23where is buzz aldrin when you need him..?
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -34/+20Buried.
Take THAT kevinrose. - inactive, on 07/09/2008, -33/+12that's a pretty weak answer IMHO
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -6/+11Any answer at all is better than most sites would give.
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -6/+1so true
- sodoh, on 07/09/2008, -8/+2What I am finding annoying is that the story list stuff is appearing and disappearing. What is in the top list is not in anyway related to what I would normally read (it was before). In fact most of it appears to be spam related.
Seems to be a little better today. - inactive, on 07/09/2008, -25/+11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _________
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: : : : : : : :¯’’~~~~~~’’’ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : | : : : : : : : : : - moethelawn, on 07/09/2008, -13/+76Kevin Rose has spoketh
- Kronk42583, on 07/09/2008, -5/+17i think you mean kevin rose did spake.
- Hangly, on 07/09/2008, -0/+9spake, did speak or hath spoken.
- theparaiba, on 07/09/2008, -23/+62"A few specific factors affecting this story were diversity of digging activity"
That's it ronpaulites, please go away. Nobody cares about your candidate anymore, not even the Digg algorithm. Feel free to digg me down and prove me right.- Twikkert, on 07/09/2008, -11/+4...
Ok.
- Twikkert, on 07/09/2008, -11/+4...
- Herv3, on 07/09/2008, -16/+7Hey Kevin. I'm a fan of the site and I appreciate he response. I still think there is a flaw though, if the original site in question is getting over 1000 diggs and doesn't hit the front page.
- jobobshishkabob, on 07/09/2008, -1/+10And he answered that. It wasn't getting there because a whole bunch of people were burying it.
- Herv3, on 07/09/2008, -10/+1I get that, but I still think that is a flaw with the site. One of the things I like about Digg is it's about what people are into and promoting things, not being able to bury things.
- wicketr, on 07/09/2008, -2/+5That is a design feature. Not a flaw, or a bug. If you don't like it, then find a new site. And FYI, I'm burying you.
- Braxo, on 07/09/2008, -0/+8So if 1000 people dugg a story and 5000 people buried a story you still think it should hit the front page because it got over 1000 diggs?
- Herv3, on 07/09/2008, -4/+2Where are you getting that number from? Did the story get burried by 5000 users? Where did you even get that number from? I didn't say that a 5-1 burried to digg ratio shouldn't be a factor.
- Braxo, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3I just pulled the 5000 number to make my point. Obviously I am not sure how the Digg algorithm weighs Buried votes. But before we get angry and start pointing fingers at Digg censoring articles, maybe you should take into account that if a story receives a certain percentage of Bury votes then it becomes much more difficult to be elevated to the front page.
Unfortunately Digg users only see how many Diggs a story received and not Bury votes. If we saw the behind the scene calculations I'm sure we'd both have a better understanding on how articles hit the front page.
- dracostimpy, on 07/09/2008, -35/+26Anything that has over 1000 diggs and still wasn't frontpaged is "evidence of our promotion algorithm hard at" FAIL. Unless digg suddenly added a quarter million users this week, any story with 1k+ diggs is pretty damn popular compared to the average of maybe 500 or so diggs that the average front-paged article gets AFTER being promoted. This was the average frontpage article times two and it was still NOT on the frontpage.
This story may not have been "diverse" enough because the neocon bury brigade most certainly had at it, but 1k+ diggs is fairly obviously frontpage-worthy. I can only hope that your "diversity screening engine" looks as closely at those who do the burying as it does those who do the digging, though I fear that's not the case since I highly doubt there's as many FISA supporters as opponents on this website. LGF maybe, but digg... not so much.
I'm not suggesting there should be a specific minimum threshold # of diggs, but there has to be some common sense injected into it as well. How about this: You take 10 random frontpagers from the previous day since they've pretty much gone through their life cycle at that point (tossing out any of the 5k+ megastories that would skew the average), add up all the diggs they combined for and divide it by 10. If ANY upcoming story has more diggs than the average # of diggs from those frontpagers the day before, it's frontpage-worthy (omitting obvious gaming/spam of course, which the compellingly newsworthy FISA cave-in story is clearly NOT). For the record, I waive my intellectual property rights on that idea, so just friggin do it and end this madness!- Stwo, on 07/09/2008, -3/+3you make it sound so easy.... I find it hard to believe it's that simple
- dracostimpy, on 07/09/2008, -1/+6I'm not saying it's easy, but this was an obvious problem with the algorithm since this story is clearly newsworthy and had 3x as many diggs as the average frontpager gets in its whole life cycle.
Digg's been around long enough now that it should have at least worked out such obvious flaws, but this instead reaffirms my suspicion that buries are given far too much weight and far too little screening, since a single bury seems to count against a hundred diggs. I'm all for self-censorship to eliminate crap and spam, but digg needs to consider the motivations of its censors just as much as it does its submitters. It's obvious that a profoundly impacting political story like this is being buried for reasons other than it being spam or non-news.
Perhaps the bury algorithm should be uniquely applied to political news given the fact that these stories are routinely buried for ideological rather than practical reasons... I'm not sure. What I do know is that this clearly is news and when over 1000 diggers agree, it ought to be on the frontpage regardless of # of buries when the average frontpager needs only ~300 diggs. I have faith they'll work it out since digg has proven itself responsive in the past and they know well enough that the internet is a fickle marketplace.
- Darmichar, on 07/09/2008, -4/+59This is the perfect example of the Digg count needing to actively reflect buries as well. People see that big fat number and automatically assume it should be front paged. If every bury counted as a negative vote and was actively reflected as such, this story would have shown (I'm assuming) a relatively low Digg count and there wouldn't have been a problem.
- gavin422, on 07/09/2008, -3/+7But buries aren't counted as negative votes because there are many, many more diggs on the site than buries. What matters is the ratio of diggs to buries.
- squirrelnutz, on 07/09/2008, -1/+24Agreed, each bury should be shown just like it is in the comment section!
- ILoveVerdi, on 07/10/2008, -2/+1Isn't that how reddit works?
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -16/+4I'm a fascist. So congragulations for your part in throwing Ron Paul and 9/11 truth 'under the bus.'
- noonions, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2I'm a regular person. So congratulations on spelling "congratulations" wrong and making an idiot out of yourself with a completely unrelated comment.
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -10/+16Democracy is not working on Digg. Diggs power users run the show and you won't release bury numbers to prove weather bury brigades are at work. Digg will tell you that your story has been buried but why or by who buried them.
- indiefan, on 07/09/2008, -2/+62Why don't you just show the number of buries on the story page so we all know what's going on?
- Stwo, on 07/09/2008, -1/+42I agree.... # of buries should definitely be shown.
- XombieRobot, on 07/09/2008, -8/+3Anyone noticed that this funtion is available for our comments? That's pretty neat.
- liza, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1agreed
- Butros, on 07/09/2008, -10/+4Hey Kevin when you digg someone up or down does it count like 10 diggs? Like "POW POW POW POWER DIGG!"... anyway maybe a feature in the next version could be a bury breakdown report, where it would show how many times the submission was buried and also for what reason (eg 54 buries "OK This was Lame", 45 buries "Innacurate"). Good site and podcast man, hope you cash in for that 60 million soon ;)
- djepik, on 07/09/2008, -9/+3Wow, a link to a blog post from January 23rd.
Thanks for the slap in the face.
Don't you think there should be a threshold at which a story gets promoted, regardless of diversity?
You cannot tell me this was not a ridiculous situation, that could easily be prevented. - BedPost, on 07/09/2008, -1/+32But in all seriousness, can you get rid of shouts? They do nothing other than create an oligarchy of top submitters.
- avengingturnip, on 07/09/2008, -0/+29This is probably a dumb question but it is one that begs to be asked. Are buries weighted by diversity similarly to diggs? For instance if I am part of a "bury brigade" and I spy an article I want buried deeper than Pompeii under Vesuvius' ash so I tell all my friends does the algorithm diminish the impact of individual buries by others on my friends list or does it, unlike diggs, treat them as if they are independent of each other?
- kemp34, on 07/09/2008, -1/+8Great question turnip.
- DemDude, on 07/09/2008, -7/+1You're part of a what?! Get a life!
- DemDude, on 07/09/2008, -1/+4I misread the "if". My bad, bury me.
- sparsely, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3Another important question is, what is diversity to the algorithm, and how is it calculated?
Is it based on your friends? "Diggers like me" (top match: 18%)? Something else?
Even reddit claims to be open-source, yet we're clueless as to the real workings of teh algorithm, all for the excuse that someone may use the knowledge to "game" the system. Well, it's being gamed already, why no fix it? - avengingturnip, on 07/10/2008, -1/+3They will probably never make public the details of the diversity algorithm but they d@mn sure ought to make it apply equally to buries as well as diggs.
- inactive, on 07/09/2008, -2/+8
- worminater, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2it has digg in the title; and is conspiracy theory; of course it will get dug.
- rolfeman02, on 07/09/2008, -5/+20Thanks for not being a dick when a bunch of people are being dicks to you
- krekc, on 07/09/2008, -9/+2Oh MY..GOD!! KEVIN KEV.....IN......KEVIN OMG OMG OMG
- TnTBass, on 07/09/2008, -6/+4Kevin's answer actually didn't answer a damn question (besides putting conspiracy theories to rest). The story itself says the same thing Kevin did. What I want to know, is how specifically this story did not make it to the FP sooner? Was it lack of diversity? Was it the digg/bury ratio?
I think we ALL know the algorithm was the cause of this story not reaching the FP, but what diggers want is an explanation of how that algorithm got manipulated (intentionally or unintentionally) to keep this story off the front page. Perhaps the fear is that the information can be used to intentionally manipulate stories to reach the FP (or not) but it looks to me like that has already happened.
Digg me down for questioning Kevin.- elhaf, on 07/09/2008, -0/+8The more we know about exactly how the algorithm works and exactly what causes its anomalies especially, the easier it is to game the system. And believe me, there are huge factions of people aiming to game the system. I wish they would go form their own website.
- dracostimpy, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1It seems more and more apparent to me that the purpose of digg is to replicate the meaningless fluff that is the MSM, but in a format that the users won't suspect of being just as filtered.
Luckily, *other* sites have gone open source with their algorithms, so if digg wants to keep up this charade in the interest of eventually selling their secrets to the top bidder, my advice to those bidders is "caveat emptor" because by then digg will probably be close to joining pets.com and stage6 on the wayback machine.
Digg staff reading this, look at your user base: we all love linux (even if we don't use it), we browse digg using firefox, we digg up stories about hacking something for $10 that'd normally cost $200. We are an open source community by our very nature, and the open source/democratic promise of digg is what brought us here.
To continue to tell us "pay no attention to the algorithm behind the curtain" when it torments us time and time again like this is a joke. Do you think we're that damn stupid? If we were, we'd be surfing Fox or CNN right now.
You need to come out and say it once and for all: "We just want to give diggers the ILLUSION of democratic news". Be honest with us so we can move on to a real user-driven news site, or cut the crap and give us ALL the information on who dugg AND who buried every story so we can decide for ourselves whether the problem is a handful of diggers conspiring to bury certain news or if a truly random sampling just happens to really love being wiretapped.
Keep your algorithm if you must have your Precious, but at least give your users the info we need to weed out the thought police if you truly care about being a user-driven "democratic" news site.
- camehoe, on 07/09/2008, -7/+2Kevin, have my babies
- elders, on 07/09/2008, -1/+0Yes Kevin, Have her babies!
- judicar, on 07/10/2008, -1/+7How social media sites work: People
Why social media sites don't work: People - aflaks, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3I dunno, that was a pretty easy answer "oh yeah the algorithm doesnt work perfectly"
Digg me down, but i'm not convinced that suddenly, on the most important thread of the year (maybe), the algorithm messes up. - BestJaxx, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Fina-*****-ly, now people will stop the panic. Thanks for clearing all of that up Kevin, I never doubted Democracy, I trusted there was a reasonable answer, but I thought it was something like a bug.
- sup4141, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1Has Kevin ever been buried?
- AmICoolNow, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Yes.
http://digg.com/music/Radiohead_s_Nude_played_on_s ...
- AmICoolNow, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2Yes.
- Quicksilver4648, on 07/10/2008, -0/+3Hehe, I made the 666th. digg.
- buka039, on 07/10/2008, -0/+2So, basically what you, Kevin, saying is that there are some factors and numbers that affect apearing story on home page, and which we cant see? Thats lame.
Show them to us, and there will no questions. Simple as that.
- slightlyoffbeat, on 07/09/2008, -10/+134and there is your answer digg
