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Digg users are dumber than goldfish
diveintomark.org — Mark Pilgrim (of Dive Into Python fame) proves that goldfish have 43 days longer memory than Digg users
rodbegbie- 1503 diggs
- digg it
- Virak, on 10/12/2007, -8/+266I had a witty comment about this story, but I can't seem to recall it.
- jblade, on 10/12/2007, -76/+18This is hilarious
... What was he talking about again? - themastersb, on 10/12/2007, -8/+136If we had more goldfish here there would be less duplicate stories.
- Cozmcphish, on 10/12/2007, -15/+87I think this was a dupe, but I cant remember.
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -28/+3It was submitted 2...How many days are in a week again?
- Software2, on 10/12/2007, -16/+55I'm sick of all these people trying to be funny by retelling the same... what was I talking about?
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -6/+43(insert comment on you forgot something here)
- Wizardo55, on 10/12/2007, -29/+3Digg pwnzzz!!!!!!1
What was I talking about?
DIGG!!!!!!!!!PWNNn1!!!!!!!11oneeleven
stupid liberalslol bush sux - kalleanka, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Marked as inaccurate.
The site is based on that there are 43 days in between
http://digg.com/programming/Dive_Into_Python_Free_eBook
and
http://digg.com/programming/Rainy_Sunday_Dive_into_Python
However, the second one only got 31 diggs and probably never made it to the front page (or it did so during extremely short period of time).
So most people never saw that article and nothing has been forgotten. - mv10, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7See This wouldnt be a problem if everytime someone wrote "DUPE" it wouldnt be automatically dugg down by everyone every single time
- sinembarg0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7More goldfish, less sheep.
- jblade, on 10/12/2007, -76/+18This is hilarious
- bonaldi, on 10/12/2007, -19/+2My diggdot.us feed is constantly full of dupes, mostly as links make it across to /. or del.icio.us, but often just digg dupes.
- byp494, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5This is awsome!
If I have to see 1 more article about how MySpace will be worth 15 billion in 3 years I think someone will have to die... - abbtech, on 10/12/2007, -125/+2That is too funny! I think it was anyway, it is all sort of fuzzy now. What were we talking about? Who are you?
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http://hackedgadgets.com- tsunamisteve, on 10/12/2007, -5/+139We may be (collectively) dumber than goldfish, but we're not gonna click your spam.
- jonj, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17too many links in that page to be able to read the content
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -4/+51I bet the goldfish have no problem reading it!
- xGORDOx, on 10/12/2007, -22/+35Goldfish also realize that the Daily Show is fake news.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -9/+102And yet, the Daily show is sadly, more accurate than most Mainstream Media sources.
*sigh* - garyh84, on 10/12/2007, -12/+10Well, atleast they are smarter than Tucker Carlson then.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1FYI, the Daily Show is not fake news. The Onion is fake news. There's a difference. The Daily Show is an over-the-top satirical perspective on real news. The Onion actually makes stuff up.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -9/+102And yet, the Daily show is sadly, more accurate than most Mainstream Media sources.
- sugarbearcsa, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31Your assuming that everyone reads every story again. For instance a story could be reposted from 6 months ago, but if it the first time i've seen it i'm going to digg it. I belive a lot of reposted storys that get place on the home page again are becasue new people (or people who didn't see it the first time) see it, and digg it
- choicetoes, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4Whose assuming?
- cubiculum, on 10/12/2007, -16/+8It's "you're" for "you are." Not your. Just trying to help.
- succubuskiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Well maybe Mark should have done some better research and clicked 1 drop down box to notice that the article that is 43 days old did not make it to the front page and therefore was not seen by the VAST majority of digg users.The older one that did make it to the front page was submitted 415 days ago.
I think that there have been A LOT more new people to Digg since then and if it is interesting a whole new round of people would Digg it, otherwise they would mark it as duplicate,etc. For example, I did not digg the first story Python story because I didn't see it, this time I saw it and I dugg the one that made the front page.... - PowerCow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10dupe check is meant to keep current stories from competeing with eachother.. having hundred people submit the same link the same day. It is not meant to keep the same story from reaching the front page at a later date.
Looking at the number of stories that make it to the front page i worked out that a digger spending 1hr a day on digg 365 is going to miss 38 stories a day or 13,870 a year
It is foolish to try to deny a majority of users from digging a story just because a minority saw it on the front page previously. - krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -2/+2@powercow: no. if that was true, then dupe check would allow some form of related stories to go unseen in the dupecheck. however, if u submit a similar article that was frontpaged a year ago, it will still show up in dupecheck. so no, you are wrong.
this just shows how the algorithm should be changed so that if dupecheck suggests a dupe (that was frontpaged), merely a few people marking it as a dupe should be enough to get it removed as a dupe.
there are other problems with the frontpaging algorithm but that's neither here nor there. - hosiah, on 11/13/2007, -1/+5The problem with repeat links (aka "well, it gives people who missed it the first time a chance to see it again!") is that we have to repost the entire goddamn history of the Internet every time somebody gets a new AOL account. "Wait, I missed the first twelve!" "Oh, sorry, OK, everybody else rewind, we have to start over from the first link again." Archives. Use them. love them, point to them.
The way it should be, every page gets linked ONCE, then banned forever from linking again. All attempts to resubmit the same link again get automatically translated to a Digg for the original copy of that link. No option, no exception, no excuse. In fact, it should check the other social bookmarking sites and deny if you just pulled it off Daily Rotation. We know where Daily Rotation is, thank you, we read that first before coming here. Not every video on YouTube is Your Little Secret Find Known Only To You. Yes, bookmarks and RSS feeds work for the rest of us, too.
No, it's not just Digg's repeat, it's that people scrape links off Delicious to post on Reddit, and from Reddit to dzone, and dzone to Slashdot, and Slashdot to Boing Boing, and Boing Boing to Netscape, and Netscape to Tailrank, and Tailrank to Fark, and Fark to Yahoo, and Yahoo to Davezilla, Davezilla to Reality Carnival, Reality Carnival to Everything2, Everything2 to LXer, and all those links end up here eventually by which time they're growing hair. And then Digg gets scraped to post the same links back to the other sites. And all the social bookmark sites say the same thing: "We repost it to give the people who misssed it the first time a chance to see it" God, I saw it back in 1995 already there are NEW THINGS HAPPENING NOW. Hey, guess what, there are episodes of TV shows you missed the first time, too; do we all have to sit through it all again until one person has caught up on every episode of "I Love Lucy"?
You people know what the Internet is becoming? A hundred thousand social bookmarking sites passing the same Top Twenty links around in circles forever!!!
When we repost the same twenty sites over and over, you're also depriving those of us who already SAW the Amazing Singing Dancing Chicken 12 times from seeing the NEW cool sites that have happened THIS YEAR. You want golden oldies, there's the Wayback Machine. - PowerCow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3actually they even tried removing dupe check for a time.. but if you want to email me with all 13,000 stories i miss a year.. i really wont mind if you cry dupe.. its not like the same people are digging the same article
and thats probably the most important point. You cant say diggers have short memories when they never saw the digg in the first place - kindernacht, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2@hosiah:
***** you, because if i knew what i was searching for in the archives...i would be able to find it elsewhere. i come to digg because other people find interesting things that i would not have normaly found in the course of my day. so again, i say ***** you, for taking away my opportunity at entertainment and learning. i don't have time to sit around and search all the archives for stories that might interest me, that is RIDICULOUS. i can't speak for every one, but i've been coming to this site for years(different account, back when kevin was talkin about it on SS) for the same reason...people post articles that interest THEM. if i find it interesting, i ***** digg it...if i don't, i don't even bother reading anything beyond the description or first few comments. who the hell are you to play internet police on what other people find interesting and want to share. does it make your internet run slower to have things posted again after awhile?? jeeze
/rant
- JonnyTrombone, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33Quick, let's submit it twice more in the next few hours!
- merdiesel, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8Your web designer is dumber then goldfish.
- consonance, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5Oh yeah? Well, Mark Pilgrim is dumber than a... uh, something of something, yeah!
- Langford, on 10/12/2007, -5/+23Just a blog whining that duplicate articles equate to having a poor memory.
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23Let's see Mr.goldfish do derivative calculus!
- aaeyers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22I don't even know what that means...
Do you mean differential calculus?
Or to find the derivative of a function perhaps?
Please explain this new "derivative" calculus you speak of... - stonr, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1i lol'd because i no math!
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7derivative and differential calculus are the same thing.
- graywh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is no branch of calculus called "derivative" calculus. And if there were, it wouldn't be the same as differential calculus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_calculus#Confusion
- aaeyers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22I don't even know what that means...
- JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Dupes are a horrible indicator of memory...
it used to be a good one..and every story on the homepage used to a good one..
but now that digg is so popular now that the amount of crap stories on the homepage has increased significantly..and it is easy to miss a good story as it scrolls off the homepage so fast.
The algorithm should be changed to require more diggs before going to the homepage. - Drifton, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3I dont really get the article? does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?does this have something to do with my goldfish memory?
- GerryBot, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Yeah, I think it's fair enough if people Digg things two or three times - I don't read every headline and maybe one day I'll have a little more time to read the articles perhaps stuff that I've previously missed.
Funny post though. Gotta wonder if we're de-evolving if our attention spans are so short though! - NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Okay now, let's be fair...
Digg is a growing community. New users arrive every day, all of similar interests, and submit things every day that have likely been on digg more than once before. We cannot reasonably expect these people to digg through old articles, although in this case, it certainly could've been found automatically by digg's own dupe searcher. Kevin Rose himself has admitted the digg search "sucks." So it might be reasonable to assume digg's search engine can't be relied upon either.
Another possibility is people finding articles that achieved a high amount of diggs in the past, and resubmitting them in an effort to boost their own rating. While this may sound directly contradictory to the sucky digg search, people looking for highly dugg articles work harder to find those golden nuggets than someone checking to see if their story is a dupe (it's likely that if it does not appear in the dupe search, they're not going to look any farther than that for verification that it is okay to submit.)
All in all, collectively, Digg is constantly growing, and people are always looking for a way to boost themselves, so we can expect this trend to continue. - helusay, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1digg? what's that?
- wheaty, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2I'm not sure if he's right but I should probably go ahead and bury it as a dupe just in case.
- AriaStar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Goldfish also don't constantly have new things going into their heads to remember. If I saw a story three months ago (which wouldn't have happened since I've only been here three weeks), with all that's happened since then, would I really be expected to recall it now? What is the title didn't interest me then? What if I didn't read every single story?
I've often wondered how goldfish sushi would taste.- Obvioustroll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Also, goldfish don't get defensive and hostile when someone makes a humorous observation.
- AriaStar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Because they don't remember it long enough to get "get defensive and hostile."
- Darkkish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Aria... Did you actually read the article? -_-
- Ducttape08, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah, but i don't see a lot of the stuff that is on the front page everyday somethings stay there for only, a couple of hours, i don't live here.
- jcgregorio, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4So does this mean that all dups will now be called "Goldfish"?
- Obvioustroll, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Even better - goldfish have never been known to lynch other goldfish for pointing out their digg is a dupe.
- Meursault, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Shouldn't digg code be better about preventing such infractions?
- dignation, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Shouldn't digg users be better about preventing such infractions?
- rantiddlybobo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0The Japanese goldfish are worth seeing twice. The trainer was almost as entertaining.
- jayripley123, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3I would recomend marking this story as innacurate but i forgot why.
- jmdajr, on 10/12/2007, -10/+1dee dee dee
- dignation, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2I was going to leave an insightful comment on this story but I seem to have forgotten what it was about in the first place.
Oh well - shiftless, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The goldfish training video was awesome
- Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4Maybe its just that the turn around for Digg readers is 43 days. That is, by the time 43 days is up, people reading Digg are tired of stupid YouTube links, childish and inane commentary and the usual FUD related to anything involving Microsoft, Apple, or Linux. So, a whole new set of readers come on to Digg and post topics that interest them until they get tired of it.
- KSUdesigner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Just because you're new to digg doesn't mean everybody else is. There are plenty of people who have been around for years.
- 9tailfox, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1HAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cum, *****, *****, Balls - ahndru, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Pretty sure the goldfish video was on digg already too...
http://digg.com/videos_comedy/Uncanny_Synchronized_Swimming_Goldfish- DASH, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8What a coincidence that video was posted 43 days ago as well.
- Jack9, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Python users are too dumb to tell the difference between intelligence and memory, news at 11 or was it 6?
- Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0Maybe its just that the turn around for Digg readers is 43 days. That is, by the time 43 days is up, people reading Digg are tired of stupid YouTube links, childish and inane commentary and the usual FUD related to anything involving Microsoft, Apple, or Linux. So, a whole new set of readers come on to Digg and post topics that interest them until they get tired of it.
I'm having deja-vu. - darkened, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Buried ***** off
- aragami, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3i was going to comment on how lame this article is
but i erm
forgot to sign in >_ - shadownight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think it's true. Oops, that includes me :D
- guyver8400, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4In russia you are smarter than goldfish
- jamble, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1surely the moron who posted that informative nugget of information would realise what he was suggesting is that goldfish may simply have longer memories, I'd sincerely doubt that this is proof positive that diggers are "dumber"
- SanTe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Author makes stupid assumption that the same digg users viewing a story today are the same ones from 43 days ago, and that diggers want to spend all their time combing the digg archive for dupe stories, when web pages and RSS feeds are much more desirable and promote communities.
Buried as Inaccurate (and stupid if that were an option). - pyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9My goldfish hates reading Digg.
The bowl distorts the view. - raid517, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Digg is for the attention deficits and misfits o the modern age. It is the world in digest - the MacDonald's of the Internet.
There is just something about digg - and other sites like it, in that while it is addictive, when you are reading it, you can physically feel yourself becoming dumber and dumber.
It's an odd phenomenon that I don't quite understand.
One thing I do know is that the thing that makes me truly dumb and which does this the fastest s the endless parade of brain dead TV in the digg video section. I swear there is something subversive about that, as the more I watch these videos, the less I am inclined to question my own personal existence and the fate of mankind as a whole. Why bother asking questions like this when you can watch what happens when you put a furby in a microwave.
Anyway, lol well I've forgotten the point I was trying to make - which I guess kind of proves the point.- KSUdesigner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I tend to feel smarter after spending time on digg. There are plenty of things I've learned about through the articles on digg that I never knew before. There is much more to digg than just the video section. If you don't like that kind of video then don't click it, simple as that.
- raid517, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Yeah, but how much of it can you remember?
- HHP2K, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2What the hell is that *****? That was the stupidest accusation I've ever seen.
- weiran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6It's a joke, get a sense of humour.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ok gold fish may have longer memorys than most digg users.
but i'm sure that most digg users dont eat there own poo. - Skunkhair, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Ohhh! SHNAP!!! I just got pwned by a goldfish!!!!
- hangtown, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Dugg down for using SNAP! in a sentence. Stupidest phrase ever. Grow a mind and quit adopting the trendy word of the day.
- vixiecron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Dugg down for using SNAP! in a sentence. Stupidest phrase ever. Grow a mind and quit adopting the trendy word of the day."
"Oh, snap!" he said defiantly, in between clenched teeth.
- HatchedEggs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Whats funny is that everybody diggs this... all the while thinking they aren't the ones being referred to in the article.
Hi there.
Who me?
Doh.
Bye the way... the only thing worse than this, is that the guys over at Slashdot do the same thing, and there are only a few of them. At least we can blame the fact that anybody can submit. - origclubsoda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3RIGHT ON.
- ollj, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Inaccurate but funny but inaccurate.
surely following the golden rule of digging a blog about digg.com to the digg frontpages.
inaccurate. and funny. - pdrolet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have submitted a few stories that never made it to front page, only to see someone else a week after post the same article, with the same abstract, and make it to hundreds of Diggs.
- Obvioustroll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5What part of "social bookmarking" don't you understand?
The way you get to the front page is to have a group of friends digg your stories as soon as you post them.
- Obvioustroll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5What part of "social bookmarking" don't you understand?
- flyingmonkey350, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I am not dumber than a gol...OOO shiny metal!!!
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