90 Comments
- burtonbe, on 10/12/2007, -12/+61I actually agree with most of the points made; they are spot on. I do not agree with point #4 however.
"4. Pointing out spelling and grammar errors makes you look like an ass....Come up with something original to say, or say nothing at all."
If errors were not pointed out, then I believe the English language as we know it would decay into an unintelligible mess. Minor errors can be forgiven, but Grammar Nazis play an important part in ensuring the comments on Digg remain semi-articulate. I would hate for the language on Digg to degrade to the level of an AOL chat room. - grendelboogie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35Nicely summarized. But, I'm not sure about the point on dupes. Are people annoyed by them or does it truly mean that the crowd really wants to see that story again and again? Or is it just competition to get the same story promoted over one of your friends?
- davinic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30Good question. I think it's due to people coming at different times of the day and thinking something's interesting. We still do a far better job than the mainstream media about not duplicating content. Natalie Holloway, anyone?
- dankoleary, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22"Digg is powered by people." That's why I love Digg, and will keep coming back, warts and all.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+30The reason sites like this tend to have a liberal bias is that people of a more liberal (libertarian, federalist, etc) nature tend to be capable of a greater degree of critical thinking and abstract perceptions. The distinct lack of a common conservative bias is likely due to composing their thoughts in written form being beyond most of them as their forte tends to be more along the lines of expressing themselves via giant "god hates fags" signs at the funerals of soldiers.
You can thumb-me-down all you want as trolling or flamebaiting, but you and I know it's true as there are plenty of conservatives in the world, yet they don't participate in any sort of debate beyond throwing around "you stupid commie socio-liberal pussy!" statements and telling everyone how their viewpoint is the right one, because the bible says so.
There are some very eloquent and thoughtful conservative types to counterbalance the rest, but they are few and far between. To prove me wrong, just point out to me all of the thousands of well-worded, intelligent, fair conversations carried on digg with such authors. You will be able to name a few - but not many. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19I don't hate Bush because he's a conservative. I hate him for turning his back on everything that a real fiscal conservative appreciations. Namely, civil liberties, keeping government out of people's lives, autonomy and smaller government. Your assumption that people who don't agree with you only do so because they're "damned hateful liberals" only illustrates your self-rightous arrogance.
And the liberals who feel the same way toward people like you are just as idiotic. Hearing your two groups bicker over who's less bad than the other is just retarded. It's like comparing a ***** sandwich to piss soup. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13"Nick Davis offers some new rules"
Why are you speaking of yourself in the third person in your own digg submission? - cyrusthevirus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Instead, I propose the Digger's Creed:
Diggers, repeat after me:
"1. I will always link directly to the source.
2. I will verify the accuracy of the source before linking to it.
3. I will use the spell checker Digg has provided for me and check the grammar in my link description BEFORE posting it and ensure that it makes sense.
4. I will use the search feature that Digg has provided for me to avoid duplicate stories.
5. Furthermore, if I do find a similar story already submitted, I will not", say it again, "I will NOT post it anyway, relying on diggs from my friends to reach the front page.
6. I will not participate in nonsensical, biased debate. (XBox 360 vs PS3 vs Wii; Mac vs PC; etc.)
7. Furthermore, I will not make inflammatory comments ('You wouldn't have those problems if you had a Mac.')
8. If other Diggers do engage in such activities, I will make liberal use of the comment digging feature to bury such rediculous rhetoric.
9. If a story is inaccurate, I will report it as such. However, I will not comment on a story's (in)accuracy unless I have the facts to back it up."
Most Important:
"10. I WILL READ THE STORY BEFORE POSTING A COMMENT ABOUT IT."
Abide by these simple guidelines and, most likely, you won't piss anyone off. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13It has been pretty much only dirtyfratboy, cliffosakajapan and albertpacino for the last year.
I don't particularly mind, but I think those guys might be missing the point of digg. I would presume the idea is you're supposed to submit stories you find interesting.... not to do a quick linkscan of all the main blogs and newslines and sites every morning and then spend the day submitting dozens or hundreds of them to see what "sticks". That just ends up clogging the queue up with so much drivel... rather than picking out very precise things to submit, it feels a lot like we're just being force-fed much of the entire google-database and subjected to a vote on each one. After all, look how many these guys have to submit in order to get the number of frontpages they end up with. The signal to noise ratio sucks.
I don't intend this to be a criticism of those individuals as I frequently find cool stuff that _was_ submitted by them. they're just the most prolific submitters so I used them as examples. - eridius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Perhaps a people-powered site, but with weighting according to the past history of various people? As in, someone who has a history of submitting front-page articles might have new submissions front-paged more easily, or someone who has a history of getting modded up on their comments might have more weight when modding other peoples comments (not sure how you'd rank people digging stories, but there must be some way to weight people there as well).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+16But by that logic...
Digg is powered by people.
People are (typically) stupid.
Digg is stupid.
What I'm really curious about is what will come _after_ digg? Digg seems the logical next step of a Slashdot style site. But what is the next evolution from here? I just hope it isn't anything that involves "vlogs" or video or even audio. - rekrapt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12NICE! Glad to see the dupe/spelling/grammar Nazis bitch-slapped like that.
As for the "liberal bias"... I've been surfing around Digg for quite a few months now and I just don't see it. There are a lot of younger adults and teenagers that surf Digg... they will certainly not be a bunch of Bible-thumping right-wingers... I think that is a given. I'm a 41-year-old fiscal conservative, but the energy here is incredible. I wish more older folks would come around, but they're probably still having a hard time figuring out how to open that attachment with the virus... - pexor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@burtonbe
I think Nick makes a good point. I have a friend who's extremely smart but hears and thinks dyslexic, thus his writing isn't spectacular. You have to look past words and at ideas themselves; words are just a medium, after all. The piss-poor professors at our college grade him on appearances; the tenured, on his content.
Also, I think that it's the comment-rating system and the quality of digg's community that keep it from degrading "to the level of an AOL chat room". It helps to keep the flow of a discussion if you just digg down a poorly-written comment rather than try and assert your intelligence at someone else's expense. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@pexor
There is, however, a distinction to be made between someone who transposes two letters or tends to misspell one or two particular words and a person who can't be bothered to capitalize, punctuate or even attempt to use proper words (ic where u r coming from ne way m8). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11You can't say "well, most people are conservative, so conservatives are smart". Most Americans think that Iraq attacked us on 9/11, couldn't name the last three presidents and 75% probably couldn't name the 50 states. Might does not make right and all saying "well, all of these countries here have conservative leaders that were voted in" does is illustrate the statement made by (Ben Franklin or Jefferson I think?) that "democracy is mob rule". A lazy, ignorant, uneducated person has the same voting weight as everyone else. Someone with a second grade education and severe retardation can place a vote. Everyone except a felon can vote. And all of their votes are equal. So the minority of the intelligent will _always_ be subject to the whims of the masses.
- hawks5999, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13in soviet russia the stories digg you.
--just checking to see if the assertion in number 1 is true. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I agree.
- mecole21, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9LOL
- johnie1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7although commenters on digg can be a bit miserable sometimes for the most part, the comments are very useful and informative (:
- eridius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The point is, commenting that a story is a dupe is meaningless, since the fact that it's been dugg to the front page multiple times means that "the masses" want to see it again. All the comment does is clutters up the thread with things that will end up modded down. And by dismissing it as a dupe, you are implying that your own statement is more worthwhile than everybody else that decided it was a good article and dugg it.
- exoendo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6>>>"1. Some of you may have been Slashdot readers. I can tell because the same complaints are made at Digg. But let me let you in on a secret: the frontpaged stories are chosen by readers, not editors. So your complaints about duplicate stories are not only meaningless, they take up comment space. There's a lot of interesting comments on Digg, and yours just get in the way."
I disagree. First of all, complaints about duplicate stories are NOT meaningless. There are a lot of ethical diggers out there that like to give the nod to the first person that found the story. There are some days where I'll be investing a lot of time into finding stories and doing the work of getting them ready to feed, and then someone will come along and dupe it.
Secondly, dupes slows down the ability to break news. I have said this before, and I will say this again: When a news story breaks, 10 people rush to submit it. Now you have 10 stories, all the same, waiting in the que. DIggers start voting for all these stories, and as a result, the votes are SPLIT. This is bad because what happens is that it will take longer for the story to get to the homepage. One of diggs key features is its ability to break news fast, and by vote splitting among dupes, this drastically slows down the process. Also, sometimes people don't check the times submitted easily enough, and pretty soon you have dupe turf wars where everyone is reporting all the stories... which can further slow down the ability to break news.
That said, I have also duped people, on many occassions, almost always by accident. On the days that I submit stories, I usually do about 50. Often times some newbie will come into the comments and blast me - and I'll be honest, I don't care . . . I submitted 50 other stories that single day, have submitted thousands of stories in the year and a half I've been on here, and have contributed more to digg than any stupid newbie could ever hope to, yes it's elitest, but it's natural too. In this regard, I do agree, if you don't like it, bury it.
But if someone wants to complain, it's really no skin off my nose.
>>>"2. Following from the previous item: Digg is powered by people. If the masses think a story should be covered six times a day, then the masses are curious about the story. Your complaints do not help. Unpredictable things happen when you give people the power."
Complaints DO help. Many stories are BURIED each and everyday partially due to some users pointing out flaws in submitions. I don't always have time to check if a story is inaccurate, but if I see 10 people saying that it is, I'll probably just throw my vote towards them and vote it down. If I think the story has been done to death, I would like the option to report it.
You see, you can't on one hand hold the masses up on a pedestal without giving the masses ALL THE OPTIONS. If the masses have information that the story is constantly repeating itself, they may be inclined to stop burying. I know this because I have seen it happen all the time, and I am sure you have as well.
There is nothing wrong with offering choice.
>>>"4. Pointing out spelling and grammar errors makes you look like an ass. If you could self-correct those errors in your head without getting lost, so can everyone else. Some very smart people are very bad spellers. Come up with something original to say, or say nothing at all."
This one depends. Digg's reputation is growing, and I don't think it's much to ask that we at least try to bring some level of professionalism to this site. Granted, we are just regular users... but spelling things correctly doesn't take to long, and at the very least, and effort should be made. I agree with previous comments in this thread, if it's just a minor typo, it's excusable, bt if yuo go two teh hmepagge withh sumthin LIkE dis, it just brings the quality of digg down.
There is nothing wrong with having some self pride . . .
>>>"5. Quit complaining about the "liberal bias" of Digg. Back to the people-power theme: if the masses want the story, the masses get the story. It seems like the masses today, at least the technically-savvy ones, have a "liberal bias". Deal with it. Either choose a new site, choose a new bias, or choose to digg your conservative stories."
This is a mass issue, not a minority one. EVERYONE complains about SOME bias. PS3 fanboys are complaining about the xbox bias, windows users are complaining about the apple bias, IE users are complaining about the Firefox bias. And convservatives complain about the liberal bias. Nearly EVERYONE on digg complains about some bias or another, and quite frankly, it doesn't bother me. That's just how digg is.
>>>"6. Don't argue with a mob. It's their way or the highway. Does your singular opinion really deserve to be heard of hundreds or thousands that digg a story?"
Yes. I have put more TIME into digg, I have more EXPERIENCE with digg, I have CONTRIBUTED MORE to digg than many other members. I do believe my opinion is worth more than someone that just signed up. The DIGG CREATORS AGREE as they give more weight to those that have been on longer and have participated more in the form of karma and other factors that they have touched upon in the past.
What is right is not always popular, and what is popular ISN'T ALWAYS RIGHT.
One person on digg can make a big difference. All it takes is one person to point out a flaw, an inaccuracy, etc . . they shouldn't be shut out just because a buntch of proles dugg an idiotic story to the top.
That's all I've got,
- Exo
(P.S. excuse some of the caps I used, I wasn't yelling, I was just using caps at certain places to help things stand out) - tzuriel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Seumas wrote:
Digg is powered by people.
People are (typically) stupid.
Digg is stupid.
Aristotle and I had a good chuckle over this comment. - kowgod, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7PowerCow, did you typo "pwnd?"
Because pwd, or print working directory, didn't originate from a typo on the internet. It is an ages old UNIX command whose name came about out of necessity. The reason *nix languages have so many silly, 1, 2 or 3 character programs hearkens back to the days where memory wasn't cheap and simplistic command names made for faster, less memory intensive programming. Nowadays, though, I seem to see a lot of people refer to passwords as pwds.
Sigh. Gotta know where you came from to know where you're going.
That said, I mod down gratuitously misspelled and non-sensical comments on digg. I can't stand T9/AOL/ignorant comments. I feel it is pretty indicative of someone's intellect. I don't make posts pointing out other peoples' gratuitous misuse of grammar; I just mod them down so I don't have to look at it, and keep moving. That way I don't bother anyone else who might not share my same persnicketiness. - Arkitan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think the comments that scream dupe are a waste of everybody's time, If you know the story is a dupe just bury the story, why some people feel the need to let everyone know that "I saw this before you" I'll never understand, Dupe posts should be auto deleted by some bot.
- piratescare, on 10/12/2007, -0/+51. I can complain about duplicate stories any time I want to. Most of the duplicates are posted by different people under different names. If they were posted under the same title I wouldn't bother looking and therefor wouldn't end up having to complain. IMO posters should SEARCH digg before posting their duplicate stories. Or is that too difficult?
2. Just because the masses like a Story about FARTS doesn't mean I should have to see it pop up again and again under different titles all day long. The masses are idiots with access to a computer. Just because they are tech savvy doesn't mean they are intelligent.
3. Oh bite me. I'm not going to start a new news site just because some people like you are butt heads. I just sift through the garbage threads like this. And this is not really a news site as much as it is a forum of a few random news threads and a bunch of trash "iwannabefamous" crap news posts. I'm only commenting this thread because the poster is a bossy prick who thinks he can tell people how to act. UP YOURS!
4. Saying this sentence, "My incredibly intelligent, computer genius son cannot spell to save his life." just seems wrong. The problem? LAZINESS!!! It's easier to type "ur" instead of "you are" isn't it? Many spelling errors are also wannabes using what they think is 1337 speak. It's ridiculous and I for one (among many others I have noticed) am sick of it. Anybody who wants to be able to say they are intelligent can at the very least USE THE SPELL CHECKER!! You know? That little button next to "Submit Comment" that says "Check Spelling". Duh! Stop being lazy and impatient and you can spell everything perfectly.
5. True the majority of Digg users are liberal and the tendency is for the digg stories to slant toward a more liberal opinion. But that doesn't make it right for you to tell the conservatives to basically shut up and deal with it. They have a right to complain just as much as the liberals do. This is Digg complaints are part of the deal. So you can deal with that.
6. If my point is valid I will argue it against the entire world if need be. No one believed Chris Columbus when he said the world was round and they all told him to shut up about it. Does that mean he should have? Of course not. Going against the mob is sometimes necessary to move forward.
7. I appreciate the time and thought you put into this post and therefor it is dugg. However, I believe you would be a better person to read and digest my thoughts on the subject. No offense intended. - eridius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Because it makes it easier for someone to read - you don't have to make the connection that the story submitter was also the story writer.
- davinic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Because Nick Davis is a badass :)
- davidlow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Im not so shure I agree about point number fore. Speling and Grammer errers, although tolerable in small quantities, can bee distracting in the flow of the comments.
When the problem gets big enuf to detract significantly frum the experience, it helps to let people know to be more attentive to style of their input. Especially to the grammar issues disturb of flow in wrong way.
Unlike with other mash-up sites, there's nobody to police us but ourselves.
Agree you? - pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I suppose the logical option is to simply digg the comments down into obscurity rather than waste time pointing out each mistake. Similarly, comments like "LOL" or "I agree" should simply translate into a positive digg rather than a waste of space reply.
- wallclimber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4piratescare : "6. If my point is valid I will argue it against the entire world if need be. No one believed Chris Columbus when he said the world was round and they all told him to shut up about it. Does that mean he should have? Of course not. Going against the mob is sometimes necessary to move forward."
======================================
piratescare, I like number 6 in your list!
I have enjoyed Digg so far, as someone else said, "warts and all". I don't submit news articles because it seems that the ones I find that interest me have usually already been submitted. Hey, what can I say? I'm a slow poke, but I also know better than to submit dupes.
I do get a little put out sometimes by "news" that ends up just being someone's "opinion blog". But occasionally even some of those are interesting.
As for spelling. I often have typos, even after spell checks and proofing. Sometimes we just miss stuff, we're only human. Sometimes we visit Digg at the end of a long work day and we're just tired.
If there are common typos in a news summary of the comments, it doesn't bother me. Also I understand that there are many folks whose language is not primarily English. So, I think a little leaway can be made in the spelling area. It's usually pretty obvious when comments are written by folks who don't care about communicating clearly. I just ignore those.
The best part is that I always learn something new with sites like Digg and slashdot (ya gotta sift carefully for the gems on both sites though). Digg has value to me, and obviously to others too.
One of these days I'll find a news article to submit that hasn't been submitted yet. Until then, I just try to mind my manners (though I do have a tendency towards sarcasm sometimes :o), and live and let live.
By the way, I don't want to scare anyone, but I'm a grandmother...I just happen to have an interest in technical subjects, and science...and I think people are interesting, and never more so than when they are interacting on forums. Even the trolls are a hoot sometimes.
:o) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Your length of time at Digg, the frequency with which you visit and the amount of positive participation you contribue affects the weight of your up/down votes. I don't know if that is applied to comments and digg sumissions themselves but it is for digging of submissions.
- tHePeOPle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Yes, and judging by what makes the front page, people just ***** love anything resembling a top 10 list.
- gcube9x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4#6 seems to defeat the point of commenting sometimes.
- pexor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@PowerCow: Since you appreciate people pointing out typos when it disrupts the meaning of your post:
'pwd' is short for 'password', a pretty handy abbreviation. Did you mean 'pwnd'? I hope so, because the hipness of that phrase collapsed on itself as soon as it was coined but its echo still bounces round the net. If only you could digg down comments in Counter Strike.
@seumas: Yes, I agree. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Huh? What do you mean?
By dupes, we mean when people submit a digg that has already appeared on digg. Sometimes many times. Sometimes DOZENS or HUNDREDS of times. Even though a search should have revealed pre-existing matches -- or the submission process should have warned them of potential duplications found.
That is then followed up by diggers up-thumbing said duplicates. Unless the story is already on the frontpage or otherwise very obviously already existing, I don't have as much disdain for those who thumb-up an article as I do for those who submitted it in the first place. - kidblast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't even pay attention to who submitted this or that story. I know it's a community driven site, but I just want the news and the news is what I gets.
- DannoHung, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3With regards to the dupes: I'm confused, can things be dugg back up to the front page if they've already sat there?
- MisterCookie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3One of the things that continues to amaze me about digg is the incredible diversity of opinions. You have a good mix of linux, mac and windows fanboys(hell, I even saw a Solaris nut once), liberals, conservatives, Ninjas, and Pirates. As opposed to slashdot, where you'll be burned at the stake for daring to criticize any *nix.
- volcomjerk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This rule set needs to be pinned.
- avester, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I agree, as long as the person is talking about digg as a whole. I think it is perfectly fine to argue with a story that is liberal or commenting that it has a liberal bias. as long as the person has a logical and clear argument (at least as clear as possible). but if that person is complaining against a liberal bias of digg as a whole then he should digg more and talk less.
- DannoHung, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, if a story that's popular over the course of a week is dropped off the front page, it's not suprising to see it resubmitted and voted up several times.
Maybe a better way of handling dupes would be not just a Dupe Option on the Bury This Story selector, but a way to point to the original story. That way, diggs could get redirected, and if the story kept getting dug over the course of a week, it might see its way back up to the top of the heap. - mecole21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2thats why you click on the top today link so u see the most popular ones of the day... and even more u could do top of the week... that way u see the stories that are the most popular for the day so u dont run up the same story 12 hours later...
- Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Just don't ban people for having different ideas then the common consensus. I mean, I found this interesting that on the same day I decided to leave Slashdot forever, Digg makes this announcement.
Honestly, I think Slashdot is a communist website, if you don't think the way everybody else thinks, they ban you without cause. I was banned 3 times for no good reason. I was modded up more then down, my Karma was excellent, and I had more interesting or informative, or funny mods then anything with troll or flaimbait.
I made a comment that went against the general consensus about an open source software story, and I was lambasted, and most of the comments were ignorant and juvenile. I got a flaimbait mod which set off the comment Nazi's at Slashdot to ban my IP. I mean, with their system I cannot even post a rebuttal or explain myself, its just suddenly "NO COMMENT FOR YOU!". I complained each time about it being unjust, and they kind of just shrug their shoulders and point you towards their submission guidelines.
Besides, Slashdot will post 10 - 1 negative stories about Microsoft and NEVER a negative story about open source. I hate Microsoft for some of their business practices as much as anybody else, and I give open source as much a chance as anyone else, but as a software developer making Windows software, I have to find the sliver lining. When I comment about Microsoft or their products not being all that bad, or open source not being a solution to every problem, I get modded down and banned.
I could accept the ban if I was belligerent to other people, attacking them without though, calling people names, making stupid grandiose statements without any merit. I have never said " X sux, Y rulez!" in my life, or "First Post". I try and inspire debate, and maybe throw in a little controversy, just to spice a thread that has gone over to zombies spouting the same repeated mindless comments. And for that, I get banned.
I have no problem with a people powered community web site. In fact, I prefer these over the traditional, we post the news, you read, period, websites. But i have a problem when a website decides you don't have a voice to post your opinions just because they are different then everybody else's. When you allow people to censor other people for not having the same opinion as they do, then you allow the kind of mentality that is is appropriate to censor free thought. I don't accept that.
Digg me up, digg me down, if you choose to filter out comments below a certain threshold, that is your prerogative, just don't ban me unless I am purposely being belligerent. I am here to stay, if you don't like what I say, lets have an intelligent debate about it. But the moment Digg start banning or culling comments because the common consensus doesn't want to know the truth or accept another reality, then adios amigos! - mecole21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lets just seach google for technology and then digg everything that comes up...
- silic0n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2exoendo: "but spelling things correctly doesn't take to long, and at the very least, and effort should be made"
You mean 'take too long'. Ha! - dmron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yah, I agree with this article for the most part. What it really comes down to is people just need to chill the ***** out and stop complaining and arguing all the time. :P
- plankton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2that sounds like what passes for democracy around here - populism is king, dude. at least in every implementation of democracy I know of.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I don't always follow rule #10..
- SoulCast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The mere fact that there's a place to post your thoughts is to not have constraints to what is voiced. The comment just before mine is pretty much the same philosophy I hold. These are opinion sites, and when you are allowed to comment freely, then you are giving people the power to do just that, and this shouldn't be censored.
- stickyboot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I complain about dupes when someone submits a duplicate story that doesn't add important information to what has already been submitted. This usually happens when something new is released and the mad rush to be the first person to post it on digg. Often times you will see new articles on topics that have been submitted before but add new information that was not present in the original link submitted being criticized for being a dupe which is not right. My rule on reporting dupes: Same Story, different website = buried. Similar story New information = digg (if i like it).
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