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246 Comments
- MSF2, on 10/12/2007, -41/+351I'll probably get dugg down for linking here but: http://reddit.com/
It takes awhile to get used to the format but it's worth it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+189I agree with everything the author said on this. Most of the articles are Wii, Riaa Sucks, Apple, Kevin Rose blah blah blah.
This site is not diverse at all. - Bartboy919, on 10/12/2007, -11/+132you forget sony hate, microsoft hate, and xbox love always make it on the front page. (Oddly microsoft makes the Xbox, Who'd a thunk it?)
- nibble128, on 10/12/2007, -4/+104Dear Digg,
There should be a suggestions category, where users can submit their suggestions just as they would their stories. The suggestions would be voted up to the suggestion section frontpage, and then discussed by the users as well as by Digg employees... you would be able to not only build a relationship with your users, you would know exactly what changes the users want (and how many users want it).
Thanks,
Nibble128 - lachcorp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+96Dwight, do you want to make an alliance?
- kingfoot, on 10/12/2007, -36/+123@ theman93
umm, I dont see the red X you speak of... unless you mean the red orb in the left hand side... - Daiken, on 10/12/2007, -8/+90I didn't like some of your suggestions, like no one should digg or digging for crap sites. Regardless, I'm digging you for talking about how these groups digging only eachother's stories and spamming certain sites. IMO, anyone involved in such groups need to have their accounts banned. Also, I hope you enjoy being on the front page, this may be the only time.
- Cybie, on 10/12/2007, -33/+104You know.. I just went to reddit.com and everything there is stuff I've seen on Digg within the past week... so what's the difference. Though Digg does appear to be easier on the eyes.
- mtownand1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+73How can we trust this article? it was submitted by Hawker400, who is one of "them". How do we know he isnt just messing with us? he made it onto the front page, he is part of that 0.1% of users that can get on the front page! we cant trust him, or his filthy article.
/silliness - microview2007, on 10/12/2007, -5/+67Done all three and still had my story stomped by the top 3 submitters. Its a clique as the author points out. So I stopped submitting stories since it's a waste of my time, I don't Digg any of the tops submitters (like it matters) and I rarely comment anymore. Now digg this comment down like the rest of the clowns.
- NoOneButMe, on 10/12/2007, -5/+65So we should game digg in order to end digg gaming? I hope this is an April Fools Day joke..
- TiKoZ, on 10/12/2007, -13/+61IMHO the story was about finding a better digg, it was about improving the current digg.
- TiKoZ, on 10/12/2007, -8/+55*cough*******cough*
No seriously, i mean even with those your story probably won't make it to the front page without friends. - jz68, on 10/12/2007, -3/+46"This leads me to believe that Digg is more like a high school social clique than it is the user driven news submission site it claims to be."
LMAO it's funny cause it's true. - TiKoZ, on 10/12/2007, -6/+46Digg him down and show him it's annoying to leave the caps lock on all the time.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36I've posted up lots of good articles even though I knew they'd never be promoted. I do it because I think the story is a good one. Usernames should be removed from all submissions. It is the only way to make this site about the news and not about people who have a weird "700 frontpage story" obsession.
- Quidam, on 10/12/2007, -5/+36and that would probably also explain why half the stuff that makes the front page almost always our favorite word: "Amazing!!"
- missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32Here's a question, since someone brought up befriending people:
If you can't PM each other, what reason is there to befriend people, other than being able to see what they've dugg? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+33I made it to the front page once.
And yes, I do feel special - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29Stupidest suggestions ever. All these recommendations will do is close the door even tighter.
Only Digg can fix the situation by eliminating names from stories that are submitted. There there are no circle-diggs and the story gets promoted on the strength of its own merits. I don't understand the concern that people will only submit if they get credit. Those are EXACTLY the people that you don't want "running" this website. What you want are people who submit stories because they think the STORY is good. - Stevethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28Unfortunately that's what always happens with anything democratic. It starts as a true democracy and through time it becomes an oligarchy, Digg is just an extrapolation of the trend, hell, see our western governments, true democracy stopped working 10 years after its foundation -in every place of the world-, from then on we have oligarchy. It's also logical to happen so, since those who give most of their times on Digg and their social connections with other Digg members (through their posts, their comments), will eventually become the rulers of the system, there is nothing strange on it. True Democracy cannot work in huge numbers like Digg's, if you want democratic ways go to smaller sites. As for the historicity of Democracy to its true form, it only worked once -in history- in Ancient Athens where people who voted were about 10000 (very small number, that's why it worked), kids, women, slaves and people before their 30s were not involved in the "Agora tou Dimou", that's how they could keep their numbers low....
Democracy is just a "fad" name of the few to make the many believe they participate,in which actually they are not. Nature's law still applies at it's fullest on our societies and -as a result- to Digg.com too, the power of your decisions is measured by the power of your resources (money, manipulation of the collective consciousness -social relations-). If you want this cast of 40 not to control Digg.com then do as much as they do and get involved with Digg more, and after that become one with them. You can see why things work that way, don't you? There will always be some in any system, any organization who will be eager to give more time to and -in the end- they will be rewarded by the exclusive privileges they will get their own way after they have learnt how to manipulate the system,.... - Quidam, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30You know it's pretty sad when there's only a selective group of users who make it to the front page. Doesn't that take away from digg's site as a whole? We're only getting news from "the few". A limited perspective...
- Al3x, on 10/12/2007, -5/+31I agree with the private message comment...
One thing I thought is what if these 25 users who contribute to such a high percentage of what goes on the front page...well a good portion of it is blog-spam...anybody ever think they are getting some coordinated Ad-revenue from their submissions?
Pro-digg-submitters should know how to get a source article. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+36I agree with him, Digg went from coolest site on the internet to complete bear crap.
I hope that idiot kevin is happy. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27It is simpler than that. Just don't say who submitted a story. Maybe put it up only AFTER it reaches the front page. Maybe don't put it up at all.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+33Uh, who can I call to get my cash?
- boybunny, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24dested
Please get it through your thick scull that there are tons of normal Digg users who are sick to death of adding the "69th digg" to a story and not seeing it appear on the front page when there are many stories every day that appear with with 40 diggs total on the front page.
If our diggs do not count then, sorry, I for one have to seriously consider reddit or other alternatives. I say GET RID OF FRIENDS! It does make this site one huge clique site, and the normal users are starting to get VERY pissed off about it! - SlvrEagle23, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23I'm not sure if I totally trust the idea that people even notice who's posting an article most of the time...
I do know one thing though: having a string of comments that are highly dugg doesn't equate to popularity here. I've posted on countless homepage posts now, and netted a few thousand collective diggs as a result, but I still have the same 4 friends from months ago. They're the same 4 people who have befriended me. If I was to post some new comment in an article, the only thing that would determine its final digg value is how well it panders to the general Digg audience.
It's a lot like a top 40 radio station. The songs don't have to be controlled by some overlord authority; all you have to do is shove an idea out there once...if it appeals to the lowest common denominator, they'll keep requesting it over and over and over. Thus, the problem with Digg isn't so much that we're unoriginal, it's that we know what appeals to us before we step foot on the site and vote accordingly, producing the same results over and over. - CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -15/+35How do you create alliances when you can't contact people via some sort of PM? Most people don't even check who's befriended them.
- kcgirlgeek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Get on the HOMEPAGE? What are you KIDDING?! You could make the most wonderfully researched and well thought out point EVER and not even be able to get to the top of the comment section unless you're one of the first 6 people to post. Most people never read comments down very far at all. Yeah, it's pretty much a "whoever posts comments first" and "whoever runs a continual live update" gets the top "slots." But meh....I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. :D
- IvanB, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21"3. Quality, not quantity gets you on the front page."
I won't point fingers, but I'm just saying that's not always true. - captinherb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20It got buried. If your wondering why, click the damn link, you get:
"This page was not found. Perhaps you would like to have a look at one of the following posts?" - TiKoZ, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21And hey, digg gets 4/5/6 dupes of every article from torrentfreak, lifehacker, engadget... etc. why only one makes it to the front page(not the 1st submitted)?
- joaob, on 10/12/2007, -19/+35I'm at 20%.
Not too shabby, and certainly not a "Top User".
1. Don't submit dupes.
2. Find original content that truly interests you.
3. Quality, not quantity gets you on the front page. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17It may not be as widespread as the commenter suggests, but if you think that there aren't A LOT of paid Diggers whose sole purpose is to submit stories, and then other lesser paid minions to digg them to the front page, you are naive.
- Hawker400, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15This is the greatest day of my life.
- mtownand1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19absolutely, i'll hide in the cardboard box in the warehouse while you are at Meredith's party.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17If you want digg more democratic remove the friends feature and the top 25 ranking system.
- dwilljo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15ya, glad this article made the front page...there is just a lot of the same crap floating around all the time, which is making me check the upcoming stories more, or other social news
- HarleyQuinn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I agree with what the author is getting at, but disagree with his methods.
The problem as I see it is the actually the "friends" / "social" side of it. Yes, Digg is a "Social" news site, but in the Clique way the author describes.
The solution as I see it is to get rid of the "Friends" / "View of others profiles". And let it be "GLOBALLY" social. That way you don't get 1 submitter with 100 "buddies" voting stories to the front page. Only AFTER a story makes to front page should you see the submitter. Kinda takes the Clique element away from it. Let Digg be "Globally Social" not Global but really sub-group/friends social.
My .02. - OneManArmy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15I personally believe that the problem is with the so called "Digg Algorithm". Here are a few suggestions:
- Throttle the number of stories that hit the front page per user. That is, a user can't have for example 2 or 3 stories
on the front page on the same day. Or may be limit it on a weekly or monthly basis.
- A digg from a friend should have a lesser weight than a digg from someone else. That is if your friend diggs your
story, it should count as 1/2 a digg for example.
- Adding up on the last point, your friend's digg weight should be inversely proportional to the number of your stories
he dugg. That is, the more stories he digg (from you) the lesser the weight his digg have. - gumby013, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12A group of us from a message board already tried forcing an article to the front page. We got 260 diggs on it in 3 hours and it never made it.
- miles32, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Dammit America is not a democracy
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Here's a comment the author made on his blog:
----------------------------------
"# Brian Carr Says:
April 1st, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Izzatz - thanks for the comment. I’ve heard about people buying votes in order to get up on Digg’s homepage, but I can’t say that the option has ever crossed my mind.
That being said, I certainly have thought about contacting some of the top Diggers and asking them if they would be willing to submit my content for a portion of the Google Adsense revenue. I’m sure one of them would bite."
---------------------------------
Now, is he actually concerned with the democracy of the Digg system, or is he just frustrated that he can't profit from it? - bookkitten, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Could it be that these 25 to 30 "top" users spend all of their time posting for digg... maybe it means the other people have an actual life...
- Slacker1031, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Digg is nothing more than a social project gone wrong. The point is to have everyone's opinion heard, yet we're allowed to digg people down for not agreeing with them (right or wrong). I understand if what someone says is irrelevant, but just as in society people will disagree with what you say. except on digg, they can bury your opinion: out of sight out of mind.
As far as the clique thing goes, it's absolutely true. but the reason isn't bribery, these are people who have done a few of the following: they've been submitting for a while, and have built up a small following of users who have the same interests. They seek out interesting articles and put them up as soon as they find them. Then the users who keep an eye on them digg their story. the cycle repeats until they gain a certain majority. - fastfood15, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11That is what happens when you have large groups of people: Social Hiearchies. I'm sorry if you people don't like it. The school yard had it, high school had it, college was to drunk to have it, the office has it, and the government has and always will have it. We are humans, we inherently seek a hiearchies.
- Neumahn, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Now that Digg is aware that people are on to the scam they will simply have their submitter employees create multiple personas. Problem solved, business as usual.
- invader, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12FTA:
> you’ll probably end up seeing between 25 and 30 users who dominate
> the homepage. Seriously, it wouldn’t surprise me if Digg’s “top” 25
> users accounted for 70% of what ends up on the homepage
From the Title:
> Neither Can 99.9% Of Other Users
So where are the statistics to back this up? The article didn't seem to cite any sources...
Unlike the author of this rant, I've collected and analyzed the data. If you sort users by the number of stories they've submitted, you'll see that the 100 users at the top of that list (don't confuse those users with the 'top 100 ranked users', which are determined by popular ratio) submit more stories (about 98,500) than the #101-700 on that list combined (about 95,700). #1-100 also submit almost as many stories as the next 4,300 users combined (#701-5000 - about 100,800 stories submitted). So if the 100 most active users submit about 1/3 of the stories coming from the top 5,000 most active users, why _wouldn't_ we see them on the front page more often than most?
See the graph at the bottom of this page:
http://brian.shaler.name/pages/blog/diggstatus-summary-page2/
Each bar on the graph is a link to the stats of the users who are averaged together to make that bar. - EmmSee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Once again, the FRIENDS system destroyed Digg.
The crap that gets submitted by the top submitters that reaches the FP is just unbelievable... and the only reason it gets there is because they all have the same core of friends that just digg anything submitted by said submitters. -
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