What is Digg?193 Comments
- govsucks, on 10/09/2008, -5/+193They need to work on a way to keep one group of people from controlling the front page every freaking day. Also, having a most burried section in addition to upcoming would be good and keep the bury brigades at bay.
Still love digg, I think the UI is fine for the most part. - WordsnCollision, on 10/09/2008, -3/+137Expanding the category choices to cater to those niche interests would be a good place to start.
- AndrewDB, on 10/10/2008, -2/+88One key way how to "keep users engaged", is that you should allow them to block websites they don't want to see on the front page.
If I don't want to see HuffPo, Cracked, or Collegehumor for example, I should be able to block them in my profile settings.
Why can't I do this? - HerrEisenheim, on 10/10/2008, -3/+78The reality is that Digg has changed. Digg is no longer niche. Digg was about technology, now it's about politics, comics, funny pictures, lolcats, videos of people getting hurt, and various other Internet memes.
There is no going back. Once the image and video sections were added that was pretty obvious. It's just not the same site it used to be. Yes, I know there is still a technology section, but that really doesn't matter. When no one uses it, because no one's reading it, and no one is submitting anything it doesn't really matter that it's just "there." For me, it's back to Slashdot. I get my tech news from Slashdot, Wired, and Ars.
I don't even think it's a bad thing, to be honest. But the user that was lured into Digg a year ago is not the same kind of user that's getting lured in today. Adding more categories isn't going to make a difference. The only way you are going to be able to shift the focus of Digg is if you somehow created a way for users to discount particular URLs that dominate the site now, like huffpo, rawstory, dailykos, etc.. Maybe part of the algorithm looks at buries across stories with the same URL in order to come up with some kind of "spam" variable. That way it's relatively more difficult for URLs that are always on digg, which are highly contested, to make the front page. Because right now there are just too many people who are going to consistently Digg that crap up. Yeah, I guess that takes away some of the democratic feel, but that just goes to show you that a true democracy kind of sucks because most people are idiots. - SillyRabbits, on 10/10/2008, -2/+74I'll agree with you, it's gotten pretty ridiculous the past few weeks. Especially on the political front. If all I wanted to see was Huffington blog posts, I'd visit their site. Digg is becoming pretty worthless as a site to see a variety of stories. I'm sure it's chasing away many users. Personally, I've been spending much more time on other sites to get a little better perspective on current news.
- Darkhacker, on 10/09/2008, -1/+62The upcoming section needs better ways to filter content. The recommendation engine helps, but I'd like to see some more options. Instead of just having the recommendation engine based on "recommended by 3 people" type thing, create a scoring system. That way you can incorporate these other settings. Remember, the score isn't the number of diggs, it only appears to me, so it wouldn't artificially inflate a story to the front page.
Domain handling - allow users the ability to block domains so that any content submitted from that site doesn't appear. Likewise, allow whitelisted domains to raise a score.
Keyword watching - Yeah, I suppose I could just use the search feature but I'd really like to set certain keywords so that when they appear in the title or description, it will either improve or lessen their score. That way I can add keywords and know when a story breaks instead of checking a dozen or so keywords every single day via the search. And I can lower the priority on keywords if I'm sick of seeing every other story in upcoming with "iPhone" in the title.
Prioritize friends - If friend X diggs a story, it will improve its upcoming score more than if friend Y diggs it.
Find Similar - Let's be honest. Submitters are whores. When they click "totally original, I swear" they are usually lying. When I see a story I want the ability to click a "find similar" button that works the same way as the one during the submission process. That way I can find who really submitted it first, and find the "main" digg story. By "main" I mean that one that is starting to gain traction. Say a story breaks and out of 10 submissions, one has 70 diggs and the rest have 1 or 2. I'd rather digg the "main" one with 70 diggs, but sometimes I stumble across the duplicate story first. - Branchex, on 10/10/2008, -0/+52Just don't turn it into reddit with literally hundreds of categories.
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -7/+52http://blog.mises.org/archives/008721.asp
The problem is all of the Obama Good Palin Bad articles. - insllvn, on 10/10/2008, -3/+43I was beginning to think that the World and Business section WAS the liberal blog section.
- wukillabee, on 10/10/2008, -9/+48banning mrbabyspam would be a good way to start
- Shuk, on 10/10/2008, -0/+34One annoying and potentially crippling aspect of Digg is that whenever there is big news, we always have to wait for one of the top diggers to digg it for it to get front paged. Sometimes it takes about a full day for the "BREAKING NEWS" article to be in the front page.
This could also possibly be because of blogs who seem to have a lot of power in digg's system, like Huffington Post for example (I don't think its just a coincidence that half of the popular political news articles here are from HuffPo). Either way, it's evidence that there are certain heavyweight players that exercise influence over the site and keep it from being the best it can be (sort of like how the USA works) - insllvn, on 10/10/2008, -2/+35Screw you guys, I'm going to start my own social news website.... with black jack... and hookers.... in fact, screw the social news site.
- psychotron, on 10/10/2008, -2/+34I have never understood the need to have a submitter's name attached to stories. It has just lead to the current popularity contest and obsession with making it to the front page. Why would having stories not be attached to a submitter be any different? Would that not lead to greater variety or stories? I hate the idea of digging just for the sake of digging just because someone you know also digged it. Digg it because you read the story and liked it.
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -2/+30I was under the impression The Front Page WAS the liberal blog section.
- Hanny26, on 10/10/2008, -0/+25Yeah I agree, too many sections and divisions sometimes do nothing but pollute a site like this. Part of the beauty of Digg is that its got a "Melting pot" of stories in each section, while still generally staying on topic. For example you can look at the Tech section, and be exposed to stuff you wouldn't ever normally look at if it was in it's own section, but you check it out because it's there and you end up learning something. I think the site is split up pretty well as is, that isn't something they should be worrying about at this point in time.
Alright, I'll hop off my soap box. - mattjameson, on 10/09/2008, -4/+29I also feel that not enough articles actually make it to the Frontpage. I usually run out of interesting things to read in about 2 hours.
- Falldog, on 10/09/2008, -0/+23Hope about the small political niche? I don't think there are enough stories covering the campaign. [/sarcasm]
Seriously though, how many people actually use the recommendation engine? I don't Digg enough articles for them to create any meaningful recommendations and I'd much rather browse upcoming content that might be out of my general exposure base. Plus, it annoys me to hell that I now need to click two links to get to a page that used to only take one. - JonShannow, on 10/10/2008, -0/+21
Dismantle the Digg Mafia! - kunfu, on 10/10/2008, -3/+23I'm with you their, on any given day 70% of front page articles are Palin sucks and Obama rules articles, enough already I get it Digg loves Obama and Ron Paul.
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -4/+24Agreed.
Huffpospam should just be banned from the site, but I would settle for ever having to see their ***** propaganda again. - Semprini, on 10/10/2008, -10/+30Hey Kevin, how about running a site that isn't "hate republicans all the time"?
The suckage here has grown.
It used to be interesting, now its a whinefest. - thatsmyaibo, on 10/10/2008, -4/+24I know exactly what you mean. I worked with Kevin at G4 and started reading Digg back in 2004. I loved keeping up with the tech news. Then waves of extreme liberals and 14 year olds took over and here we have Huffington Post with a 4chan mix.
I went from refreshing Digg on my browser at work every 5 minutes to checking once a week and still feeling unsatisfied. I have the utmost respect for Kevin but he turned his back on his core tech audience and I think by trying to diversify Digg he turned it into a fad. The tech audience would have stayed true and now it's just a novelty. - Nerfdude, on 10/10/2008, -0/+18a great fix would be to start banning people who communicate only in 4chan memes.
- nymphetamine, on 10/09/2008, -0/+17Hookers.
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -1/+18Most buries, I like that idea.
- mbaylor, on 10/09/2008, -1/+17How else do you think Digg will make a profit?
- dgtljunglist, on 10/10/2008, -0/+14Last I checked, Linux and Ron Paul are pretty niche interests...
- inactive, on 10/10/2008, -0/+14We need your soul, that's why.
- ancientshoes, on 10/10/2008, -3/+17I really do think he's done alot for this place....to transform it into dailykos
- chrisnh, on 10/10/2008, -0/+13how about people just get original. i don't think we need to digg EVERY entry at huff post. like the digg people aren't there every day anyway?
- UTKEngineer, on 10/10/2008, -2/+15Amen. It's especially galling when you consider that Digg is probably giving considerable money to huffingtonpost/rawstory/etc in the form of ad revenue when click through posts are frontpaged on digg.
- Ryudo2k9, on 10/10/2008, -6/+18How about less K rose fan club and praise Obama junk.
- caracter2, on 10/10/2008, -1/+13I think one major problem is that there really aren't that many Niche interests. As human beings we are all drawn to pretty much the same things. Apart from considerable demographic separations dictated by age (i.e. older people do have different likings), we are truly sheeple in the sense that it is pretty obvious to work out what people enjoy.
Digg's category system is flawed. They ask of you to choose the subjects you are most interested in but we all know that interesting articles can pop up in every category. I use digg because it filters all subjects to showcase the cream of the crop for each matter. As of late however, I have noticed that digg's algorithm is flawed.
It is IMPOSSIBLE (and I mean completely IMPOSSIBLE) for a submission to get to the front page without the help of hard-core users who can shout your submission and beg for more diggs. I have seen COUNTLESS small time users who submit GREAT content but never get past 5 or 6 diggs if at all. As such is the case, the system would probably do better off without these submissions that just clutter the upcoming section. It's sad, but its true. If you don't have friends to shout to and up your digg count your submission is ABSOLUTELY pointless.
These are the things I hate about Digg but I'm well aware that engineering a solution is a daunting task. - insllvn, on 10/10/2008, -2/+141. Go to the upcoming section.
2. Digg stories that interest you
3. ????? - inactive, on 10/10/2008, -0/+11Translation - It will be easier for the liberals and conservatives be grouped up. ie: High School cliques, Left/Right groups. Sochs'/Greasers, Rich/Poor, etc. I was a loner... I'll probably be buried...
- defaultdigger, on 10/10/2008, -0/+115. Get a job
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -9/+19Does that mean there will really be a liberal blog section under World and Business? I know enough people have asked for one... Maybe Kevin is tired of hearing them bitch.
- AriaStar, on 10/10/2008, -1/+11Just what I was going to say. I'm a huge HUGE fan, but have felt less inclined to participate in recent months due to whatever group is out there digging up the stories of a few people while digging down the same stories submitted by others. I wonder sometimes why bother digging or submitting when there's that brigade controlling everything? Basically a large group that is really a small part of the Digg population has too much power.
Heh, that sounds familiar...and not in a good way.... - inactive, on 10/10/2008, -0/+10No more links to 3rd rate articles by self-proclaimed writers who are trying to make a quick buck for their blogs/websites! We NEED quality content and NOT content from cliques who like to digg each other's crap.
- vdgmr1213, on 10/10/2008, -2/+11I blocked the political section for that reason. Unfortunately, the World & Business section has many of them too, so I cut those out. Now only a few political stories make it through to me, and while it isn't the Digg I used to love, it is by far much better than it used to be. Granted its not Digg that's getting better, just what I see of it.
- puzzud, on 10/10/2008, -1/+10No, I think when digg added alot more categories, things went a little sour. It's the same way diggnation went as well. Digg started off like Slashdot. Diggnation started out like the Totally Rad Show. That is no longer the case. Digg is a bit more like Yahoo news or any other lame and depressing source of news. I find myself visiting Slashdot a bit more and more these days. And Alex is a genius for starting TRS. Even he realized diggnation changed because of Kevin's newer interests (which parallels the whole move to Mac... man, I miss the Linux krose) and has stated publicly this was his motivation for TRS.
- Semprini, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9Baloney. This site has hosted the most outrageous amount of deranged hatred towards the right.
I don't want to change your mind, but there is no balance here.
And you would rightfully be hating it if it was the other way. - diblasio, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9They could charge 50 cents for the ability to double digg/bury.
- batonrye, on 10/10/2008, -1/+10... what if each 'Digg' or 'Bury' was weighted by a user's connection (through previous diggs, distribution of diggs, total diggs) to the topic of said post.
I.E. a user who diggs selective articles of certain genre will carry more weight than MrBabyMan - displacednomad, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9That's how I feel about del.icio.us too. Every word or phrase is a category, if you just enter it into that box at the top. I need stories to find their way to me, not me finding stories. Most of the time, I hardly know what I'm looking for, or don't know the right words to search for it. I'll know it when I see it.
- UTKEngineer, on 10/10/2008, -0/+9VERY good idea. I've often thought I'd get a lot more use out of the side it I could just block certain URL's.
- BotchaMcCoola, on 10/10/2008, -1/+9We don't trust your judgment. Sorry.
- Zig88, on 10/10/2008, -0/+8I'd like to see some mechanism to prevent valid comments getting buried because they disagree with the mainstream, but in reality the lowest common denominator will always prevail I guess.
- huff51, on 10/10/2008, -1/+9maybe im old fashioned, but id rather have a tech digg. if i want to network or see what my friends are up to ill look at facebook.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 06/30/2009, -1/+8rheaume, nick111 - I don't care *what* your political opinion is - the HuffingtonPost is just not a very credible news source. They're a frankly left-leaning blog, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that; at the same time, however, you need to understand that *because* of their bias you need to take their words with a grain of salt. They are as "objective" as Fox news; I don't know if they *lie* as much as Fox, but they certainly have a tendency to spin stories in a direction palatable to their reader base.
Again - there is nothing wrong with that, but if you criticize people for disliking biased reporting (as opposed to reporting which just gives you the facts and lets you make up your own mind), then you're no better than the rabid Right. -
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