Digg

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* HOW to Rig DIGG * CNet Exposes

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Bury

worldwideweb 1 year 276 days ago, made popular 1 year 276 days ago

2040 diggs
digg it

146 Comments
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frant1c, on 10/12/2007, -12/+101The article isn't really describing how to "rig Digg". It's just a feature about individuals and companies that do it, and its consequences. So, if anyone expects a 'how-to', they'll be disappointed.
- CheckMarshall, on 10/12/2007, -47/+15Great...now more people will want to be involved with ruining what digg has to offer.
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -24/+58See Also: Apple Section
  
  Enough astroturf to coat the Great Plains.
- birkoph, on 10/12/2007, -26/+74Kevin Rose FAILS at Algorithms.
- TheJayman, on 10/12/2007, -7/+119So is CNET writing an article on digg so that it would make the front page so their rankings will go up and then they can make more money?
- paulmike3, on 10/12/2007, -10/+61FTA: "The stories often feature topics and keywords in headlines that are likely to appeal to the Digg crowd, such as "geeks" and "Apple.""
  
  yeah, that pretty much sums up digg. 0.o
- h2d2, on 10/12/2007, -6/+103Well I know digg is being actively rigged. And at risk of being dugg down I would say that a prime example of this is the Apple section and how more stories from it end up being on the front page.
  
  But all is not lost, digg did take action against the constant spam from roughlydrafted "magazine", which was pretty successful in getting each and everyone of it's pro-Apple / anti-MS stories to the frontpage via fake users and carefully executed digg surges: http://ba01162.googlepages.com/RoughlyDraftedBUSTED.html
- rebrad, on 10/12/2007, -18/+41Now I know how all the dupes, Neo Socialist stories and Apple spam keep getting stories posted here. Business is business I guess, but isn't one "Hate America" or "iPhone" story per day enough? Yes, Digg has been hijacked and it shows.
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -29/+10Thats an amazing bit of detective work, h2d2!
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -26/+16@flag564
  
  Why do you spend so much time harassing Apple users?
  
  This is a serious question. You mock all Apple products, are very vocal about using Ubuntu and owning a Zune, and use the phrase "Apple Fanboy" in about 80% of your posts.
  
  I must ask the question:
  
  Why not just block the apple section in your preferences?
  
  It's clear that you're very annoyed by the Apple posts, and yet you don't take advantage of the tools Digg offers to remove the offending stories form your view.
  
  If you dislike a Digg section, why not just block it?
  
  For example, I've blocked all the Sports categories, because most of them don't interest me. I don't go into the sport stories and, for example, post about the Red Sox in every Yankees related thread.
- spyrochaete, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18h2d2 big respect for your thorough sleuthing! The best way to get the Digg execs to fix their sites is to expose flaws publicly.
  
  Let this be a lesson to everyone here - more diggs does not mean more relevant!
- tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13It's a serious problem of course, but is it wildly different from respectable news organisations 'reporting' a company press release word for word without any fact checking or scrutiny? It's happening more and more. That to me is just as spammy.
  
  To say it affects how seriously social news sites will be taken is wrong, because it seems to affect mainstream media too with regurgitated 'press releases'.
- h2d2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15@flag564: I didn't write that article, so the credit goes to some one else. But who ever it is, they did succeed in their efforts and now that "magazine" is banned and all of it's previous submissions have been deleted. Great job digg team!
- jriley101, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2http://www.FriendlyVote.com - I like that domain name. Well I guess it is better than Rig something.
- fernandez, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6As opposed to actual editors taking cuts and shamelessly promoting products right ?
  
  sounds like jealousy
- CraigJ, on 10/12/2007, -9/+6@halleyscomet, h2d2 - This guy is a troll who gets off on bashing and baiting. don't feed the troll - just block him.
- suprfli, on 10/12/2007, -12/+14The Apple posts are horrible. If I see one more front page post by "CLIFFosakaJAPAN" I'm going to stop reading digg. I've already filtered out the Apple category just so I can stop seeing it. If you go to his user page he is submitting an article once or twice an hour. It's insane. To be fair though, a lot of the posts are good but why were there times that I would see 4-6 posts by the same person all about Apple on the front page??
- thespace, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Note though that most Apple articles are popular on Digg and still are because Digg started when podcasting was just starting on iTunes. I mean, I heard about digg through the Twit podcast on iTunes. So of course its gonna have a nice amount of Apple users digging up the Apple articles. I definately applaud any rigging exposure but I seriously doubt that's gonna help any. Its kinda like how Slashdot use to be entirely hardcore nix users. Every site has to start with some kind of base, but I do agree some form of equalizing these stories more needs to take place.
- thespace, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Also alot of the people in the above comments are known trolls that bash any Apple article on Digg any chance they can get, is that fair also? Also companies like Microsoft are hiring these people as 'evangilists' to post negative comments about Apple and promote their products is that fair also?
- rrunboy12, on 10/12/2007, -11/+9So how much are these Apple executives paying you people to digg their stories?
- MrSparky, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2A Wii, anyone?!
  
  Last I looked there were three articles in a row about Wii-ing...
- djlosch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3not only is there nothing on "how-to" game digg here, there's also nothing new. user/submitter has been frontpaged like 4839224 times, and we see blogspam every day.
- noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Snapshot of front page as I came upon it on 27 November;
  
  http://img423.imageshack.us/img423/3538/tongsubuntuvq7.jpg (c&p the url if clicking doesn't work).
  
  Here's the response:- http://digg.com/linux_unix/Eight_reasons_why_Ubuntu_is_the_Linux_poster_child (see sinner0423's comment and my response).
  
  Oh, and I agree about CliffOsakaJapan; how many stories does this guy post?
- 0o0Moylan0o0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1how do we know someone didnt just rig and digg that site...?
- rjani57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1DEMOCRACY RULES, OK! It's a founding principle for DIGG. And no, I am not paid to say that. (The world will) get used to it.
  
  Perhaps DIGG is the secret weapon to use to introduce real democracy in troubled hot spots like Afgan, Iraq et all instead of squandering men, machines and money. But then some of us might be outta things to do.
MstrClark, on 10/12/2007, -10/+23A lot of stories on Digg as fake. Get used it it.
- mhuggins, on 10/12/2007, -27/+6:-o
- lhnz, on 10/12/2007, -37/+9it it?
  Am I the only person who doubts the integrity of something said by someone who can't even manage simple grammar?
- cakestick, on 10/12/2007, -7/+28@lhnz:
  
  No, but you're one of the few assholes that can't help but point it out.
- celopes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12The funniest thing about the article is the last paragraph.
  
  Who associates the word "credibility" to a site that enables the "mob rule" to news/opinions articles???
  
  I don't think of Digg as any more credible than Google News or Bloglines. Digg is just a mechanism that allows people to find content that they may be interested in, and provides a venue do discuss it.
  
  Credibility comes from the underlying source of a particular article.
  
  Please, get over it.
Alphateam, on 10/12/2007, -31/+5Marked as spam.
- mastershake1, on 10/12/2007, -28/+7YOU FORGOT TO SAY "BURIED" AND "NO DIGG!"
  
  WHY SHOULD WE DIGG YOU UP IF YOU HAVEN'T USED THE PROPER ATTENTION WHORE BUZZWORDS?
- Rummey, on 10/12/2007, -17/+5NO DIGG!
monkeyrobot, on 10/12/2007, -24/+2BORING
foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -17/+38Rig a Digg Digg, three men and a pig.
- Roger, on 10/12/2007, -6/+52I don't think I wanna hear the rest of that...
anteyekon4myst, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8So is most of that tech news that instills anger between Mac and PC fans fake? All those Ubuntu stories just product placement?
- Azur2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Probably most of it.
  And you can add nearly every frontpage article in he "Gaming News" section to the spam-list too.
theonlyvlad, on 10/12/2007, -10/+24Can there please be a "Bury: Sensationalist" option?
- kryx, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26Bury: Inaccurate seems to be relevant enough
- mastershake1, on 10/12/2007, -24/+7Can there please be a "bury comment as attention whore" option?
  
  Really, nobody cares that YOU in particular wanted to bury the article.
- foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I'd be for the addition of "Bury -> Blog". Also, it seems that it's more difficult to get stories buried than before. By before I mean Digg v.2.0. I think that's a factor in crap stories staying on the frontpage.
- mastershake1, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17"Also, it seems that it's more difficult to get stories buried than before. By before I mean Digg v.2.0. I think that's a factor in crap stories staying on the frontpage."
  
  Ah yes, Digg 1.0, where 3/4's of the comments on every post were "++DIGG" or "NO DIGG" or "THE ARTICLE IS A BLOG" or "I HAVE NO INTEREST IN COMMENTING ON THE ACTUAL CONTENT OF THE ARTICLE."
  
  The new comment system has at least put a small cap on the amount of attention whoring by Diggers and kept people on topic. Then again, people don't come to Digg to actually engage in intelligent conversation about what's on the front page, just to bitch and moan about it and make shallow remarks.
- djlosch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6i have a bunch of suggestions:
  http://www.djlosch.com/post_retrieve.php?pid=73
  
  it's not just gaming, it's also the mob mentality.
- laplacian, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Instead of enumerating 50 different types of burying, there should be just one "bury" just like there is only 1 "digg". And that bury number should be visible just like the digg number. Of course none of this does anything to stop digg rigging.
M4tt3r, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Nothing is perfect, just learn to spot the *****, and digg a 6ft hole for it. (bury it, in other words)
xpose, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Its always fun to a digg a story about how digg is flawed. I'll say this gets close to 1000 diggs by days end ;)
josegutz, on 10/12/2007, -32/+7This is old news... AND sooo predictable! I bet you anything I'll be dugg down for this post...

JUst watch...
- lhnz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Btw the reason you will be dugg down is mainly because of your typical and predictable comment:
  "I bet you anything I'll be dugg down for this post...
  JUst watch..."
- jshusta, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0while that may be a fair bet, it doesn't prove anything at all. i will even paradoxically prove this with a comment-quine: i bet i get dugg down for making this irrelevant reply to your wasteful post. just watch.
BugMeNot2, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4:-o
brenbart, on 10/12/2007, -30/+5Oh please! I hate these stupid, stupid recursive articles on Digg about Digg. I am so sick of people being caught up in the nuts and bolts of digg and who's cheating etc. I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care! I don't care!

If you aren't one of these people I don't understand why you care that much.

Get a life! I enjoy Digg because of the types of stories that show up on it. Yeah, it's a social networking kind of site where most of the content is found and submitted by readers. I enjoy the interactivity such as being able to see what my friends have dugg and enjoy. However, even if you are a "top" digg user and supply lots of links it doesn't make you a "real" journalist or anything. Why must you clutter my reading with a bunch of whiney ***** about how to Rig Digg or have a bunch of friends "pump" your stories.

Get over it already....
- MrDarkSim, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Are you sure you don't care?You only said it 15 times.
- brenbart, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2That was thirteen times, thank-you-very-much!!!
  
  I don't "care" as in "dislike" stories about how Digg can be rigged. I do "care" as in "dislike" that people get so caught up in themselves and this sort of story.
- shayateen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2are you aware then that 21 different digg users feel the same way about your comment?
- Gr8Pumpkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you didn't care than why did you post a comment?
- brenbart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Shayateen: Sort of ironic, isn't it? ;-)
  
  Gr8pumpkin: ignoring something is not a way to make it go away.
bhavi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Excellent description.
kirwoodd, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5why are you guys being so negative? it was an interesting (but light) story.
djliquidice, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12This site is soo funny now.
mistercharlie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24"Companies charge as much as $15,000 to get content up on Digg"

Damn!
- naio21, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15I wonder how many MILLIONS Apple pays to Digg for all this astroturfing.
- Azur2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I bet less than Nintendo and Sony do to completely pwn the "Gaming News" section.
- foobar5892, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wonder where on earth they get that information from!
BoneyB, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Apparently, I'm now a "dubious Internet marketer" :-)

That article is pretty ridiculous in terms of the factual inaccuracies -- as was Niall Kennedy's that started it all.

http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2006/11/spam-farms-social-web.html

FWIW, I still think the original story -- the Geek's Guide to Getting in Shape -- was a good one. What difference does it make which domain it's posted on?

The most hilarious detail of all, is that all these stories coverning the site in question -- the dental resources whatever -- are LINKING TO IT! That's going to help it rank in search engines a heck of a lot more than a link from digg.com does.
- obby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I was reading the article, saw the link, read the link and read the comments. There were few comments about it being "spam".
  
  Oh well, theres no easy way to get around it. I don't mind marketing at all as long as its tasteful, entertaining, and not being shoved down my throat. If it interests me, I digg, otherwise I don't save the bookmark.
  
  And dude, I will digg EVERY ONE of your stories if you give me 1% of your earnings...
naio21, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Dugg for the cool description! :-)
ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Remember, SPAM wants to be free!
SleepJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1If only they had proved it with the James Kim story and it was all fake. Too bad.
drewolanoff, on 06/10/2008, -7/+15This article exposed nothing.
mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4How not to write a headline and description, Digg front page exposes.
darkixion, on 10/12/2007, -11/+8"This combination of spam and blogs is called "splogs.""

Is this term by the same illiterate inbred who came up with the term vlog? You're killing the English language! DIE!
- Azur2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Yeah, really. Obviously a commercial spam-blog should be called FLOG.
maddancer, on 10/12/2007, -14/+15This seems to be particularly true for all the anti-Bush rhetoric that Digg spews since relaunching with a "politics" section.

I blame those damn dirty Democrats.

Seriously, though - have we ever seen any pro-Bush stories make Digg's frontpage since the politics section was launched? I don't doubt that Bush's approval ratings are in the toilet, but you can't tell me that every single story about the current administration that appears on Digg is negative is only a coincidence.
- Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -9/+10It's not a coincidence. It's a direct outcome of the 'external digging' programming that Digg has. I may not be referencing it correctly but what I'm talking about is the 'Digg This' buttons you see on blogs and other websites.
  
  It's ridiculous, easily gamed, and makes a mockery of the supposed 'fair election' process that Digg has for getting stories to the front page.
- darkixion, on 10/12/2007, -13/+9Here's a positive thing to say about Bush... actually, no, it's gone.
- Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -9/+15Go ahead and Digg my previous comment down but what's happening is as plain as the nose on your face.
  
  Stories with 1300 Diggs and less then 200 comments? C'mon.
  
  Look at the front page RIGHT NOW and see how many stories are at 550+ Diggs with less than 100 comments.
  
  It's bullcrap. Those stories are making it to the front page based on Diggs coming from external sources. Without USER participation I may as well go read news.google.com as this place.
- Nogger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I didn't know I had to maintain a "digg story" to "comment on story" quota.
- Azur2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6The "littlegreenfootballs" crowd partly have themselves to blame, though.
  
  They write insane ranting and usually wildly inaccurate introductions with inflammatory language pissing even me, who's a libertarian, off before I've even read the ranting blog they link to, much less clicked on the external link to the actual article (if they at all bother including it).
  Then they comment eachothers threads, and bury all dissenting opinion.
  
  Which would be gaming digg and a smart move, if it wasn't for the tiny flaw in the plan that they're too few to game their tripe to the front page.
bonez05, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6judging by these comments - this article, another Made-for-Digg-Spam made the front page.
Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4This is really inaccurate. So what if one fake story got to the front page? It's not like it happens often. Look into the undugg stories right now and you'll see a bunch of ***** blog posts and various other scams, but none of those ever make it to the front page. Digg is not descending into a ad-ridden spamfest, sorry Cnet
- mastershake1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Well, given that somebody on every story ALWAYS says "buried as inaccurate," I take that to mean that there must be thousands of inaccurate stories on Digg. Unless "buried as inaccurate" is just a stupid buzzword like "NO DIGGGGGGG."
techpimp, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Suspect #1: GeekCapital
Snakedal337, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14It says they pay up to $15,000...

Wheres my check?? I'll gladly go along with any digg hijacking for that kind of money!
- Catchpen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Has anybody here actually bought something, switched OS's, subscribed to a service or changed who they vote for just because of a top story on Digg? I didn't think so. We're all labeled as geeks here and usually a geeks knowledge base of the things mentioned above goes a little further than a 2 paragraph story posted on a ________ fan boys blog.
kylesellers, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4The question is, was this post rigged?
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Was your comment rigged?
ionbattle, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3"The users hit a thumbs up button, giving it a "digg" if they like the story or a thumbs down button if they don't like it."

You can't digg down a story...they don't even know how the site works.

Buried Inaccurate.
- xile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Sounds like you decided the hit the "thumbs down" button.
- ionbattle, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2yeah but it doesn't effect the actual digg count so, who cares..
JuliusErving, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The one thing i hate about digg nowadays (though i guess you have to expect it) are the use of inaccurate titles just to get to the front page. This was not a how to on rigging digg in any sense of the word. I also could have done without the asterisks in the title and the lack of a description. Thanks, worldwideweb.
- samclip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Worldwideweb seems to make a habbit of artistic titles: http://digg.com/users/worldwideweb/dugg
ronmexico, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7A case in point would be the musikCube story. Tell me that wasn't spam.
mrmontrose, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21 bad egg doesn't make the whole dozen bad
- philski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No, but you'd better bet I purchase a different carton with 12 good eggs!
stonr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3description says it all
patience, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10How to drive traffic to CNET!
samclip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Have Digg commented publicly / on Digg.com (independently rather than being quoted within an article) on 'post-rigging'? Every-ones comments on spotting the crap from the genuine stories are true, but if companies / individuals are rigging Digg, surely it undermines the fundamentals of the Digg culture?
VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Meh, this has happened to all media news, so it happening on digg.com is a surprise? How is this even news? Part of reading the news is figuring out if it's true or not.
UrlorJkron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3THEY may not have told of how to exploit digg, as the title would have you believe, but they did link to a few sites that DO.
jiminoc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3why would they pay for digg traffic? Diggers don't click links. Thats been documented dozens of times.
weird0science, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I am going to start practicing the 1 in 20 rule now. I won't submit anything of my own, except that 1 in 20 that is too good not to share. While I have promoted myself, and submitted lots of my own content, I still digg tons of stuff that I am interested in. I am going to stop submitting so much of my own stuff. It will make people think I am just trying to do marketing or something, like this article describes. I really am just trying to share useful tidbits with the geek masses....I will rely on people finding me through Google for the majority of that now, as well as syndication.

As for those cheater sites, Digg should ban everyone coming from them via the referral. Get a list of banned ip ranges setup.
- noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've a better idea. Maintain the list and surreptitiously ban all stories from these people. Hide them from normal users, but show them to the banned users, along with some fake Digg counts and auto-generated replies (I swear, some of the comments on Digg are so inane it shouldn't be too hard to do something that will fool people for a while).
  
  The spammers get to waste their time doing what they think is productive work (for them), and we don't have to see any of it! :-)
floorman56, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5humm moveon.org must have a BIG account with them.

Digg me down if you agree
pixelfox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1well that would explain why all the Apple stories pop up... but look at the digg entry at Wikipedia, its chock full of these abuses noted a long time ago...
digitalrift, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7before digg went web 2.0 and got hyped by every site imagineable digg had good content. these days, it's hard to find decent content amongst the *****, political opinion, PS3 sucks, and worse of all "OMG Steve Jobs farted!" stories here on digg.

Since then, digg's primary use is Pro Apple/ Anti-MS propaganda and political grandstanding.
kilikogo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The Thumbs up and down is only for comments. Cnet doesnt seem to have very good reporters...
weird0science, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I wonder if CNET used a cheater site to get this up here.
shayateen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This might explain why the political opinion and political news all have the exact philosopy and POV on Digg.

"Other scammers are trying other ways to buy votes. A site dubbed "User/Submitter," purports to pay people 50 cents for digging three stories and charges $20 for each story submitted to the site, plus $1 for every vote it gets. The Spike the Vote Web site boasts that it is a "bulletproof way to cheat Digg" and offers a point system for Digg users to submit and dig stories. And Friendly Vote bills itself as an "online resource for Web masters" to improve their marketing on sites like Digg and Delicious."

This explains alot,,
- spidrw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyone else find this business model to be horrible for the consumer? (morals aside)
  
  After paying for diggers, they make $20/story plus ~$0.83/digg. They run an RSS feed to get the stories out (automatic) and they probably run a script to automatically verify the diggs. Incremental labor involved = 0.
  
  The digger however (doing the manual work) makes ~$.17/digg.
  
  I call shenanigans!
clearzen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Is anyone really surprised. I love digging through stories but c'mon how many anti PS3 pro wii we love linux stories can make it to the front page in a day without this happening. I think it's fairly transparent what that digg is rigged at some level.
aggies11, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Digg isn't a "news" site, in the traditional sense. It's an "entertainment" news site. Not one that follows celebrities ;), but one where the news stories selected are ones that people want to read, because they find them informative and/or *entertaining*.

Yes I do read digg to keep up on the latest trends and news items, but more significantly I read digg to be entertained by all the interesting things people submit. I'd imagine it's the same for many others. Digg is news that people *want* to read about, so it can't replace the traditional news media, is not supposed to, and thus shouldn't be compared to.

If enough people "digg" it (find it interesting/entertaining) then it deserves the attention it gets. :)

Aggies
pauly1980, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2what? the shameless self-promoting bloggers can't pull it off by paraphrasing someone else's work anymore??
usbserial, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6How to rig Digg:

1) Make an article about how to rig Digg
2) ???
3) Profit!
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