What is Digg?139 Comments
- enemyofstate430, on 10/12/2007, -16/+106since I feel like being a dick to the authoritarians on digg, here are a few secrets for digg users that are experienced...
click the button to digg people's comments up as fast as possible. You get about four or even five "votes." it doesn't work for digg down buttons, but its kinda like how Congress works--people that have been here for awhile know how the sytem operates.
A couple more quick tips: reply to the first comment, like I'm doing here, and everyone sees you without having to scroll down--just do it when you have a really good point to make. Oh....and make sure you include popular "diggworthy" phrases in your comments, i.e. "I teach logic *****!"
that's all i have for now. :) - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -9/+71These are some pretty good suggestions.
It seems pretty obvious that a small group of people control what is mostly seen on Digg, what opened my eyes was the blocking of RDM (Roughly Drafted) really for no good reason.
I really like the idea of not showing the number of diggs until a story reaches the front page - and also something does need to be done with the sort of social networks that spring up and digg (or bury) each others articles. I'm sure some work could be done to determine when diggers appear to be in a mutually beneficial digging scenario, and also when a user is digging up stories from a particular author disproportionate to the majority of the Digg population. Then you wouldn't block them, but simply de-weight those diggs - easy to digg if you aren't showing anything until it reaches the front page.
I don't see why a site like Digg hsa to ever ban any submitters or posters, they just need to adjust weighting of diggs if it seems there is abuse. - jonathantneal, on 10/12/2007, -4/+39I like the idea of hiding the number of diggs until after you vote, but at the same time, showing the amount of diggs helps me sort out the community relevance of a story is. For example; a front page story at 50 diggs versus 200 diggs, I can usually trust in the 200 digg story.
- RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37I've been reading Digg for over a year now and frankly the story quality is only getting worse. Too many lame stories (and dupes) make it to the front page - some with only 30 or so diggs.
I filter out a lot of categories so I don't have to see political news (check out this Sept. 11/Federal Reserve/WTO conspiracy theory video on GoogleVideo for the 67th time!) and other categories easily flooded with *****. Even so, the mainstray sci/tech category story quality is only decreasing.
The Digg guys are always trying to make the site better, I just hope they fix it before the stories get even worse... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+37wow... i got cut off during editing.. that sucks.
... and a "digg this" button, so that dumbasses aren't comenting/digging stories without seeing them. This isn't a link site.. its a news site.
also, i think it would be perticularily interesting if we weren't actually able to "choose" friends. That's sounds horrible as an idea, but it would be ingenious. Think about it.... digg looks at what you are digging, then find the top 5-10 people with the same interests as you, and adds them as your friend. Then, as you go through the site, you can see things that you would most likely enjoy. It's brilliant! - enemyofstate430, on 10/12/2007, -2/+32actually...in response to my first post, i just discovered that digg corrects for errors in your "multiple green button clicking" when you refresh the page....so ignore that one part in my above comment; however, if you really do want to be a dick, you can digg down all the comments around you to make yourself look better, as if some bot is wrecking havoc in the system and you are a relatively "lesser evil."
either way, its all dishonest. i don't even reply to the first comment on a digg page usually, but this is paradoxical because I am trying to stop others from manipulating the system by making the holes of the system obvious to everyone. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29the problem is that there are way to many biased articles
- bentrop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26@enemyofstate430
> click the button to digg people's comments up as fast as possible. You get about four or
> even five "votes." it doesn't work for digg down buttons, but its kinda like how Congress
> works--people that have been here for awhile know how the sytem operates.
For a second I thought that you discovered a very serious flaw in the system. Luckily that just isn't the case. An even more fun way to vote on a comment as often as you like is to copy it's javascript code, e.g. javascript:dC(4279700,'21130e096d766db7e2950763c5e7abfe') and copy it into the address bar. You can vote as often as you like, down and up ... you can digg a comment up to staggering height if you like ... as soon as you reload you will notice however, that only the first vote counts, and that's it. - cadavreexquis, on 10/12/2007, -7/+31Ask yourself: how many times have you found yourself making a comment simply because you knew it would be dugg up - not because you felt strongly about what you were saying?
- OpCzar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24True, at least with Slashdot's moderation system, even the less popular opinions can still see the light of day.Whereas here, once you get into a certain negative number for your comment, people just won't bother to digg you up (tyranny of the majority).
- Wickedboss, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Like the one you just made ?
- grav80bong, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22"Either eliminate the abuse-prone “friends” feature entirely or bar users from voting for friends’ stories."
I agree with all of the suggestions in the article except for this one. If anything I think the social and friend aspects of digg are light years away from where they could be. I want more of my friends to use digg and I want to be able to communicate with them throughout the day on digg about all the cool stories we're finding.
A much better way to handle this, as a number of people have suggested, is improving the algorithm so "clique" votes don't carry as much weight. If my group of friends and I want to digg a bunch of the same stories because we have common interests and it gives us topics to discuss that should be encouraged, just make it so that our "common voting" is trimmed down to having the weight of a single vote as much as possible...unless the story gets popular from other areas of the digg community, then the individual votes should retain their weight. - dontlookdown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I really really like your friends idea. I mean you can narrow down people very well with what they digg along with the huge user base.
- HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Most of the ideas expressed in this article have already been stated. This article is just a rehash.
Kevin Rose was all about the "Wisdom of Crowds" when he thought up Digg, it has instead become "Animal Farm" where some Diggers are more equal than others.
To bring back the "Wisdom of Crowds" Digg should do the following:
1) Hide the name of the submitter of a story UNTIL it hits the home page.
2) Just as Digg will stop you from leaving too many comments in a set period of time it should also stop you from excessive burying of comments and stories in a set period of time.
3) Hide the number of Diggs until a story hits the home page.
4) After the number of Diggs is shown also provide who Dugg the story and a time stamp of when they Dugg it.
5) When a story gets buried provide a time stamp and the type of bury the story received, not who buried it.
6) Better dupe checking.
7) Provide an "additional links" section to a story so that when someone does submit a dupe story (with a different link) they can add it to an existing story. This link can have a thumbs up/thumbs down Digg option next to it and the submitter can gain "Digg helper" credits rather than "home page" credits.
8) Change the Digg Top Users link to sort not by promoted stories but by a column that better represents a members contributions to Digg. Perhaps we need an extra column that averages out their submissions, Diggs and comments divided by the number of days they have been on Digg?
That's it for now. I've got more comments such as this on my Blog but I'm not going to leave the link in this comment. It's in my profile if you really want to know... - stelriah, on 10/12/2007, -8/+24I will solve the problems.
- Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Everybody's somebody's digger.
- OpCzar, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15"This isn't a company. Its a social experiment that will never make money."
It's already making money. - mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18That's not true, I have seen many instances of conservative comments getting a large number of diggs. When they make rational comments, they are well received. I think the reason they often get buried is not because they are conservative but rather that the comment is immature, illegible, hateful, and/or uninformed.
It just so happens that these comments come disproportionately from conservative diggers.. - Padwah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11"click the button to digg people's comments up as fast as possible. You get about four or even five "votes." it doesn't work for digg down buttons, but its kinda like how Congress works--people that have been here for awhile know how the sytem operates."
That doesn't actually work though as only one of those clicks will have been registered, try refreshing the page once you've been on your click rampage - Aggaman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The truth is this: if digg is to be a democratic news site, then the very conception of "top diggers" will have to be eliminated. All it does is create a hierarchy, as it has done here.
While it is better if the average digg reader does more than they do now, it would be better if some people did less.
Allow one submission a day, or a week, or even a month. Whatever it takes. - undersky1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15This guy has 100% dugg rating...this is his first and only story submitted, and he never commented on any other article. Good job!
By the way, I used to write with passion on digg, but now just apathetic...maybe it's the time for me to leave.
note: undersky1 is the second alias of undersky, who was banned from digg.com for unknown and unexplained reason by digg.com. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -9/+19further... i don't believe that diggs should be displayed on the front page at all. digg should give a mirror to all front page links... and have a sidebar (or small box.. whatever) that shows the # of diggs, and a "digg this" button, so that there aren't retards who don't actually see stories before commenting/digging
- vermin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9This guy makes so many assumptions with his argument. The only way he can make these statements are if he's privy to exactly how Digg works behind the scenes. The statistic of the top 100 diggers submitting 56% of the stories doesn't necessarily mean that the top users are 'gaming digg'. It could also mean that they actually put in a lot of time to find cool stories for everyone else, which is exactly what everyone wants.
Of course Digg needs to be aware of the possibility of 'gaming the system', but they know this better then anyone else and they've constantly stressed their commitment to keep people from gaming Digg. Too many assumptions in this story. - gohoos, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13"what opened my eyes was the blocking of RDM (Roughly Drafted) really for no good reason."
Did you read the articles about how RDM was gaming digg? Each article was nothing but Apple fanboi spam, and yet their coordinated system got them on the front page each time.
Digg will be flanked because it shows the bias of those top users that submit most of the stories instead of the general population (or even most Digg users.)
Only 2% of the market uses Apple computers, but look at how many Apple articles hit the front page! The US is split nearly in half Democrat/Republican, yet look at the political slant of the Digg front page articles.
Digg will be flanked because its bias has made it into a niche site. - Aliarse, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Here you go.
http://www.digg.com/users/easytosay/dugg
:o) - cam18, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15I think we should get rid of the dig down button on comments. Disagreeing with the majority = automatic dig down. For instance, I'm a liberal but I can see than anyone with conservative views are getting dugg down for simply having conservative views.
Then maybe there could be a reporting system for comment spam. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Just my two cents about the quality of the articles. I take great care with the stories I'm submitting to make sure they make for an interesting read. But lately, a new breed of diggers keeps complaining about the same things:
1. They don't want blog articles
2. They don't want Ars Technica, Tech Crunch or CNET news
3. No music, movies or anything that doesn't have Wii in the title
4. No serious programming discussions
5. nothing by wired magazine
6. No political commentary
So thanks guys for ruining the fun of digg. In fact if we all meet these conditions we will end up with a site that already exists:
http://www.YouTube.com - MaddDog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The "clique" votes have already been diminshed in value. In fact, I think they are worth almost nothing. That is why sometimes submissions with lots of friends digging take over 50 diggs to reach the front page (sometimes even 75 or more), whereas a story might only take 20 diggs if it was dugg by 20 independent users.
- cam18, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8people have been complaining about the different features of Digg (especially about the comment system) since the last revision...
- NoctemSaiyaku, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I've noticed the difference from the early digg to now, don't get me wrong digg still brings the stories but now it's more political agenda. There is enough bad in the world and sometimes it's nice to get away. Let's get back to the technology and the deals.
- cam18, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11@mrASSMAN
Maybe our experiences in the political discussions have been different. I see just as many immature liberal comments as I do conservative yet most of the time the liberal comments are never dugg down. - radicaldementia, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"As far as an "agenda", isn't it obvious that most people are simply trying to promote their own personal viewpoint, warts and all? I'm not a shrink but it appears mostly ego driven to me."
Personal Viewpoint? Except for political articles, which I refuse to take part in, most articles don't really promote any viewpoints, they're just news. If the articles I submit express any viewpoint, its "science is good" because 90% of the articles I've submitted are science.
"Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why you're willing to put forth more time and effort than everyone else? And does the fact that you work harder at promoting your views make them any "better" or more valid than others?"
I put forth more time and effort because I'm an idealist and I'm doing everything I can to make digg a valued news site. Second, like I said, I am not promoting my views. And lastly, NO, stories I submit are no more or less valid than any other diggers' simply because I submitted them, thats just dumb. Digg the story, not the submitter.
Look, I'm not trying to say "don't blame top diggers just cause we're better than you", I'm saying don't blame top diggers for an inherent problem of the site. After all, all we do is submit stories, its everyone else who diggs them. - Wickedboss, on 10/12/2007, -15/+21...Digg has a significant culture problem right now (namely, that there are a bunch of Dicks on Digg)...
YEP...
Digg me down now Dick users , oups, Digg users... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I think the main problem is digg is almost too popular. When digg was smaller in user numbers (eg. September last year), digg was better than slashdot IMHO. But now we have lots of new digg users and overall less specialization (no longer just tech, there's also world and business news).
Reminds me of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September - nevas, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I totally agree with one of the above comments @bias.
Digg has all the categories and sub-categories for all kind of things which is again totally biased. For example: It has the categories "Apple" and "Linux/Unix" but not "Microsoft".
The first thing: They should create a category named "Operating Systems" which is the most generic way of addressing this problem. If thats not possible the big players in OS market should each have a separate category thus MS comes first in line. As the above comment says either Apple users are overly enthusiastic or MS users not social. Here MS users are not given chance to be social.
PS: I am not a MS fanatic. - undetected, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15Never underestimate the destructive power of greed that can rule a group of people, especially if such a group feels like they're losing control of something they used to.
- imag, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I'm fairly new to Digg but I noticed the social connection issues on the very first day. On the front page, there was some story linking to wallpapers of airplanes. I thought to myself, "wow, why is this news worthy?" Then I noticed that it was submitted by the #1 Digger.
- insomniacal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Excellent analysis. You’re exactly right — digg is corrupted by personal popularity. The user ranking system is itself a problem, making users want to earn higher numbers. Get rid of user ranks. For that matter, make all diggs anonymous so that the playing field truly is equal, and the quest for popularity factors out.
- daeyeth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6only suggestion i disagree with heavily is the comment one. a lot of times I find myself checking the comments for more info, accuracy, mirrors, related stories, etc. etc. it makes sense if u can only comment after you've voted, but not just to see them
- BearSuit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I've only been here for a short time, but I don't care if i get dug up i would rather just state my opinions and put my vote in to help stories or comments I agree on be seen by others.
- rhinopig, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I think this is one of the more important suggestions he makes. That's not to say friends are bad, but one thing i think digg suffers from is a sort of lack of identity. If it wants to be a social-bookmarking site, fine but I'll still probably keep using delicious for that. If it's a social networking (news) site that's also fine, but i don't use myspace or any of those other sites so that again isn't what i want out of digg.
If it wants to be a true NEWS 2.0, then it seems to me there is one (and perhaps only one) clear solution. Make all user information private except name, contact info, and comment history. Like the story says, to actually capture the wisdom of crowds you have to have secret ballots, finalized voting counts (unlike certain news networks declaring certain presidents winners before all the votes are in), and independence in judgement. without those things "the wisdom of crowds" very quickly turns into "mob mentality" (which digg is quickly on it's way to, if not already there). Now ofcourse this leads to the question of how do you find stories you'll like with so many stories being submitted all the time. My answer is I'm not really sure. Perhaps a system for tagging stories (rather than having categories). Maybe 1 man, 1 vote, 1 tag (with a tag popularity 'cloud' for each story, possibly hidden from users but used for search and sort operations). Maybe some sort of alternate forum system. Maybe a helpful sprite-based character that suggest stories for you based on your previous voting history? Whatever, the point is if digg really wants to democratize the news they HAVE TO GET RID OF THE FRIENDS SYSTEM.
(to make this a bit clearer, imagine if you could view the voting history of anyone who voted in government elections. It just wouldn't work.) - JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6"Why does everyone seem to think that top 100 diggers are sleazy and have hidden agendas?"
As far as an "agenda", isn't it obvious that most people are simply trying to promote their own personal viewpoint, warts and all? I'm not a shrink but it appears mostly ego driven to me. It only becomes "sleazy" if/when people go to extraordinary lengths that border on abuse in order to achieve the results they crave.
"I don't doubt that perhaps some of the top diggers have other motives, but I believe the majority of us just put a little bit more time and effort into digg than everyone else, and because of that we become the enemy."
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why you're willing to put forth more time and effort than everyone else? And does the fact that you work harder at promoting your views make them any "better" or more valid than others? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5digg commenting system:
theory: it brings out the best in people
practice: it brings out the worst in people - squarehappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The author of the article hit the nail on the head. If the opinion is unpopular, it gets dugg down. It shouldn't matter if it's wrong or right, the comment digging system should only be used to remove useless or trolling posts. This happens on every single thread. There's a clear, overarching groupthink mentality on every controversial subject, and if you're on the wrong side of it, you're getting dugg down.
It's a bad idea to hide the comments before you digg the article or not. I usually check the first few comments for a quick reality check. For example, the story could be complete *****, but that doesn't guarantee it's been flagged as inaccurate. For every video posted on a site that uses WMV or QT, I scroll the comments for the Youtube link.
This article is a great indictment, and the only thing I would add is one more level of comment nesting. Keeping track of the multiple conversations happening at the same nested level is yet another thing killing intelligent discussion on Digg. - betona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've got experience running content sites in the 70+ million user range (which is a very small group of sites), I do comment here now and then but have never submitted a thing to Digg because I know it won't go anywhere no matter how interesting it might be.
And I just don't have time to come here and post dozens of things daily to build brownie points. I like Digg and come here fairly often. But a person like me who could toss in a very good item or two a month has no chance of getting anywhere on Digg. - HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You can sort the "Top Digg Users" section by submitted stories, comments, etc...
- JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"If the articles I submit express any viewpoint, its "science is good" because 90% of the articles I've submitted are science."
Well, that *is* a viewpoint. One that I personally happen to share but others here have a different viewpoint. Everyone has an opinion, bias, point of view etc. that is reflected (consciously or not) in the stories that they submit and vote for. Now if a group of people with similar views are willing to work really hard and start submitting and promoting each others stories, at least a portion of the front page *could* start to reflect their viewpoint to the exclusion of others.
"I put forth more time and effort because I'm an idealist and I'm doing everything I can to make digg a valued news site. Second, like I said, I am not promoting my views."
A "valued" news site? "Valued" in accordance with who's point of view? Answer: Yours. To others here, the best way to make digg more "valued" is if the front page is covered by opinion pieces trashing the political opposition. Some people are willing to work harder than others to express their personal views and "values" and the point of the article is that they've managed to succeed to some extent.
"After all, all we do is submit stories, its everyone else who diggs them."
If that's all there is to it then I don't see any problem. However, as the article points out, there is evidence to suggest that some of the top diggers spend unusual amounts of time here and are effectively working to promote each others articles. *If* this is the case, at least a portion of the front page "news" has been hi-jacked. - bias, on 10/12/2007, -22/+25The problem with digg is we have too many fanatic linux/apple fanboys preaching, bragging about their OSs by spamming thousands of Linux / Apple Tutorials, Market Shares Upped 0.0093%, How their retarded families switch to Linux/Apple, How Microsoft unreleased Software/Hardware is the worst thing ever, How Linux/Apple going to take over Microsoft next year, How Open Source softwares is good just because it's open source, How Microsoft stuff sucks just because it's Microsoft.
Digg.com is bias to the extreme, I'm not saying that Microsoft as a company is any good, but Digg's Fanboyism is not better than M$. Every fanboys comments are subjective, you get digg down because you don't agree with them, not because you are wrong. It has became the FOX News of the internet, it's so sad that Digg turns out to be like this.
The fanboys are not the only one to blame here, maybe it's just Objective people and Microsoft fanboys are not "Social" enough. But Digg is really in an ugly state right now. - tylerdurdenclub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm reading "The Wisdom of Crowds" right now and have been thinking about Digg examples alot as I get through the book. I've heard Jay Adelson refer to the book several times when describing the Digg model. As this author indicates, it is just not the case. Digg is herding because there is no independence in voting and the votes happen sequentially. I would applaud the changes suggested by this blogger.
- HMTKSteve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If Office Space is too expensive they can easily move to a cheaper area.
Does anyone else remember the commercial from the dot com boom days when a guy drives his boss out to the desert and tells him the new corporate office will be built there? The boss looks at him like he is an idiot until the guy explains how cheap real estate is in the desert and that they can cheaply purchase a net connection.
Internet businesses do not need a high dollar physical residence. They should save that money! -
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