For years there has been a small group of Digg users who think they control the digg community. Kevin Rose has posted a blog about the recent changes to the Digg.com algorithm that will change the future of digg and the small community that controls it.
“Digg’s promotional algorithm ensures that the most popular content dugg by a diverse, unique group of diggers reaches the home page. Our goal is to give each person a fair chance of getting their submission promoted to the home page. Since Digg began more than three years ago, we’ve constantly been making tweaks to the promotional algorithm and will continue to do so. Most of our additions go unnoticed, and others take a few days to normalize as we watch them run live on the site. We spend a lot of time analyzing the data and improving the system.”
These people have even been so bold as to come out with an outright “Open Letter To Digg” that is intended to TELL DIGG how to run their own site. An overview of the main points found in this open letter are as follows:
- Lack Of Digg Communication: These “Top Users” these Digg elites think that digg reports to them, that Digg is somehow accountable to the user community.Look if 10% or more of the front page articles are controlled by 20-30 people that is a big problem and I comment Digg for “fixing” their algorithm. I attended this so-called “Live Protest” of Digg.com and they believe they are so important that Digg will go away with out them.
- Unexplained Banning Of Digg Users if your account is being banned chances are you are violating the TOS of the website DIGG.com which allows you the privileged of posting on their website. If you sit arround and ONLY digg your friend’s posts there is a problem, if new users must bow down and kiss your behind just to get a front page ranking there is a problem.
- Manual Editing the last concern of these so-called “top diggers” is that Digg.com has employed manual editors who are deranking their submissions because Digg has something against them.
Its amazing that these people think they built digg.com, here is a reality check you DID not build digg. If I am not mistaken Kevin Rose built Digg.com. There is a reality here you must accept, if MOST webmasters feel that they are unable to receive a front page digg because of “illegal” rings like yours then there is a problem. Digg needs to expand the webmaster base that can submit articles and still hope to hit the front page.
So in conclusion, there are other important websites besides yours, there is other VERY important information to be read on Digg.com besides yours. This community desperately needs to reach out to the general webmaster community and offer a fair opportunity to all, new and old Digg users alike.
January 24th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I agree completely. The site, while still one of my favorites, stopped being something I “participate” in because the comments were nothing but flames and I felt like my digg wasn’t counted.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
everybody wants a fair shot at expressing their interest, and readers want opinions from more than 20 or 30 people > this is true
however my experience with media indicates that ‘new’ always means that ‘paid-off’ news sources have gained the upper hand
in short, the news on digg will become another business shill.
Will digg abandon ordinary folks? Will we be forced into a TV-type format where we listen to businessmen debate their own questions and speculate over which rich man owns more job contracts than the other?
‘New’ means change. And the main change I see on the internet is the grip money has over information.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I wrote about the problems with Digg a while ago. It’s like being back in high school.
http://smartstartup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/social-bookmark.html
It’s disgusting. Reddit is even worse with jerks sitting their all day long using their powers to downgrade submissions so that theirs stay on the front page as long as possible.
But that’s the Internet for you.
January 24th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Who cares? Let the top “diggers” leave.
Frankly, I’ve become more and more annoyed by the fact that several stories which are linked, if you read through the articles, are very legitimate.
Yet, 50% of the time, I see the “readers report that this story may be inaccurate”.
I call shenanigans. Seems that these “top diggers” are trying to taint stories which they did not submit, by reporting them as false. Either that, or they don’t agree with the content, truthful or not.
Let these losers leave. Digg should be a more diverse place, and a few people who are within a “circle” should get a life, step away from the internet for a bit, go outside and get some air.
January 25th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Brian Carpio is an SEO expert. This is an amazing article and shows how Brian Carpio os able to get to the bottom of the issue.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
If this fixes the majority of the ridiculous content being posted, I’m all for it. Digg started going downhill awhile ago but now it’s at the point where you can go to the 20 blogs that make up the front page and visit Digg so you can catch the rest of the Top 10 lists. Having “users” so heavily weighted that a terrible story only needs 17 diggs to get to the front is not what Digg was meant to be.