“An Open Letter To Digg.com”
Social media giant, DIGG, is becoming increasingly unpopular with some of their top users. Funnily enough, they are also the most loyal users too. Why is this happening? DIGG is literally alienating its top users by punishing them and sending them in droves to their top rival: Reddit
Here are The Top 10 Reasons Why DIGG Buries Itself – based on interviews with top DIGG users.
1. Punishment of loyal users in Draconian ways.
Top users have their accounts wiped out, most of the time with no explanation whatsoever. It seems that suspicion of cheating is reason enough. Phew! Imagine having a government run like that! People would go missing off the streets without a trace.
2. Digg Moderators Bury Users Posts.
If it’s not the moderators, then it’s software. Either way, submissions are buried and taken off the lists removing any chance of making the DIGG frontpage due to total lack of exposure. This removes the chance of genuine stories making front page based on pure content.
3. Conflict Of Interest.
Staff members are Diggers too. Even the boss of Digg is a digger. No one believes that the bossman’s submissions would ever get buried by a digg moderator. In the corporate world this is called collusion and conflict of interest.
4. No Transparency On Buries.
There are no stats on who buried your stories or why DIGG buries your story. This alone is one big reason why Reddit.com is raking in the DIGG users in droves.
5. No Daily Limit On Shouts.
Some users shout your ears off and there is no limitation on this. If there was one feature a DIGG user wants, it’s this. So they simply turn off this feature all together.
6. Can’t Mass Delete Shouts.
Such an easy feature. Why not make this simple for the users? DIGG is a great concept but it seems they are becoming a dinosaur with old technology.
7. No Great Stats On Who Dugg You.
Users are resorting to external websites to access stats that aren’t available in DIGG. These are just simple stats that would be expected back in the Web 1.0 days.
8. Powerusers Are Punished.
There is a reason why there are powerusers: They earn it through submitting good content and invest a lot of time into building DIGG as a social media giant. It is such a shame that DIGG rewards them with zero notice and a wiped out account – with no explanation! It takes a lot of work to build a network and to have it wiped out without the right of reply…. well, you get the picture.
9. No Notification When Someone Drops You As A Friend.
Again this is a very simple feature that is currently wasting users time – massively.
10. The Bury Brigade.
A group of users go around and bury powerusers submissions. DIGG seem to allow this yet the inspiration behind this act is purely to do damage. DIGG seem more intent on wiping out account of loyal users that actually (used to) like DIGG.
The only reason disgruntled Digg users don’t go to http://digg.com and bury the domain is because they know Digg will just overide the democratic process of voting and it will have no effect. Several powerusers have told me today that they are packing up and going to Reddit.com. Karma is a funny thing. When then fun has gone, the fun people leave.
Comments From DIGG Users
All names have been withheld for obvious reasons.
- I dunno, I’m thinking about quitting
- We’ll take our marbles and go to Reddit
- We go and find the good content for them, we work to promote it and we are penalized
- I just don’t think the system is fair
Wake up and smell the Coffee, DIGG. Before it’s to late!
I enjoy DIGG and think it is a great concept. There are thousands of fantastic people involved and I would love for it to straighten out its act without using old fashioned punishment tactics.
(I expect that DIGG will simply wipe out my useraccount now. IF they do so, I will post the result here as conclusive evidence of their Draconian ways)
I’ll see you on Reddit.com. Have fun!
About Sean Rasmussen
Uh, reddit is no better. If you say anything that isn’t anti cop, anti bush, pro marijuana legalization then you’ll be downmodded into nothing.
It was really bad when the Ron Paul zealots were everywhere. Then they all moved onto Obama.
Reddit has an extremely left wing slant to it. It’s also full of MANY duplicate articles, and poor on followups.
@Bob
Most social news sites on the internet lean to the left. Actually, most of the internet in general does. We internet users tend to be a bit smarter than the right-wing bedwetters who think the internet is a series of tubes, which explains our love for the left wing.
As far as Digg, I wholeheartedly agree. I actually wrote a shockingly similar post a while back after the second banhammer: http://www.anotherstupidblog.net/?p=109
@Bob
Thanks for your feedback. I agree that many sites become more and more biased as time goes by. Right now on Digg, there is a Ron Paul video that has 393 Diggs & 90 comments in 22 hours and is blocked by Digg for no other apparent reason than opinion, probably political opinion.
@Joe
Thanks for submitting the link to your article. When mine was located on digg, I searched the headline and found another 2 articles with exactly the same title but they were different stories.
I’ve to admit the truth. I was in love at one time with digg, but when they banned me it was no going there again. I now only have presence there, to help friends and to help good articles get promoted.
Reddit has become my new home now, and I’m really lovin it! Lets see if reddit can out perform digg. Which I’m very keenly looking forward to.
I haven’t that experience yet. maybe cause I’m not popular enough yet.
Working on it
Often times with Digg or Reddit I find that I am reading articles that are “popular” and “flashy”, which are oftehn interesting, but maybe aren’t articles that are truly thought-provoking and life-enriching. Sometimes the votes of the masses (or digg or reddit users) maybe isn’t the best way to determine what the best things for me to read is? Maybe it’s time for a new, smarter type of social link site.
Just my two cents…
While public opinion of votes up and down, appear to be very democratic and thus a ‘proper’ way to do business; the end result is not what was intended. The only democratic solution (keyword democratic, there are other ways) would be to vote on whether an article fits a certain topic, and then whether the article is thorough in its findings. This will allow a more concrete search of what you would like to see, and public opinion will no longer dictate your view of the world.
@Manish
Many say the Reddit interface sucks (visibly) but the end result is the workings of the site. I have learned to like it much more and I enjoy it. It also seems like a more democratic voting process. I’m sure there will be some detractors to that view.
@Wise Finish
Let’s take those 2 cents and do something with it. I’m sure new ideas will crop up as great Social Media sites all the time.
I’ve always been a casual user of Digg, but recently I’ve stopped checking it because of the juvenile tone that so much of the front page and top ten are dominated by. If I wanted to be linked to cracked or maxim, I’d go there on my own.
You’ve got a point there
Just for those who don’t know…
… what Americans consider to be “left wing” is still right wing to the rest of the world, and to what America used to be before it went insane.
Back to the subject… Reddit tells you when someone replies to your comments (digg may do this, but I haven’t found it). This means you can have proper conversations, and people who say blatantly stupid things are held to account to a greater degree.
In my opinion, the biggest problem with Digg is that it’s full of idiots – it’s a bit like Youtube in this regard.
Hi Nick
I bear in mind that I write this comment over a year after yours, so things may have changed. There are a lot of Diggers who aren’t idiots at all. In fact, I follow a number of them who are very passionate about getting good content out there.
These are all great points, but I think you forgot one: the ability to customize your experience when viewing the site. Both reddit and mixx allow you to customize what you see and don’t see on the front page. Digg should give it’s users the ability to customize the front page according to their tastes – give users the ability to block users, websites, or topics they do not want to see. That way, if you’re a HuffPo or MBM hater, you can filter them out and go on about your day.
Hmm… the post appears to be disappeared from Digg.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Yeah it’s gone. The site was down earlier today and I was only able to find it again through my history since it’s no where to be found on digg…
What ever it’s just a time waster for me I have nothing invested.
There is no point to compare reddit n digg here …
though digg is really bad in terms of banning..
I won’t say I was a power user but each day my submission made a FP and I never did anything out of the box..
Submit quality stuff from everywhere…
I never targetted white listed webiste…but also websites which never got exposure but there articles are way too informative..
But digg dictatorship…
such articles never get exposure to everyone. (Thanks to bury brigade and digg dictators).
Digg X user : Virgintech
It’s a waste of time to call Digg a “social” site. There are few social features, most are immature and useless. It’s a media/news site, period. If you look at it from that perspective, there is nothing wrong with Digg.
People should stick to submitting stories, lose the whole competition BS, and let it build.
Uh, no, the web itself isn’t leftist, but strongly libertarian. Bzzt. Thanks for playing.
Digg just isn’t transparent. One article takes 68 diggs to reach the front page; another requires 310. This makes me suspect that some people’s diggs count more than other’s. Now that would be fine if Digg would just tell us that and we could decide whether we liked that setup or not. Instead we’re in the dark, being fed bs.
And the buries — why can’t you know who buried your article? Why can’t you know the bury activity of your friends? Why can’t you know how many buries a person has made? It’s all secretive stuff, which again would be fine, except that Digg keeps advertising itself as some kind of social democracy, when they’re anything but.
Digg = hypocrisy.
The biggest problem with DIGG is that I will break a story and get like three diggs and then a day later when it is old news a power digger will post my story and get like 200 diggs in one hour!
Obviously reputation accounts for a lot there!
Not to rain on the pity party here, but take a moment to think about it.
Why does Digg not give out the secret sauce for their rating system? So that people can’t game the system and know how to set up dummy accounts to digg their own spam. If the process were more transparent, it would be more easily gamed. The end result would be worse than the current situation.
Why not see who buries you? Because that could lead to intimidation and harassment. At the very least someone else could just bury your stories in retribution for you burying theirs; at the worst, they could use your contact information to contact you at work, etc.
You might argue that the people running Digg should prevent these abuses, but that would take more of their time and resources. The current situation is likely the best use of their time.
Ultimately, a lot of these issues are part and parcel of the “social” part of social media. The goal is to draw upon the resources of a large group of people. However, if a small group can disrupt things, people get upset. But, as they say, “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” So, you have to pick what type of problem is more manageable.
Some insight from someone who does community management work for online games.
Thanks again everyone
I appreciate all comments and feedback, regardless of opinion. The point I have been making in this article (and the next) is that opinion should not be censored. Let the voting do the job without an overriding big brother that is biased.
There was an article about Ron Paul on Digg 2 days ago, actually it was just a YouTube video of a speach. It had some rediculous amount of diggs and 90 comments in 20 hours and was removed from all upcoming lists. Maybe this was done by the users, but it’s hard to think that it wasn’t removed by DIGG based on political bias.
Just my opinion…
“Let the voting do the job without an overriding big brother that is biased.”
It’s funny; you champion Reddit, but the other night I heard some people complaining about exactly the opposite situation with Reddit last night. Someone said that they got tired of the “Ron Paul is the second coming of Christ” groupthink (later turning to Obama). They also said that if you try to post something that isn’t anti-cop, anti-govermnent, or pro-marijuana you’ll get voted down by the regulars on Reddit.
In other words, you’re not going to find site without an “overriding big brother” keeping things in order. I’ll bet even on this site, Sean, that if someone posted an off-topic racist-filled comment, you’d want to delete it. If you didn’t, you’d probably alienate a lot of your readers by keeping it around. There’s a reason why that type of moderation is necessary.
If you think there’s a burning need for a new community site with more transparency, I recommend two things:
1. Realize this is the internet and that you have the power to create a site just like Digg or Reddit or any of the others. If one can believe your site, you have the SEO and internet marketing experience necessary to stand out from the crowd of wannabes.
2. Go visit http://img.4chan.org/b/ and really think about what a community-based forum without “big brother” moderator control might really look like. It’s perhaps not the utopia you seek.
Hi Sean,
Caught with point number 2, it make me wonder if this is true, I have wasted my time posting on Digg. No wonder it hard to get place on Digg.
I totally agree with Bob. Reddit is no better at all I somehow got banned for a reason I am not really sure of. I don’t like the handful of people who moderate reddit and I got more traffic through them.
I remember the days when dig was actually fun, the days when i could easily get 300 digs on a post.
Now its a different story, no matter how hard I try to make even the most usefull of stories breathe, they all become buried and die!
& I have alot of followers on digg!
Article speaks truths, I always ignored those stupid shouts anyways and the friend system never really mattered. Come to think of it, why waste server resources with a photo album either? Users get an avatar image, that’s it.
G’day Sean,
As a frequent user of the BMT I find quite a few forum BMT subscribers have had their accounts suspended, including really good content writers. Good on you, mate for kicking the backsides of Digg.
Note I kept this as a ” G ” rated comment.
Cheers
Harry
Oh no… what the???? Why? I hope I am not one – I will have to check. I haven’t been to digg for a while to see my account. But I am sure there is good in everyone – they just have to see the good in the rest of us!!
G’day Sean,
One thing which isn’t too cool with Reddit is how slow it can be if one wishes to use the BMT for several posts. It often says ” SLOW DOWN MATE, TRY AGAIN IN 5 MINUTES ”
In the interests of maintaining a ” G ” rating for Reddit, a negative pressure is exerted, if you get my drift.
Cheers
Harry
Reddit has the 5 minute rule to try and stop spammers submitting loads of articles in a short time frame Harry. And yes, there is quite a bit of R rated stuff on there, best just to turn a blind eye to that sort of content
I’m with you Harry.
to date I have had little issues with Dig although I’m not a power user so it probably doesn’t count.
I have found the Reddit slow down mate thing a royal pain in the…. maybe they could look at measuring the amount of submissions before bringing it on.
Well Sean, you got 600+ Diggs for this blog post and your account hasn’t been closed. And you got a good discussion going here, open and uncensored. Good work.
Hi Sean,
I haven’t had any problems with Digg but I’m a nobody. But, I’m questioning will I have these same problems with Digg when I become a somebody? Is it better to cut my losses now and move to Reddit?
Although, I saw in the posts above that some people think they are no better? I know that you’re still using Digg, so does this mean that you think they have fixed some of their problems?
Hi Jazz,
I was thinking exactly the same thing, but I think at the moment we can benefit from going with it for the moment.
But what is not clear to me is do they just bury a particular article or the persons whole account.
Accounts normally only get deleted if Digg find their users doing things unscrupulously, like using scripts etc.
Hi Sean
I really don’t enjoy the politics and in saying that I have only just started using Digg and Twitter because of this competition.
I am looking forward to the webinar on learning to use Twitter so I can make good use of it.
I think your article was very informative Sean. Forewarned is forearmed.
Blessings
Elly
Hi Sean,
Whether using Web 2.0 sites such as digg or facebook, or even google for that matter, I do get the feeling that “Big Brother is watching” and collecting information.
Yes I have noticed at different times that some profile users on digg have had their accounts shut down. I personally have had submittions buried after they made front page for one reason or another. Its a shame that some Social Media site are a bit political like that, but I guess its their site, and they have the rights to whatever you put on that particular site. And if you don’t like it you can vote with your feet.
I’m pretty sure the rules are clearly stated on each site. I include myself, when I say that most people don’t read and understand to terms of the site. So I guess its well worth knowing the rules and sticking within them.
I saw this article earlier on in the comp – read it and then went on about my business. Came back because of the link in a sidebar and was intrigued all over again.
I cannot say much as I have not Dugg a great deal – and probably will stay like that and focus on social media that is less problematic (apparently).
They haven’t deleted you yet?
Indeed, the quality of Digg website was decreased very much in the latest years. The moderators don’t make a good job. they introduced the redirect instead of nofollow link and few other different bad things.
Digg is a shame from about 2 years. The website was changed very much in a negative way. The stupid redirects and their policy are not very user friendly. If you look at Alexa Page Rank you’ll see that Digg is on a descendant way…