“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.

1. I dunno, I’m thinking about quitting
2. We’ll take our marbles and go to Reddit
3. We go and find the good content for them, we work to promote it and we are penalized
4. 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!