Author Topic: digg rigging? (Read 37,735 times)

mouser · « **on:** April 20, 2006, 05:19 PM »

interesting article about digg.com accusation of rigged votes.

Quote

Digg Corrupted: Editor's Playground, not User-Driven Website
As a follow up to an earlier post (Digg Army: Right in Line), there have been some vibrations that I think not only our readers would find interesting, but also all Digg users.
To quickly summarize the earlier post, I had noticed two submissions by SpitF1re were on the front page, separated by only one story in between.
To digress for a second, we all know that people who Digg a lot have friends who use Digg. So often times friends digg articles for each other, and often times you may see the same people digging stories, and what not. The buddy-buddy system in effect. That's fine (in a way) - it's a shortcoming of all social networks - the more popular people gain more influence...

http://forevergeek.com/news/digg_corrupted_editors_playground_not_userdriven_website.php

from

Redhat · « **Reply #1 on:** April 20, 2006, 11:58 PM »

I just blogged about this and came to post it here

mouser · « **Reply #2 on:** April 21, 2006, 10:12 AM »

you're blog is starting to get interesting redhat, keep it up!

wasker · « **Reply #3 on:** May 03, 2006, 07:49 PM »

I don't really get all the buzz around digg. What's the point of this site? OK, maybe 1000 people found "Pamela Anderson eats her sh.t" news interesting and dugg it, but does this mean this will be interesting for me?

mouser · « **Reply #4 on:** May 03, 2006, 08:03 PM »

well i have to disagree wasker, personally i find that of all the sites, digg actually does a pretty damn good job of finding some good news each day. Their programming specific digg list is pretty good too.

(of course that doesnt say it's not manipulated, but i do think it tends to work in terms of finding some good links).

Veign · « **Reply #5 on:** May 03, 2006, 08:14 PM »

I'm with mouser. I find at least a couple of very interesting stories each day from Digg. I just find their comments worthless to read. A lot of whiney techies who think they know everything.

Another great source for me is PopURls and RocketBoom. These are two sites that I actually like to go to each day as opposed to reading through my Sage aggregator

mouser · « **Reply #6 on:** May 03, 2006, 08:25 PM »

rocketboom is cool! never heard of that before.. they seem to do a little fun indie video news streams every day! wow.

Veign · « **Reply #7 on:** May 03, 2006, 08:37 PM »

I have been following Rocketboom for several months now a her spin on things make it fun to watch. Its only a short 3min video blog updated each day around 11:00am (EST).

(notice the name on the first shirt she displays as being too large on todays post?)

wasker · « **Reply #8 on:** May 04, 2006, 07:30 AM »

OK, maybe you found some interesting stuff on digg, but how much news interesting to you you missed only because the digg flock found "New iPod is so hot" news more interesing?

I prefer to deal with uncontrolled stream of information from various sources. The best filter is my head.

Renegade · « **Reply #9 on:** May 05, 2006, 06:52 AM »

I forget his name now, but the Digg guy was on TWiT and talked about this a bit. He said it was just a misunderstanding. He's got a lot of spammers to deal with, and a few things got through, but they're working on eliminating spammers more and more.

Redhat · « **Reply #10 on:** May 05, 2006, 07:15 AM »

Quote from: Renegade on May 05, 2006, 06:52 AM

I forget his name now, but the Digg guy was on TWiT and talked about this a bit. He said it was just a misunderstanding. He's got a lot of spammers to deal with, and a few things got through, but they're working on eliminating spammers more and more.

Yeah, I heard that episode too

I have to say that, now, I believe him.

gjehle · « **Reply #11 on:** May 05, 2006, 12:52 PM »

well, i've heard a lot of hate stories about digg
and here's what i think

1) it's a free-of-charge service, if you dont like it, leave it

2) creating a system like digg where buddy-buddy exploitation wont be possible is impossible!
the whole thing is based on social networks, and the importance and therefor audience a node inside the net has is mainly determined by his degree (directly connected nodes, aka "friends")
the "buddy problem" can't be solved it's a "flaw" in the social aspect to begin with.
that's how society works.

3) i think the main source of digg-hate is envy
when digg started most people where "omg, this is awesome"
now, once people notice that the people who run digg, from what i see that's mainly kevin rose and some other peeps around him, make actual money from advertising and other stuff (which is fine, after all they created it, and they're paying for it), people start getting envious, they want their bit of the cake
that's another thing that comes with society, can't help it, people are selfish, it's in the firmware.. no patch available

to sum it up, all i can recommend is:
people should STFU and leave if they dont like it,
or create a better (parental advisory: use brain, make own decisions) system and make their own money...
and attract some envious people of their own.

that's FAME 2.0 for you

kthx

mouser · « **Reply #12 on:** May 05, 2006, 01:00 PM »

i agree with much of what you've said, but i do think it's a real problem. i just don't know the best way to solve it. and it troubles me just like the huge role of marketing troubles me.

we're living in a world where publicity = money.
and the incentive for scamming publicity systems is huge.

so it means any kind of service which brings attention to things and asks for user help is deciding what is important is going to be increasingle targeted for manipulation.

at some point you really have to ask yourself, do you trust a social network rating system which is going to be manipulated and corrupted by bots and teams of people artificially rating things high that they can make money from and low that they want to bury, or a rating system done by a couple of people whose views you trust to be honest?

to me we need to find a better middle ground.. i find myself uncomfortable with the public rating systems like software repository site ratings (fileforum). i don't deny that they are very useful, but they are just so open to manipulation that i don't take them very seriously and i worry that people will view the ratings as reliable.

having said that i will repeat that i find digg one of the most reliably good lists of useful links. but that doesn't effect my concern about the viability of the model and the need to find something less susceptible to abuse.

wasker · « **Reply #13 on:** May 05, 2006, 04:08 PM »

Quote from: mouser on May 05, 2006, 01:00 PM

to me we need to find a better middle ground.. i find myself uncomfortable with the public rating systems like software repository site ratings (fileforum). i don't deny that they are very useful, but they are just so open to manipulation that i don't take them very seriously and i worry that people will view the ratings as reliable.

I disagree.

When you come to file archive (think of real file archive, not a bot-archive for search engine spam), you can see ALL stuff available in some category, PLUS rating. When you come to digg, you see absolutely filtered content: 1-st level is the contributor's filter (I submit news I like), and the 2-nd is rating, when "boring" news are at the bottom of nowhere. So some important piece of information could simply pass your eyes.

gjehle: I don't use digg just because of this. I don't care about who and how makes money.

Redhat · « **Reply #14 on:** May 05, 2006, 04:14 PM »

Oh - and the bloke's name - is Kevin Rose

mouser · « **Reply #15 on:** September 07, 2006, 10:07 PM »

kevin rose addressing some issues:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/06/troubles-in-diggville/
http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/digg-friends.html

thunder7 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 08, 2006, 12:47 AM »

digg is cool

mouser · « **Reply #17 on:** September 08, 2006, 02:21 AM »

another interesting one: http://www.marketingshift.com/2006/9/diggs-kevin-rose-recent-indiggnation.cfm

and of course there is my essay from today: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=5160

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** September 08, 2006, 02:52 AM »

interesting comments:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Gaming_Digg_New_Changes

thunder7 · « **Reply #19 on:** September 08, 2006, 09:26 AM »

and stumbleupon

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** October 02, 2006, 08:59 PM »

Here we go with an apparently real website selling their services in gaming digg and manipulating results

Personally i find digg more unappealing by the day, though i do acknowledge there are some good stories there regularly.

Another nice find on readwriteweb:

Quote

"Cost: $20, plus $1 per Digg.

After completing the form below, you will be taken to PayPal. Once your PayPal payment is received, your Digg submission will be given to User/Submitter users to promote on Digg.com.

User/Submitter users are then given the chance to digg your submission and other stories for $0.50. After your submission has reached your desired number of diggs, you will be emailed a report.

We cannot guarantee that your submissions will hit the front page of Digg. We reserve the right to reject or cancel any submission for any reason.

If User/Submitter is unable to fulfill your requested number of verified diggs within 48 hours, you will be refunded the amount of Diggs paid for but not received within 5 working days.

All User/Submitter transactions are private."

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_blackmarket.php

JavaJones · « **Reply #21 on:** October 03, 2006, 08:30 PM »

Haha, that's priceless. It had to happen eventually. I just love how blatant it is.

- Oshyan

mouser · « **Reply #22 on:** October 03, 2006, 08:40 PM »

i've become totally disgusted with digg..
there is still great content there but i just cannot get past how much of what we are seeing is the result of a corrupted system that rewards people who game the system behind the scene.

Mark0 · « **Reply #23 on:** October 03, 2006, 09:02 PM »

Quote from: JavaJones on October 03, 2006, 08:30 PM

Haha, that's priceless. It had to happen eventually. I just love how blatant it is.

Yess!

As a "non money involved" alternative, it could have let one free submit/digg slot for every "digg this" click made. A social submitter for a social site!

Bye!

nudone · « **Reply #24 on:** October 03, 2006, 09:25 PM »

not sure if i'm really saying anything here but i've not looked at digg since the DC GTD experiment started - i've not even thought about looking at it. it doesn't feel like i'm missing out on anything either.