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→Criticism: Article was not criticizing Digg;'s 'system', but the rudeness of people in general, the point being that there are rude people online, not that Digg is particularly bad.
→Criticism: Comments on blogs or digg posts are noty reliable sources. More rewording for tone.
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:...is the ability of a small number of users to "bury" stories without accountability. Burying news is meant to help separate spam and inaccurate stories from the general morass of ordinary, viable stuff. But there's long been the suspicion that plenty of users use it to get rid of stories about things they don't like (eg political parties or corporates) - since burying a story is much more powerful than simply voting against it.<ref>http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2007/02/28/watching_diggs_bury_brigade.html</ref>
:...is the ability of a small number of users to "bury" stories without accountability. Burying news is meant to help separate spam and inaccurate stories from the general morass of ordinary, viable stuff. But there's long been the suspicion that plenty of users use it to get rid of stories about things they don't like (eg political parties or corporates) - since burying a story is much more powerful than simply voting against it.<ref>http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2007/02/28/watching_diggs_bury_brigade.html</ref>
Some readers tend to Digg stories from users they trust, resulting in some cont those people of influence, as revealed by a [[July 2006|July]] [[2006]],


Further, it is often suggested that frontpage Digg stories are bookmarked by people who have not read them <ref>http://www.nickallain.com/blogging/pivot/entry.php?id=4#comm</ref>. Those who do this justify their actions by likening Diggs to bookmarks and by observing that often times, they "bookmark" URLs they intend to view later <ref>http://www.digg.com/security/HackThisSite_Founder_Convicted#c4241824</ref>. Such people tend to "bookmark" stories from users they trust, giving those people an inordinate amount of influence, as revealed by a [[July 2006|July]] [[2006]], where it was reported that the top 100 Digg users controlled 56% of Digg's frontpage content, and that a niche group of just twenty individuals monopolized 25% of the frontpage content.<ref>http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1228</ref>. The fact that these top 100 Digg users also submit content in volumes so large that not even they could read all of them <ref>http://3monkeyweb.com/3monkeys/2006/12/18/observations-on-diggs-quality/</ref> is a further source of criticism.
It has been reported that the top 100 Digg users controlled 56% of Digg's frontpage content, and that a niche group of just twenty individuals had submitted 25% of the frontpage content.<ref>http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1228</ref>. It has been commented that many of these top users sumbitt so many stories (50 to 75 a day) that it's unlikely that they have read the story before submitting it.<ref>http://3monkeyweb.com/3monkeys/2006/12/18/observations-on-diggs-quality/</ref>.

=== Notable Incidents ===
=== Notable Incidents ===


Revision as of 15:19, 21 March 2007

Digg
Digg logo
Digg main page
Digg main page as of December 18th, 2006
Type of site
Social content website
OwnerDigg, Inc.
Created byKevin Rose
Employees18
URLhttp://www.digg.com/
CommercialYes
RegistrationFree

Digg is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on technology and science articles, recently expanding to a broader range of categories such as politics and entertainment. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control.

News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. This differs from the hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ. However, this democratic style has led to criticism that Digg is susceptible to ideological or commercial manipulation.

Functionality

Readers can view all of the stories that have been submitted by fellow users in the "digg/All/Upcoming" section of the site. Once a story has received enough "diggs", it appears on Digg's front page. Should the story not receive enough diggs, or if enough users report a problem with the submission, the story will remain in the "digg all" area, where it may eventually be removed.

Articles are short summaries of stories on other websites with links to the stories, and provisions for readers to comment on the story. All content and access to the site is free, but registration is compulsory for certain elements, such as promoting ("digging") stories, submitting stories and commenting on stories. Digg also allows for stories to be posted to a user's blog automatically when he or she diggs a story.

Originally, stories could be submitted in fifteen different categories which include: deals, gaming, links, mods, music, robots, security, technology, Apple, design, hardware, Linux/Unix, movies, programming, science and software. With the release of Digg 3.0 on June 26, 2006, the categories became divided into 6 containers: Technology, Science, World & Business, Video, Entertainment, Gaming, with sub-categories. For instance, the "Technology" container includes the following categories: Apple, Design, Gadgets, Hardware, Tech Industry News, Linux/Unix, Mods, Programming, Security, Software and Tech Deals. On July 21, 2006, a Sports container was added.


Problem reporting

To help remove duplicate, spam or offensive story submissions, Digg.com allows users to report such posts. When a story has been reported enough times, depending on the section the story is in, it is automatically removed from the queue and/or buried by the Digg software.

Story reporting options include duplicate story, spam, wrong topic, inaccurate, and "OK, this is lame."

As of now in early March 2007, it is still unknown how burial occurs. Moderators of Digg may execute the burial or a set number of users may be needed. (more information wanted)

Comment rating

File:Diggbury.png
New 'digging' of user comments

On March 4, 2006, Digg switched to a new comment system. The new system allows users to reply to another user's comment, although replying to a reply of another comment is not possible.

Digg users are able to rate other users' comments, which is designed so that spam, badly written, and/or offensive comments stay hidden. User comments are under a 'digg' system much like the stories on the rest of the site. User comments can be 'dugg', making them more visible, or 'buried' until eventually making a comment hidden until the user clicks a "show comment" link. While the default view is "-4 diggs or higher", users can change the comments filter to sort by "most diggs" "show all" "-10 diggs or higher" "+0 diggs or higher" "+5 diggs or higher" or "+10 diggs or higher".

Friends Activity

File:Digg Friends Activity screenshot.png
Friends Activity stats box

The friends activity box in the left sidebar displays statistics of all Digg friends in the last 48 hours. This includes the number of Dugg stories, the number of Agreed On stories (2 or more friends have "dugg it"), the number of Dugg Upcoming stories, the number of Commented On stories and finally the number of Submitted articles.

Media previews

As of 20 December 2006, the site provides thumbnail previews of any submissions from YouTube, Metacafe or Google Video. These are placed to the right of the article's link. In addition, the site has thumbnail previews for flickr albums. Videos that can be played in a lightbox-like interface without leaving the site have a little "Play"-symbol in the bottom right hand corner of the thumbnail. Certain videos from sites that don't allow embedding must be played on the original website.

Top users

Up until February 2nd 2007, digg had a top users list. This list kept track of the users who had the highest number of promoted stories. On February 1st 2007, Kevin Rose posted to the digg blog announcing the removal of the top users list[1]. The last time the list was active, the highest ranking user on Digg was digitalgopher, with over 1000 front page stories. Another notable user was AlbertPacino, who became a running joke on the official Digg podcast, Diggnation.

Trademark dispute

On February 6, 2007, LucasArts filed a trademark opposition against Digg to uphold their trademark for their 1995 PC game "The Dig".[2] From the claim: "Applicant's Mark DIGG is identical or nearly identical to Opposer's Mark THE DIG."

History

Digg started out as an experiment in November 2004 by Kevin Rose, Owen Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky, and Jay Adelson (who serves as CEO), all of whom currently play an active role in the management of the site.

Digg, Version 1.6

"We started working on developing the site back in October 2004," Kevin Rose told ZDNet[3] "We started toying around with the idea a couple of months prior to that, but it was early October when we actually started creating what would become the beta version of digg. The site launched to the world on December 5th 2004."

Kevin Rose's friend David Prager (The Screen Savers, This Week in Tech) originally wanted to call the site “Diggnation”, but Kevin wanted a simpler name. He chose the name "Digg", because users are able to "dig" stories, out of those submitted, up to the front page. The site was called “Digg” instead of “Dig” because the domain name “dig.com” was previously registered. “Diggnation” would eventually be used as the title of Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht's weekly podcast.

The original design was free of advertisements, and was designed by Dan Ries. As Digg became more popular, Google AdSense was added to the website. In July 2005, the site was updated to "Version 2.0". The new "version" featured a friends list, the ability to "digg" a story without being redirected to a "success" page, and a new interface designed by web design company Silverorange [1]. The site developers have stated that in future versions a more minimalist design will likely be employed. On Monday June 26, 2006 version 3 of Digg was released with specific categories for Technology, Science, World & Business, Videos, Entertainment and Gaming as well as a View All section where all categories are merged.

Digg has grown large enough that submissions sometimes create a sudden increase of traffic to the "dugg" website. This is referred to by some Digg users as the "Digg effect" and by some others as the site being "dugg to death". However, in many cases stories are linked simultaneously on several popular bookmarking sites. In such cases, the impact of the "digg effect" is difficult to isolate and assess.

Digg was updated on February 25th, 2007 with 2 new sections. Digg now includes Microsoft and a section for 2008 Elections.[4]

Criticism

File:Digg spam.png
An example of trolling on Digg

Digg has come under criticism in the media and in the blogosphere, for varying reasons. Most complaints are centered around the site's form of user-moderation: some feel the users have too much control over content, allowing sensationalism and misinformation to thrive.[5]

Others feel that the site's operators may exercise too much control over which articles appear on the front page as well as the comments on Digg's forums. Some users complain that they have been blocked from posting, and their accounts disabled, for making comments in the user-moderated forums that conflict with the personal interests of Digg's operators.[6]

One Digg user accuses certain Digg users of operating a Bury Brigade that tags articles with which they disagree as spam. "Bobbie Johnson" states that one of the site's major problems:

...is the ability of a small number of users to "bury" stories without accountability. Burying news is meant to help separate spam and inaccurate stories from the general morass of ordinary, viable stuff. But there's long been the suspicion that plenty of users use it to get rid of stories about things they don't like (eg political parties or corporates) - since burying a story is much more powerful than simply voting against it.[7]

Some readers tend to Digg stories from users they trust, resulting in some cont those people of influence, as revealed by a July 2006,

It has been reported that the top 100 Digg users controlled 56% of Digg's frontpage content, and that a niche group of just twenty individuals had submitted 25% of the frontpage content.[8]. It has been commented that many of these top users sumbitt so many stories (50 to 75 a day) that it's unlikely that they have read the story before submitting it.[9].

Notable Incidents

  • In a high-profile example of misinformation, a front-page story suggested that video game publisher Stardock wanted people to pirate one of their recent-releases, Galactic Civilizations II.[10] This forced Stardock to publish a rebuttal on their website, which resulted in a user-submitted correction appearing on the digg homepage within hours; the correction, however, featured a typo in its headline that mistakenly cited the game's title as its publisher's name.[11]
  • A posting by tech blog Forever Geek[12] uncovered what it felt was obvious intervention by editors to promote or bury certain stories, bypassing the choice of users.[13] It also implicated Kevin Rose himself for digging the same exact stories in the same exact order as the users, and therefore being complicit in the promotion. A statistical analysis[14] of the diggs showed that an average of 7-8 of the users dugg each others stories within the first 24 diggs per story that made the front page, and Kevin Rose dugg 28% of these stories within the first 24 diggs. The accusations were addressed extensively by Rose in an appearance on This Week in Tech.[15] On that podcast, as well as on the official Digg blog, he stated that the charges stemmed from a coincidence (two stories that Rose was found to have been the 17th person to "digg")[16]), and that the incident arose after ForeverGeek users were banned for artificially inflating the digg counts of their stories. It was later reported that certain Digg users were blacklisted from the site for submitting Gower's post to Digg. [17]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Kevin Rose announces removal of top users list". Retrieved 2007-02-07.
  2. ^ "Lucasfilm opposition to the digg trademark". United States Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
  3. ^ MacManus, Richard (2006-02-01). "Interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose, Part 1". ZDNet. Retrieved 2006-07-15.
  4. ^ http://news.taume.com/World-Business/Auto/Digg-Topics-Updated-520
  5. ^ http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/01/digging_the_madness_of_crowds.html
  6. ^ http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1761697,00.html
  7. ^ http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2007/02/28/watching_diggs_bury_brigade.html
  8. ^ http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1228
  9. ^ http://3monkeyweb.com/3monkeys/2006/12/18/observations-on-diggs-quality/
  10. ^ http://digg.com/gaming/Company_WANTS_its_game_pirated_
  11. ^ http://digg.com/gaming/Galactic_Civililizations_does_NOT_want_people_to_pirate_their_game_
  12. ^ http://forevergeek.com/news/digg_corrupted_editors_playground_not_userdriven_website.php
  13. ^ http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/20/1538256
  14. ^ http://www.zippitydoodahonline.com/?p=10
  15. ^ http://twit.tv/twit51
  16. ^ http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-20060420RoseSpeaksOutOnDiggFraud.html
  17. ^ http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1761697,00.html
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