When put to the test I can’t rightly remember when the first time I visited the SocialBlade site, but I do know I have made a minimum of one visit per day ever since. It’s a pretty cool site. When I heard that SocialBlade put up a Social Media Community Forums message board, I immediately went to ‘check it out’. Upon reviewing it I could not help but to think, “Cool! Finally someone made the effort to fill the void that Digg seemed to refuse to fill”. The SocialBlade site was not content with only supplying a message board for Digg Members to interact… they went the whole 9 yards to try to cover all other social media sites. They went as far as even giving a link to the Mixx Message Board for the convenience of the SocialBlade Users, apparently not wishing to compete with what Mixx was trying to accomplish. Now how cool is that?

On, or about, the 17th of February I gave some input for the Diggopolis Blog on the matter for an article called “SocialBlade – Social Media Community Forums” and I won’t try to compete with that article. I will, however, follow the lead and post a short article about the SocialBlade site to help make Diggers, Mixxers, Stumblers, et al. aware of the New Message Board over at SocialBlade for the purpose of trying to attract more users to it. Now why would I do such a thing as this? Simple, it’s because I feel that First Digg/Urgo is doing a great service and he deserves the support. Jason has always been supportive of me and other Diggers in the past, it’s time to try to return the favor.

Despite the impressions I may give, I am not Anti-Digg. In the past Digg has made me feel a bit “Let Down” by their antics and they seem (at times) to not have a desire to live up to their full potential as a Social Media/Social Bookmarking site. Tens of thousands to Millions of people love Digg and make it their ‘online home’, but Digg is lacking in some ways. SocialBlade helps fill some of those voids by giving the Digger a place to go and interact in a manner easier than one can do on Digg.

So Kudos to Jason and the people at SocialBlade for their time and efforts. I wish you well with this message board and within a couple of months maybe the word will get out as it should and people will flock to your site.

I stumbled across an article over at LouieBaur.com entitled Digg’s New Restrictions Suck! where Louie put forth the question of “I wonder how long Digg things I need to look at a picture before I decide whether or not i want to digg it, bury it or just leave it alone.”

Good question, Louie, now let’s look at your comment! Louie makes the comment of “It appears its 1-2 minutes. I actually have a brain in my head and can make that decision on my own in about 2 seconds like I have been doing on digg for the past year.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote:

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?

~ (The Sign of the Four, ch. 6 (1890)
Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four (Doubleday p. 111)“

The truth of the proposition is that it should only take seconds for any digger to identify a static image and be able to Digg, Bury or Ignore it. It isn’t brain surgery to see a picture of a sunset or bunnies and say “Oh, that is a sunset” or “Oh, they are some cute bunnies”. In fact many of the images do not even require enlargement from the thumbnail to identify the item, however let’s be fair about it and say it takes the average digger 6 to 10 seconds to identify the image and “Digg, Bury or Ignore” it. This still means that the average digger could digg anywhere from 360 to 600 images per hour (plus or minus “diggs” because of such things as slowdowns in the net or on Digg itself). If you accept the idea that it only takes 2 seconds to ‘digg an image’, then you are talking of being able to digg 1800 diggs/hour.

Let it be stated here that Louie is not promoting the idea of ‘blind digging’, ‘quick digging’ or simply trying to justify several hundred to several thousand diggs. All that Louie seems to be saying is that it only takes a few seconds to identify and perform an action for an image submitted to Digg. Louie is totally right on this concept, it should only take most diggers a few short seconds to “Digg an image” for this isn’t a complex thing to do. If Digg is saying that it should take a digger 60 to 120 seconds to digg an image, how long are they saying that it should take to ‘digg a video’ or ‘digg a blog article or news item’?

As I was perusing the messages on Digg, I could not help but to note that some people have already began their tirades against the same old issues that plagued Digg months ago. Whining, on Digg, has outdone itself, some of these people took the art to a brand new level — that of the power whiner.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind people offering their opinions about a situation or even editorializing upon issues… what I am talking about is the difference between citing an opinion and incessant whining over something that is usually based more on logical fallacy than fact. Things such as:

“The Power Diggers steal my stuff!” If by ’stealing’ one means the resubmitting of an item already posted to Digg, then people ought to take stock in just how often the every day Digger will submit duplicate content. I’ve seen people not on the lists of top users submit dupes more than I see the power diggers do it. The fact is that it is hard to find ‘fresh content’ and it seems people simply blow by the pages showing possible duplicate content that Digg provides when submitting an item. I’ve done this myself and the reason being that the items Digg showed as possible duplicate content often have little to do with what I was posting. People get lazy, impatient or they simply don’t care.

“There ought to be a limit on how much a person can Digg.”

I admit, it would be nice if everyone would adopt the attitude of knowing about something before they speak on the issue… even if that voice is a simple vote or ‘digg’. However this isn’t the old Soviet Union, it’s an internet forum on a site based in America. The majority of those on Digg are from the ‘free world’ where they can speak freely, or speak freely to a point. If you try to curb their right to have their say, they will simply move onto other sites where they can vote or reply as they see fit.

I’ve spoken out on this issue before and stand by what I have said in the past, but the facts are the facts and you may be able to limit people from digging 10,000 items per day — but to limit a few hundred or a thousand diggs a day would spell doom for Digg. Real Diggers don’t want that, all they want is something reasonable and fair.

“There ought to be a limit on how much a person can submit.“

This topic is similar to the one above and the ideas on limiting such acts unfairly and unreasonably would spell the end of Digg.

“Some Diggers have no life! They spend all day on Digg.” This type of comment is similar to one’s I’ve heard commonly on message boards and chat rooms. It seems to me that some people don’t realize that there are people who are shut-ins or disabled, the internet is their pipeline to living some type of normal life. Other people simply prefer the internet over going out to noisy bars filled with obnoxious drunks or roaming the malls filled with ignorant people. Some people are even at that stage where they spent more than their share of time out and about, they now prefer to come home from work and spend time relaxing on the net. There are many reasons for people to spend a large amount of time on the net and who are we to tell them how to utilize their time? That is nothing but arrogance and ignorance.

“The Power Diggers monopolize the front page!” Uh… and this is something shocking? Power Diggers upload a lot of items to Digg and it is reasonable to believe that a percentage of those items they submit will go Front Page. Let’s assume that 1% is a reasonable figure of submitted items to go Front Page. Even if a person posts an average of 1 Item to Digg per hour, that is 24 items submitted to Digg a day. That means that every 4 days an item posted to Digg by this user will go front page. Now if the Digger posts 4 per hour, on the average, that means that 1 post will go front page every day. These figures are further manipulated by how sought after the Digger is, how well he or she is liked, how many friends they have, etc. The point is that it’s no shocking thing that the more popular diggers will go front page more often.

“People digg their friends!” This is another “Duhh” Moment. Digg allows it’s members to make friends, friends should support each other — otherwise why would anyone opt to have friends? I don’t know about you, but I am not that hard up for email that I desire getting hundreds of requests for diggs a day. I choose friends because I like certain people for some reason or another and I want to help them out because they help me out. I will put up with getting 300 or 400 digg requests a day from these people because it helps me support them. I don’t put up with 300 or 400 emails a day because I love getting emails.

The bottom line is if people will quit whining about things and get more active on Digg, they will find that they do better. Don’t worry about what power diggers like Mr.Babyman or MSaleem are doing — unless you like their stuff. You are better off putting your efforts into your own digging and submitting and not worrying about how much others are digging or submitting.

Over the past few months there has been a lot of comments made about a thing called Blind Digging. The general attitude seems to be that Blind Digging is bad… in fact some speak out against it as if it is so cataclysmic that if it continues then it will cause the downfall of empires and the end of civilization, as we know it.

I have given much thought about this concept of Blind Digging and it occurred to me that it is much more complex a thing than most people seem to realize. This thought led me into other areas of Digg, such as Quick Digging and Low Digging.

I am not normally a proponent of creating new words and catch phrases just because I can, the English language is already more complex than it needs to be and I never did like the idea of reinventing the wheel because I was too lazy to utilize what already existed. On the other hand sometimes a change is good, it may even be required because things have changed do much that we must change with it or be left behind. After reviewing this Digging issue, I think it’s time to change the terminology being used …or perhaps “Clarify” is the more appropriate word to use.

Digg and Digging

In order to understand Digging better, we need to understand Digg. Digg is a Social Bookmarking Site, it has been called a Social Content Site by some. The basic reason for the ability to Digg and Comment on the site is for people to interact with each other, i.e. to be Social. On Digg there are several ways of being “Social”, they include (but are not limited to):

1. Digging items submitted by others.
2. Commenting on submitted items.
3. Sharing submitted items.
4. Sending shouts to other Digg Members.
5. Friending other Digg Members.
6. Submitting items to be Dugg or shared.

Four types of Dggs:

As far as I can see, there are four main types, or categories, of “Digging”, they are:

Digging (a.k.a. Regular Digging or Normal Digging): Digging, meaning regular or proper Digging, entails the following basic steps:

1. Opening up of an item submitted to Digg
2. Reading what is written, looking at the image or watching the Video.
3. Deciding whether you like the item or not.
4. Digging, burying or ignoring the item

According to some mindsets, it is not permissible to take “Shortcuts”. You cannot scan the article, read the Title and Description only, or even just read the first couple of paragraphs. You must read the entire article and be prepared to do a 250 page written report upon the item… if challenged by someone who thinks you are blind digging and then be treated as a Digg Leper and cries will be sent out far and wide to have your account banned to the innermost depths of the Digg Leper Colony where you will never see the light of day or your loved ones again. This form of Digging is generally accepted as “being Social”, which is very important to Digg.

Quick Digging: Quick Digging is the act of Digging items while using shortcuts (See Blind Digging). The shortcuts you may use might include:

1. Ways to scan as taught in high school, college or in a speed-reading course.
2. Reading only the opening paragraphs and the closing paragraph.
3. Reading only the Title and Description given for the article.
4. Glancing at the image or watch the first part of the video.

You may even choose to Digg an item, in order to get to the Favorites Button, because the person submitting the item usually posts good content. You idea might be to actually use Digg as a Social Bookmarking site by bookmarking it to read later. This form of Digging is “being Social”, it’s only “being Social” at a faster rate than normal.

The downside of “Fast Digging”, or “Quick Digging”, is if you Digg items you know about already and take shortcuts that are not violations of the Digg TOU… then someone (who has most likely never learned to read about the John, Jean and Judy level) will perceive this as you “Blind Digging” and want to send you to the Leper Colony along with all the other Diggers who don’t fit in with their somewhat constricted dea of how Digger’s should Digg. To be fair… it is permissible by most users on Digg to Digg fast, but not too fast for that can be construed as ‘cheating” or “gaming”the system’.

Blind Digging: Blind Digging is the thing most feared by some Diggers, for some odd reason they find it more offensive than clicking on the bury button just because someone dared to post a topic that they are ‘tired of”. This type of Digging is not deemed as “being Social” because it’s the simple act of someone simply clicking on a button – however to some of these people they do not see the irony in freely clicking the bury button. The bottom line is that a Digg is a Digg is a Digg” and if Diggs are considered a way of “being Social”, then evem Blind Digging is being Social to some extent.

Low Digging: Low Digging, especially Excessively Low Digging, is the act of not Digging enough items during a period of time which equals that of the average Digger. This is actually being more Anti-Social than Quick or Blind Digging because the Low Digger isn’t interacting very much or at all with the other Diggers. At least the “Quick: or “Blind” Digger is interacting and helping to raise the stats of the site.

To date there are not many out there who speak out against the Low Digger, apparently it hasn’t reached the attention of the Average Digger that there are many people out there who hardly participate in Digg at all and that the act of not participating diminishes “The Digg Experience” for all. Yet some of these Low Diggers are the most outspoken people when it comes to the doings of the Blind Digger and the Top Users.

The Definitions

Shortly after I began seeing the term “Blind Digging” used I asked myself: “Just what in the hell is this “Blind Digging” crap?” No one using the term was actually making the attempt to define the term, except in the most abstract ways and I knew the phrase had to mean something. I could guess at the definition of the term, by the way it was used, to mean something like “Blind Digging is the act of digging an item that one does not see” – but it really did not define the term in a satisfactory manner. Such questions as arose:

1. How many Diggs/day, Diggs/hour or Diggs/minute constitutes “Blind Digging”?
2. How is the number for “Blind Digging” derived?
3. What other factors are involved?

I needed more. I did not like the idea that I (or anyone else for that matter) could put whatever meaning they wished upon a term that was apparently so important to Digg and it’s Diggers that it was being used to penalize people for the way they Dugg. The term should be defined (if possible) with hard numbers and facts – not with a lot of guesswork and open-ended statements that would further confuse the issue.

Allowing such definitions was unfair to everyone on Digg. I looked at what people were saying and realized that “Blind Digging” involved two main aspects: Quantity of Diggs and the Speed which the Digger Dugg. Many anti-Blind Digging advocates prattled on about how many Diggs a person made in general, others were more specific and began ranting about people Digging massive amounts of items in very short time periods. Was Blind Digging the same as Quick Digging?

No, the reason being that the word “Blind” means “Sightless” or “Without significant information, especially that might affect an outcome or result”. It had very little to do with the time element. The word Sightless best fit in with the definition for “Blind” used by most Diggers.

Also, since the idea of the submitter’s name not being seen, at least until after an item was Dugg, seemed somewhat popular as a solution for more than one problem on Digg – it was obvious people were not upset over that type of Blind Digging. So the word Blind must represent the idea of Digging a post without ‘seeing’ the item being submitted.

This made it clear that not everything being called “Blind Digging” fit the definition of the term as some people were using it. What they were complaining about was “Fast Digging”, “Quick Digging” or “Excessive Digging” — not “Blind Digging” alone. Some were spouting views about digging items that the Digger knew nothing about the topic, but mostly people were complaining about the amount of Diggs people were giving out and how fast they were giving them out.

My next question was “How do we know what a person knows or don’t know?” Is it a psychic thing? Are these people privy to some information about these people they are accusing that no one else is privy to? The answers to these questions were “No, of course they weren’t privy to any special knowledge. They simply were making assumptions based upon the ‘numbers” and “stats” and not realizing that numbers do not tell the full tale. Once they were on the “Blind Digging” tangent, they couldn’t back down easily with out admitting they were wrong.

Blind Digging is the act of giving out Diggs without actually seeing what is being Dugg. This much is clear, but even though it sounds good — it’s just as vague in meaning as what others were putting across as the meaning of “Blind Digging”. So what is Blind Digging – I mean, “What is it really?” After you strip away the comments that are full or words and emotions, but signifying nothing… just what is it? I wanted something tangible, something I could point to and say “This is Blind Digging and this other thing is simply Digging fast, while that is excessive Digging”. When you get down to the brass tacks, the bottom line, just exactly what is it?

Excessive Digging is the act of digging too much, but let’s put some numbers to this. We will do this by taking certain truths into consideration.

1. Digg allows each Digger to have 1,000 Friends
2. Digg allows unlimited shouts.
3. Digg allows people to Digg multiple items on certain pages rapidly.
4. Digg urges people to Digg more than the items submitted by their friends.

In short Digg promotes “Excessive Digging”, but at the same time they will penalize you for “Blind Digging” or “Over Digging”… at times it’s like watching a paranoid-schizophrenic arguing with him self. Quite often the Diggers are confused over how many Diggs they can give out before the Digg’s Silver Ban Hammer falls upon their heads. On the other hand Digg expects us to use our heads and be reasonable, even though they really give no guidelines on what they consider as reasonable.

I will attempt to fix that problem and hopefully Digg will agree.

The question of “What constitutes too many Diggs?” where “Excessive Digging is concerned is a hard thing to resolve. Many people have different ideas on this. There are some people who think 1,000 or 2,000 Diggs a day isn’t too much, especially when you consider that Digg itself allows us 1,000 Friends. On the other hand there are those who have openly stated that 300 – 400 Diggs constituted “Blind Digging”. So how do we resolve this issue?

We have to consider the “Friend Aspect” because Friends expect support from each other. They may say they don’t mind having items buried or not being Dugg by Friends, but you watch them… if you miss digging a Friend’s Submittals too often then you will suddenly find that many have ‘Un-Friended” you with out warning. Why is this? It’s because of the simple idea that “Friends” are supposed to have “Special Bonds” that go beyond what acquaintances or strangers have with each other. For example, you may plan to go to the movies with friends often, or go to a wine bar once a week, or go visit them at their homes. You really don’t plan to do things with absolute strangers or people you hardly know as a routine thing. The same thing goes for “Digg Friends”, the object is to have a “special connection” with the people you choose as a friend and an even more special connection with those who are Mutual Friends. This “Special Connection” usually takes the form of Digging and shouting their stuff, commenting on their submittals, submitting items by your friends, etc. To make a long story short, if you have 1,000 friends then you should be allowed to give out a minimum of 1,000 Diggs per day to show your support for them. If Digg isn’t willing to allow 1,000 or 2,000 activities per day by a digger, then maybe they ought to cut the number of friends allowable to 500 or 250 friends.

We next have to consider what is possible, yet remains “organic” or “natural”. Let’s assume that it takes the following time to Digg certain items on Digg:

1. Images: Static Images, like pictures and cartoons, take about 10 seconds to Digg.
2. Videos: The average Video takes 3 minutes (180 Seconds) to Digg.
3. Articles:: The average Article takes about 90 seconds to digg.

When averaged out this comes to about 93 seconds, more or less, to Digg, but let’s call it 90 seconds because that is easy to understand. So it takes 1 ½ minutes to Digg the average item on Digg, this means that in 60 Minutes (1 Hour), a person could Digg 40 items. If the person was on Digg for 4 hours, that means they could easily Digg 160 items, if they were on 8 hours then they could Digg 320, if they were on 12 hours, they could digg 480 items, if they were on 16 hours, they could Digg 640 items, and if they were on 24 hours then they could digg 960 Diggs. This means that where it tells us how many items a person dugg in 48 hours, it could say 1,920 Diggs. So once again we fall around the 1,000 Diggs/day mark as an appropriate number to digg in one day.

This means that Digg could easily say that 750 to 1,250 Diggs in one day may be high, but it isn’t ‘excessively” high.

Quick Digging is the same as “Fast Digging” and akin to “Excessive Digging”, however the emphasis is not so much on the amount of Diggs as it is on “The time it took to digg a certain number of items”. To explain, let’s go back to the 40 Diggs/hour, 1 Digg per 90 Seconds. If a Digger has dugg 12 items in 3 minutes, then that person is “Quick Digging”. He or she did not necessarily “Blind Digg” or “Excessively Digg” because we don’t know if that person actually knew about the item dugg or even opened up the item. It could be that the person was opening shouts sent to him by Digg through his or her email address and just spent 5 hours reading everything… then decided to Digg everything at once. To Digg in this manner, one could easily digg 40 Diggs in a few minutes and they could have dugg the item appropriately…. Yet the stats we see don’t reflect anything but the speed a person has dugg items on Digg. In this case we simply default to how many Diggs are allowed on Digg per day and quit being so frakkin’ anal about what others are doing and pay more attention as to whether we are actually supporting Digg in the way we should.

Low Digging is the act of digging an amount of items on Digg that is below the average. According to the number above, anyone who is Low Digging is digging less than 160 diggs per hour. Unlike the Anti-Blind Digging Advocates out there, I see nothing wrong with Low Digging because not everyone is the same and the purpose of Digg is to enjoy and ‘be Social”. If a person is only Digging 20 items a day, or performing 20 activities on Digg a day on the average, then if they are happy and not causing problems for others – who am I to demand that they have to Digg 160 to 240 items per day. That is their business, not mine. On the other hand I do have a thing about people digging less than an average of 1 item a day on Digg for that is not supporting a site that they have joined of their own free will… especially if those people are the ones complaining about how others use the system. I personally feel that if a person joins a site and can only come onto the site once per week, in the same amount of time they spend looking around – they can digg approximately 7 items or better yet – they can mix their activities and give something back to Digg that is positive. It would probably only take about 30 minutes of their time to Digg a few items, submit an item or two and make a few comments – and in return they may find that people are more receptive to them. This brings us to the topic of …

The Forgotten Excessively “Low Digger”

It seems that everyone talks of the “Blind Digger” as being such an evil and vile character on Digg because they aren’t properly Digging, but what of the person who Diggs ‘Excessively Low”? These people are often forgotten because they sort of fly below the radar of most people..

Digg is a social network and if it is deemed that a person who Diggs excessively isn’t considered as “being Social”, then surely the person who Diggs rarely is also “Anti-Social” and as equally as detrimental to the forum. Isn’t the purpose of Digg primarily to be an active and contributing member of the Digg Community?

I already touched on what “Low Digging” is, but I really have not put a hard number on “Excessively Low Digging”. I won’t go into all of the calculations because as an experienced admin for various message boards and forums on the net I found that the average of 1 activity per day to be sufficient to expect out of any member of the site. Anyone can perform 1 activity/day, 7 activities/week or 30 activities/month without demanding of too much time. Let’s face it, even if a person did only 30 Diggs a month, this would take only about 15 minutes. They probably waste more time than that in logging onto Digg and letting the pages load fully.

The Bury Brigadier

After reviewing this I decided to add a section on my favorite Topic… “The Bury Brigade”! I simply love people who think that it’s proper to squelch others rights, while trying to defend their own. It just makes me smile from ear to ear.

Upon thinking of what I wrote, I wondered “How would you think most of those Bury Brigadiers” would react to the idea of not only going after the “Blind Digger” and “Top Users”, but also the “Excessively Low Digger” and “Bottom Users”?”

Let’s define a “Bottom User” a little. A “Bottom User” is a person who has been on Digg for say 6 months or a year and has not averaged out to say 20 things a day on Digg. Keeping in mind that some of the Bury Brigade are active users, we must realize that many of them are not. Would they begin justifying their positions by whining over how little time they have and that they have things to do in the ‘real world’… or would they calmly accept being targeted by Digg Users and Digg?

Better yet, let’s say another Digg Uproar occurs and this time it is over Diggers demanding that the “Excessively Low Diggers” be banned from Digg for not contributing. Also we can throw in a sub-group of people who claim that Digg knows who buries the most and demands they ban these people. This group even says that we do not have to know the Bury Stats for Digg to ban those who rarely utilize the site as intended.

Odds are you’ll have a huge uproar. There would be people claiming that this is “Unfair” and Digg was simply trying to act as an evil overlord. They would point to anyone who voices the opinion that these people should be kicked off Digg as control freaks and people who do not understand. They would definitely inject that they have a real life outside of Digg and the net, especially if they see the movement against them was serious. Some might even do videos and have Question and Answer meeting on their personal sites in order to try to explain to people why they do as they do. Think about this further and see what you come up with.

Now, think about this and see if it doesn’t sound familiar to you. Doesn’t it sound a lot like what has been happening on Digg to the Top Users and Blind Diggers? Of course it does, in the respect that people are looking at mere stats and formulating opinions about others just because of what the numbers show. It may be the numbers are mostly right, but in the end you will still be penalizing good citizens of Digg because they fit someone’s idea of what those numbers represent.

For example:

The number 1 ranked Bury Brigadier became a member on 11/23/2006. His last action on Digg was noted to be on 6/15/2007. That means he was active on Digg for 205 days. The total for his submittals, comments and Diggs came to 1,504. This means he had an average of 7 1/3 actions per day. That is well above the 1 action/day requirement.

On the other hand, another “Bury Brigadier” joined Digg on 7/28/2005 and his last action occurred on 10/9/2008. This means he was active on Digg for 1,179 days. His total number of Diggs, Comments and Submittals totaled to 464. This is well below the 1 action/day mark set.

Whereas Bury Brigadier number 1 has ‘a leg to stand on’ because he did the bare minimum to contribute to Digg, Bury Brigadier number 2 has no leg to stand on when burying others because he is not properly supporting Digg.

The Abominable Blind Digger

A person who is accused of “Blind Digging” is known as a Blind Digger, this isn’t exactly a “Revelation” or “Rocket Science” to figure this out. It seems that the attitude on Digg is that the Blind Digger will cause empires to crumble, the end of civilization, and even cause planets to collide. The Blind Digger is a pox on society and should be shun as if he were unclean.

The fact is that Digg is a Social Site, if you wish then you could call it a Social Content Site or a Social Bookmark Site. On Digg being social means to interact with others on the site, the members interact by sending shouts, commenting on submitted items, submitting items for others to enjoy, making friends and Digging the items submitted by others. If a person Diggs 5,000 items in one day then he or she is ‘being social’. The mere fact of the person shouting or commenting making one more social does not negate the fact that the with mostly a lot of Diggs is still being social. Digg, and many on Digg, seems to think that Digging alone is not being social. They seem to think that those who Digg a lot are not using the system properly. Well if I took this ideology and applied it to other cases, then anyone who doesn’t embrace any social group fully is ‘not being social’ and should be quickly drummed out of the group. Let’s look at this example:

Let’s say you belong to a “Club”. This “Club” is what is called a Working Social Club. This means that the “Club” is for the purpose of people getting together to meet and interact with each other, as well as doing things for the community.

This club is subdivided into two groups. The First Group is called “The Mother Club” and everyone is a member. All that is required is to sign up for the club, pay your dues, and you can attend the social functions of the club (as well as attend and provide input and votes at the General Meetings). The Second group is smaller and is referred to as “The Squad”. The Squad is the group of people, who belong to the club, that not only does the same things as those in “The Mother Club”, but they are the ones that go out to represent the club in the community and help out where they can.

Now, one day a member of the Mother Club realizes that those in “The Squad” get all of the notoriety. People in the community recognize them for their efforts and gives them the attention they are due. This member gets jealous and tired of hearing about the Squad Members doing so much good work for the community, so he (or she) begins to voice the opinion that The Squad members should only be able to do so much for the community and they ought to give the other club members a chance to get some recognition. The Squad Leader states the fact “The Squad can have an unlimited number of people and any Club Member can join for an extra dollar a month, in accordance with the rules of the Club. Anyone wanting to be a part of the Squad and wants to come out to the Christmas Galas for the Children’s Home or help out with the parades in the communities are free to do so. All they have to do is show up and work with the rest of us.” This infuriates the Club Member and his (or her) friends and they begin to press the agenda by placing the Squad Members in a bad light by calling them “Over-achievers” and “Glory Hounds”. They begin driving ideas into the heads of even the less active Squad Members that these “Glory Hounds” are ruining the Club by being so active. Eventually a huge outcry occurs and the highly active members find themselves limited in what they do.

The first thing to realize is that this is not just some story conceived in someone’s mind, it actually happened in the real world to “Groups” that had nothing to do with the internet. In fact one such event as this happened 20 years before the internet became a household name. The Internet mimics life and I see the same things happening on Digg. Some members are jealous over what the Top Users or so-called Blind Diggers are doing and instead of devoting more time or being more social to improve their own accounts, they are attacking those who are doing the most for Digg and trying to set limitations upon them. These people often word what they say in a manner that sounds logical and reasonable to many, they manipulate these others into thinking that this agenda is correct.

Summary

I am not saying that it’s is a totally misplaced idea to place limitations on Digg and it’s Diggers, the first reason being that even Digg isn’t limitless on it’s resources. I do, however, say that all members should be treated fairly and equally. Let’s just be so single minded in our views that we feel the only answer is penalizing those who do the most for Digg, let’s place limits on the “Under-Achievers” as well. If it’s not considered as proper to over-Digg, then it should be viewed as least as improper to under-Digg. The question now is “What is too much or too little?”

In this article I tried to fairly approach things on all side and provide a little food for thought for the reasonable people out there. I am not concerned with convincing people with agendas on either side of the coin for their minds are already closed to any outside views. My concern is to reach, what I feel is, the majority of the Diggers out there who really had not the time or interest in thinking things like this out.

Digg really should come out with their numbers on how many Diggs, or activities, that a Digger can do in one day before being eyed as “Violating the rules”. Sure this may help people to game the system, but anything they do can do that. Gamers are just such inventive people that they naturally figure out how best to take advantage of things. They are not my concern because the end result is not to stop the Gamer, but to restrict their activities as much as reasonably possible without unfairly penalizing the average Digger. In short the Gamer is a non-issue with me, much like the troll or even the Bury Brigade. These people will do their thing regardless, the best way to deal with them is to limit their effects as much as possible and simply not worry about them.

This article, believe it or not, was written partly in humor and partly in a serious manner. Anyone taking offense to it has that right, but the end result is “it’s not my problem, it’s theirs”. I do not offer condolences, apologies or even a retraction for my views. Also I do not support a Bury the Bury Brigade, Burn the Extremely Low Digger or Destroy the Digg Mafia response on Digg or anywhere else. That is not my thing, however I do strive to make people aware of such things as the Digg Mafia or Bury Brigade. Digg is a site, if it shut down tomorrow it really wouldn’t affect most of us… we would simply move on. I let the idea that Digg is a vital part of one’s life to those who wish to feel that way. I hope you liked this article, I’ve reworked it numerous times to try to make the humor easier to spot. Thanks for reading.

Cruisining through the net this morning I found some pretty funny stuff concerning Digg. I’d like to share them.

The first thing I found was an article called “Can banned Digg friends come back to life” over at LewP’s Weblog. Lew asks the question about banned diggers returning. I gave Lew a quick answer, but will expand upon it here.

I make it no secret that I have been a part of various forums, as well as running various site, for over a decade on the net. A part of the knowledge I acquired over that time was that there are, at least, 3 methods of banning users from a forum. I’ve seen Digg use 2 methods, so I know they are not complete idiots when it comes to running a forum.

One method they used in the past was the simple banning of a Screen Name. They ban the account, but didn’t go the extra mile to try to ban the user by other methods.

The second method they used was either the banning of an account by IP or ‘other’ addresses assigned to a person’s internet account at the ISP level or at the computer level. I won’t get into this a great deal because for those who don’t know – they don’t need to know.

Since Digg already knows how to block certain people from getting onto Digg from an ISP, apparently, then it is reasonable to assume that anyone banned by Screen Name is permitted by Digg to return to the site and be an active part of it — just as long as they abide by the Digg TOU.

So onto the Digg Zombie Brigade, which was mentioned by LewP on his blog. Being a longtime admin of my own sites and one who worked with admins of other sites, I see nothing wrong with banned Diggers returning to Digg. This is backed by Digg’s own stance that they would like their Top Users to continue their support of Digg and their inference that banned Diggers like Zaibatsu and Supernova17 come back and help Digg out by doing ‘the Digg thing’. However how do you draw back Top Diggers who you stripped of their status? Does Digg think that these people will be willing to come back just to be banned again when they get too big for Digg? Who knows and that isn’t the real issue here.

The one things Digg might oppose is the calling of his “Return to Digg” as a game, but why should they really care… just as long as people behave and come back. Let the banned Diggers enjoy their game, it will only serve to entice more ex-Diggers to return to Digg. Digg could even make a statement about “Blind Digging”, “Using Bots and Scripts” and playing the game “on Digg”. As long as these Diggers keep the Digg Game to their own blogs and websites… Digg will only prosper by it.

To answer Lew’s question of “What’s wrong with coming back to Digg with a different user name?“, nothing is wrong with it. People join sites often under more than one name and they aren’t doing so only to troll. Sometimes they are returning members who’s accounts have expired (or they lost the password and no longer use that email address), so they start a new account with their current password. Other times they are people who were banned, but are allowed back on the system under the requirement that they change their ways. The reasons are numerous and not all of them are because someone is “gaming the system” or ‘abusing the system’.

As far as the game rules are concerned, I would make it a point of not exposing who you are on Digg. Play it cool, you can always enjoy the game ‘off-Digg’. You might set up a poll somewhere listing the old name of a Digger and 5 to 10 new Diggers… and let the people vote on it. The vote doesn’t mean they are right or wrong, it only tells what others think… that is “It’s an Opinion”. Another thing that could be done is say something like “30% of the Diggers replied with the right answer of who I am (or who a certain Digger is)”. Once again, this is opinion and you’re not confirming or denying anything. When a person neither confirms or denies something, it drives people nuts when they realize what you are doing. Digg is run by people, so when following this line of thought to it’s final conclusion… “. Yeah, I am a bit experienced with ’screwing with people’. lol

As far as a secret password, once again you don’t want to telegraph your punch. In a comment you might make a comment that anyone who knows you knows that is something you normally say. You might work a “Zombie” related word into something and since this is halloween season… who is to say that you simply are not a person who likes Zombies and Ghosties? There’s a million things you could do to get the point across, including the relatively harmless shout requesting a digg for an item. The imagination knows no bounds.

Two other things I’d like to show, because I think they are funny:

Zombies walk the earth

http://ranlog58.blogspot.com/2008/10/zombies-walk-earth.html

Digg Wars

http://sezyou.blogspot.com/

People are so inventive on the net, things like this make my day.

Facebook Connect and Digg, is there an alliance coming?

Today I ran across two articles that talked on the subject, that I would like to reference, they were:

Facebook Connect and The Insider Connect Facebook Friends

and

Face Connect

It seems that Facebook Connect has been in the works for months and although many out there knew about it… it wasn’t exactly big news to others. Today’s events surely will make some people’s heads spin, but before everyone jumps the gun let’s remember that Mark Zuckerberg said himself:

“When asked by Ryan Carson on stage at FOWA when Connect would arrive, Zuckerburg said: “We hope just as soon as possible. Some time in the next few months.”

So it’s a very good possibility that today’s launch was just the next step in the Beta testing and Connect won’t be available to us until well after Christmas. In the meantime we can go to Facebook and play with any new additions Facebook may add, go to “The Insider” and really study what Facebook Connect does and can do for you, and we have time to become familiar with it before it is released to the general public. Cool beans!

It is also apparent that Facebook has it’s eye on Digg, or to be more precise “Digg has it’s eye on Facebook”. Digg seems to have been doing a lot of strange things lately and perhaps the reasons why are becoming clearer with this latest news that is coming out of both Facebook and Digg. Digg knew for months that it needed to clean up it’s act, or be turned down from making the ‘big score’ again and again. It has been as busy as a beehive cleaning things up and that meant getting rid, or toning down, it’s top ranked members. It wanted to show that Digg truly is a place for everyone and anyone could achieve greatness on Digg. Hey, it sounds as good of an answer as anything else… doesn’t it? I still maintained that Digg went about things in the wrong way, but at least this excuse gives them a reason for hitting the panic button and ‘overdoing’ it. (shrug)

Facebook has been quoted as having anywhere between 80 and 120 million members, Digg has approximately 4 million registered accounts (at the last estimate). It would be a huge boon to Digg if they could reach a portion of those Facebook Members and attract them to do. On the flip side of the record Digg really doesn’t do much for Facebook that Facebook couldn’t do for itself. Let’s say Facebook has 100 million people, if Facebook picked up the people to put in their own Digg-like site and found someone to properly run it… odds are that the majority of Facebook users would simply click the button or tab and utilize the new Facebook item. On the other hand many of these same users might not be so willing to ‘go offsite’ to Digg. This isn’t Digg’s problem, Digg (if it was smart) would not set their sites on these 100 Million Facebook users… they would maybe set their sites on reaching about 1 or 2 percent of them and here is why?

First thing is that recently one of the reasons for the bannings at Digg was the claim about the people wasting Digg’s valuable resources. This tells me that Digg, although it might have a ’server farm’ to impress the Pope, isn’t as ‘vast’ as rumors indicated. They may be smaller than we have been lead to believe. If Digg could not handle 4 Million people using up resources willy-nilly and as they please… they certainly could not handle 10 to 100 Million more users in their present position. They would have to undergo a massive expansion, even if Facebook took some of the heat for them.

The second thing is the question of whether Facebook can handle the load, as it is today, and how much do they have to expand to accomodate Digg. Generally speaking, Facebook probably can easily handle the placement of Digg into their Facebook Connect, especially if the bulk of the load falls on the Digg system – instead of their own.

You may think “This guy knows nothing”, but before you convince yourself of this fact take a few minutes to consider that despite all of the misinformation, disinformation and hype out there… logic still applies. I freely admit that I am no networking guru or internet genius, however I am basically a logical person and I do know that you cannot add 100 million people to a server that can’t handle 4 million – it’s basic math, people.

I’ve also been around for quite awhile, in internet years, and I’ve seen a lot. One of the things I’ve seen, time and again, is whenever you have these huge social sites… the number of people in their membership are always inflated. You have people with multiple accounts, you have people who left the system and still are listed in the figures, there are many reasons for the inflated values given – but the biggest is that people love flashing big numbers around to impress others. Facebook may only have between 30 and 75 Million individual members, Diggs membership may only be in the tens or hundreds of thousands instead of the millions. This is still a lot of people, if you don’t believe me… try putting them all in your living room sometime. Facebook and Digg ought to know exactly how many members they have and they ought to be able to take a good guess as to how many actual members that equates. We only know the figures we are told, or can find out on our own. This affects our ability to give a good estimate of what is required by Facebook and Digg to pull this off.

Digg Uproar: Revolution Calling!

Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
There’s a] Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through
- Revolution Calling
Operation: Mindcrime
(Queensryche, 1988)

In J.D. Rucker’s article, Time to Act: Call for Blog Posts About Digg 10-12-2008, he states:

“Users are getting banned and there seems to be very little chance that they will get unbanned. The recommendation engine has limits now. The quality of the front page has been questionable at best.

It’s time to act.”

J.D. calls for a form of protest, which is set for Sunday the 12th of October, that involves people protesting Digg by posting their comments on their blogs and sending the URLs of their posts to his blog article so that all of the comments can be made public and tied through one central location. J.D. makes it perfectly clear to keep in mind that our opinion is our opinion and the intent is not to guide anyone to feel a certain way.

J.D. has given us some ideas, or guidelines, for the items to be addressed, he states:

1) Recent mass-bannings of Digg users, new and old.
a) Were they justified? Digg posted on their blog, but otherwise, there was no communication, no warning.
b) Should the bans be permanent? They weren’t submitting porn, threatening users, or any of the “felony” offenses.

2) Recommendation Engine Limits: First, they bragged on their blog about how Diggs and submissions were up. Then, they limited the way that we can Digg. Which is it? Digg a lot, but don’t Digg a lot…

3) Forum – Back in November, 2007, Jay and Kevin mentioned that they were working on a forum where Digg users and Digg employees could discuss issues. We’re almost at a year and it seems that we’re no closer.

4) Whitelisted Sites – HuffingtonPost, Arstechnica, YouTube — Digg loves them. Newer sites – good luck! Should Digg have such a favoring of certain sites? Does it make it more of an RSS feed than a social news site?

He also states:

“There are definitely other issues. It doesn’t matter what you want to write about, as long as you write something.”

J.D. states that we can make Digg listen, if we act together.

Let’s look at this objectively, people, even though it may grate against my nature and yours. Digg is a site that is owned and operated by a group of people. They are responsible for all facets of the site, including paying the bills and the setting and enforcing of the rules. Out of the (cough) “Goodness of their hearts” they allow people to come to their site and use it for free. In exchange they only ask that we follow a few simple rules and be active members of the site to help it grow and prosper.

Sounds all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? It sort of makes you want to cozy up on a couch by a warm fire with a cup of hot cocoa and dim lighting, while snuggling your puppy or kitty, and say “Awe”. It may be such a sugary view that it want to make you barf, but overall it sounds logical and reasonable. Let’s face it… what was said is right. The Digg site is their ‘home”, and when you invite people into your home you expect them to act like good guests, don’t you? Well you expect it within reason, you can overlook the occasional mistake people make that may cause upset or damage to your home. The fact remains that most people expect certain things out of the people they bring into their home and these forums on the net are no different.

On the other hand there is such a thing called “Trust”, the members of any forum will generally expect to be treated in a just and fair manner. They don’t expect to be abused by the staff and management in exchange for the time and effort they spend on the site… and they certainly don’t care for being treated as scum if they happened to be one of the people most vital to the popularity of the site. What I am talking about here is not only “Trust” between member and the powers that be, but I am talking about a thing called ‘respect”.

It is true that some members knowingly abused the system, they used scripts to help give them an unfair advantage or they may have used multiple accounts to help bolster the position of their main account. Bear in mind that there are others who used scripts and didn’t realize that the thing they used were against the rules of Digg. On top of it all there were people accused of doing things that they didn’t do, all because the people at Digg simply looked at their numbers and said “He must be using a script to do this”. Whatever it is that the members have done, there are still certain protocols that one expects out of the Staff and Management of the site. One of those things is called “Prior Notification”, the word “Warning” can suffice as well. The member simply doesn’t expect to be on the site one day posting their submittals or digging posts, only to find out the next day they were banned with out notice. To do such a thing is a “breach of trust” between the site and the member.

We are getting a little off-track here, but I felt it was important to give an example of both sides of the coin. Digg stands accused of ‘breaking the trust” between the site and it’s members… and so far they offered no reasonable explanation for doing so. This makes it appear to be a simple case of ‘incompetence’ on their part and they seem unwilling to change their ways.

I have a question for Jay Adelson to try to talk his way out of:

“Do you consider what has been happening since the Zaibatsu banning a “revolt” now?”

Users are leaving Digg, by choice or banning, in droves. Over 2,000 Diggers have been reported as being banned, or they willingly left Digg, closed, since the Zaibatsu banning. Is that a ‘significant number”, Jaybo, or is Digg willing to continue using it’s Ban Hammer irresponsibly and allow even more Diggers to slip through their fingers?

My position is not to save Digg, or bury it, but to find the truth. Internet Users have been jumping from Site (or Program) to Site (or Program) for years. In most cases they would praise the new system is as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread… only to chastise it when they became disgruntled enough to move on and break all ties to the site. This is the normal way of the net and I am accustomed to it. The warning has been given that Digg is in jeopardy. I can see it in the views expressed by the members and ex-members. It’s not the normal “bashing” of a site or person that takes place. There is a real disappointment on Digg and it’s turning into a real hatred for the site.

The last time I have seen this happen, to this degree, over 2 Million users left ICQ for a new program called “Firetalk”. Does Digg really want to tempt fate on a chance of history repeating itself?

On Sunday, the 12th, we will see just how many people participate in this protest. I would not be surprised to find that over 200 blogs will post articles about Digg, and most of them will show an anti-Digg sentiment. You may find that thousands of people participate by replying to these posts. I’ll be watching and trying to decipher the real magnitude of the problem at Digg, along with numerous other people.

Over at Social News Central Mr. Babyman wrote a blog called “Digg’s Former Top Submitters: Where are they now?“. In the article Mr. Babyman makes the attempt to find out the answer to the question “Where have all the top users gone?“, but Andy isn’t content with reporting rumors and promoting hearsay – his objective is to get real information from the Banned Diggers themselves!

I think this is an excellent task to undertake and I commend Mr. Babyman for making the effort in finding these Lost Diggers, however I think that some Diggers would like to know where other Banned Diggers have went as well. The sad thing is that this project will be big enough if Mr. Babyman only sticks to the Top 1000 Digg users who left Digg for greener pastures. So I naturally figured:

“

Why not throw Babyman a bone!

”

I don’t mind giving the man a little assistance in his quest, but I also will make sure that anyone of the Top Users from Digg that sees this blog post knows that they should go to his article:

Digg’s Former Top Submitters: Where are they now?

in order to post their whereabouts on the net. In this way I feel that I am not trying to steal Mr. Babyman’s thunder… I am simply giving him a helping hand with a project I feel would be of interest to many Diggers and ex-Diggers out there.

In an article called “The Ban Hammer falls again over at Digg“, by none other than former Top Digger Zaibatsu, it was reported that another 57 Diggers were banned. Almost immediately reports of another 10 to 20 Diggers were found to be struck by Digg’s mighty hammer. The last time the “Ban Hammer” fell, it landed right on Digg’s Number 3 Top User, Zaibatsu, this time it struck number 5 Top User, Supernova17, and number 34 Top User, OptimusPrime, along with others.

According to Social Blades’ Top 1000 Banned Users page, approximately 103 Top 1000 users have been banned and of that figure 12 were Top 100 Users. Zaibatsu and Supernova17 were the only 2 Top 10 Users banned so far.

This propells OptimusPrime1 ahead of Zaibatsu’s in the “Very Questionable” category where the Bannings are concerned. Optimus has been gone on ‘holiday’ for the past week and is not expected to return until later this month, this gives rise to the question of “What could a Digg member possibly do to violate the TOS when he hasn’t been around a computer for a week prior to the banning?”.

The reply from Digg will surely be “justified”, in their view, but unless the reply is along the lines of “We are sorry, we made a mistake… we intended to ban another OptimusPrime instead” then expectations are that this will further drive the wedge into the “trust” issue between Digg and many of it’s members.

Digg release a statement on 3 October, concerning Script Abuse. The statement goes as follows:

Digg: Update on Script Abuse
by Jen Burton at 8am, Oct 3rd, 2008 in Digg Community

Hey all –

Digg enforces its Terms of Use so that Digg remains a vibrant community of people committed to sharing and discovering great content. Everyone who uses Digg agrees to abide by the TOU, which maintains a positive experience on Digg for all community members by prohibiting spam, porn, gaming, hate speech etc.

In many cases, Digg gives users who violate the TOU a second and sometimes even a third chance. When people continue to violate the TOU, or where a first-time violation is egregious, Digg is reluctantly left with no option but to ban the user.

A couple weeks ago we posted a blog entry regarding script usage, reminding members of the community that it violates the Digg TOU. We also rolled out some changes that warned users when unnatural Digging activity was detected. Since this post, we analyzed our logs on a regular basis to clearly identify script use over an extended period of time.

While we never speak to specific instances of user bans to protect the privacy of individual users, we have banned a small number of users for script use over the past several weeks. Some of them are active users that are well known within the Digg Community. While we’ll sincerely miss the contributions of these individuals and are never happy about playing policeman, we believe that the larger Digg community is adversely impacted by people who choose to violate the TOU.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@digg.com with questions or feedback. We’re continuously researching and investigating this process, so don’t be shy and let us know what you think.

Have a good one,
Jen

Give me a break, Jen, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, ok? Don’t insult my intelligence and integrity by trying to tell me that “Digg knows when a user is using a script”. Tell the truth, Digg is looking at stats and “guessing”. In addition they are not even confronting the ‘accused’ with the allegation to try to find out what is going on so that they could fix their system – they simply are making the judgment that the member is committing a violation and banning any account that ’seems” to be getting higher stats than Digg expects.

One reason I can say this with 100% faith in my conviction is that I personally know a member of Digg who was banned for using scripts, and I know he has no scripts on his computer – all 4,000 posts dugg that day were 100% organic. Digg just saw the number of diggs and reacted with out finding out how it was done.

Since I know for a fact this happened once, I have no reason to doubt that others were banned by Digg for the wrong reasons. It may be that only a small percentage of the so-called innocents are truly innocent… but it does happen and it happens more than Digg wishes to admit. While Digg’s graphs show Digg rapidly on the decline, the same Alexa site shows sites like Mixx on the rise. Who do you think these new members of these other sites are? If you guessed “Diggers”, they you are correct for many of them are.

At this stage of the game Digg really doesn’t want to drive it’s members away, instead it wants to bring these members more into line with the Digg Policies and TOS. You don’t persuade these people to tow the line by singling them out and banning them with out giving them a chance to change their ways. If Digg isn’t careful they will find that Mixx, or another site, is suddenly ‘the place to be’ and Digg will be sitting there with a site that isn’t worth the money that was put into it.

The Digg Revolution: Fact or Fiction? Are Digg Users revolting in protest as a part of the Digg Uproar, or is Digg simply going through a transition period? Let’s re-cap some of the things that have been going on with Digg.

For months an attack against Mr. Babyman, Digg’s Number 1 Top User, have been a staple of Digg, but around the 14th of September a major attack against against him and it seemed to have forced his hand by having an online interview concerning these allegations made about him. Around the 15th of Septembers calls by some users of Digg for Mr. Babyman to be banned reached a fevered pitch.

On September 17th or 18th of 2008 Digg banned many of it’s members for TOS Violations without warning, several of the people banned seemed to be unfairly banned. One of these people was none other than the #3 Digg Top User – Zaibatsu. Many of the banned were snared for the use of scripts, but Zaibatsu did not seem to be one of them, at least 5 other Top 100 Users were banned along with him. In fact there is a list of the banned circulating that shows that about 1/2 of the users banned were in the Top 1000 Digg User list at Social Blade.

During the week of the 17th to the 24th, several members of Digg set out to push their “Blind Digging” agenda and one banned digger decided to post The Blind Digger Wall of Shame. “Blind Digging” has been an issue for awhile on Digg, but one of the things setting fire to the issue in September was the fact that around the 10th of September, Digg took steps to limit Blind Digging.

Digg seems to be on the attack against the top users and blind diggers, who actually were the main ones who made Digg the popular site it is today, while ignoring the most dangerous elements of Digg — The Digg Mafia and The Bury Brigades. The Digg Mafia, sometimes known as the Bury Brigade and other names, has been operating on Digg for months, if not years. Using my experience in the past with other sites, and what I have personally observed on and off Digg for months, the group of people is most likely not one group of tightly linked members who act out their Pinky and the Brain complex by trying to take over Digg.

Another thing recently noted on Digg is the infamous “Whoa there” screen that tells users that giving out so many diggs is lame and to try reading some of the articles. It’s obvious that Digg wants it’s people to comment more and possibly click through to the articles more (most likely reason is that Digg may get paid for page loads due to their advertising on those pages).

These are just a handful of the things going on over at Digg, but there are several things going on ‘Off-Digg” as well – if one actually bothers to open their eyes and look. Many Diggers are posting more on Mixx and other sites, some users are toying with starting their own “Digg-like” sites, Google is busy working on a social network that could possibly put an end to sites like Digg. Digg is busy circling it’s wagons, for sure, there isn’t any doubt about that despite Jay Adelson’s comment about not seeing a revolt. Digg is busy getting financing and cleaning up their system, while firming up their defenses and pulling a 1984 type propaganda campaign design to quell the unrest amongst their own members.

When one pays attention to Digg these days they cannot help but to notice people missing from Digg and the fact that people just are not digging as they once did. It seems that Digg has yet to learn that you cannot force people to do things they do not wish to do – not for very long anyway. If a person is not comfortable with making a lot of comments or digging, or they don’t want to waste their time going to items they already have seen a dozen times, they will rebel by leaving the site and finding another better suited to their needs. Yet Digg still is trying to force their members into a neat little mold.

So the question remains “Is the Digg Revolution underway?”. I don’t have the answer to that, all I can do is present my observations and allow you – the reader — to judge. Remember Revolutions do not start off with a bang, they start off with people becoming disgruntled with things first and most often that is heard in a sporadic fashion. By the time shots are fired, it’s too late – the time to try to avert the revolt has passed and people are ready to act.