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.

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.

The latest news on the Digg Uproar front comes from an article found in the Pakistan Times called “Zaibatsu should be reinstated on Digg“. In the article Rubab mentions ‘The Digg Revolt‘, which is a term I’ve heard on a number of occasions since April or May of 2008.

It is obvious to me that the people at Digg are pretty much oblivious to what is going on and it shows in the statements made by those in employment of Digg. One of the places it is apparent is in the reply Jay Adelson’s comment:

“Let’s be realistic about what happened yesterday,” Adelson says. “It wasn’t a revolt. To me, a revolt is when a statistically significant group of people cause a disruption. These guys are significant to me personally, but this wasn’t a revolt. I hope that the next time a small group of users voice their concerns, it’s not represented as a ‘mass movement’ or a ‘revolt.’”

I am perfectly sure that some adviser of Ole King George gave a similar comment back in early 1775 about the events happening in the colonies. LoL I agree, Jay, let’s be realistic. What happened was a revolt, whether that is what you would call it or not, and Digg has been having revolts since April or May of 2008 or before. It may not be a huge revolt, nor may it be a real danger to Digg… but a revolt it is never-the-less.

Let’s face it, Digg will most likely survive just about any ‘revolt’ that happens by it’s members, but ask yourself this very important question:

“What condition will it be in if Digg continues to piss off it’s members who do most of the activity on the site?”

Are those people who have been on Digg for 1 to 4 years that have 0 to 500 Diggs going to be the salvation of the site?

Are those who think that it’s “social” to bury any item they don’t like or understand going to be the ones who replace the ex-members who left?

In no way do I promote the coddling of rule breakers or TOS Violators, neither do I preach treating a select group of members better than the average user. I do promote, however, being fair and appearing just to the members of the site… and doing so in a timely manner.

Another thing to think about, Jay, what will happen if you lose your top users? The answer is “New people will replace them – eventually. Who is to say the new ‘bosses’ will be any better than the old ‘bosses’? The fact is that the some of the new guys and gals taking the place of the old will not only do the same things, and worse, but many will be smarter about it because they have learned from the mistakes of the old. On the other hand if you drive your good members away then you may end up with just another troll haven on your hands, it happened to other sites – so why can’t it happen on Digg too?

In the article “Top Digg User Zaibatsu Banned – Reactions from Both Zaibatsu and Digg Management” by Richard MacManus, there is a section of the post stating the Digg Response as:

“We sought a response from Digg on the banning, since Zaibatsu was a high ranking user who had seemingly put in a lot of effort and work into the community.

So Digg’s position is clearly that Zaibatsu has a history of TOS violations, not just the latest one.“

The article also states:

“We don’t know the previous violations, and Digg wouldn’t discuss details because they told us they’re “unable to comment on the specifics of this or any case given that we try to protect the privacy of our users“.”

The comments made by Digg are unsettling, it almost appears that Digg is telling the world that they knew certain users violated their TOS freely for months or years… and Digg did nothing about it. In the meantime Digg has punished the little guy, the average digger who may or may not have been guilty of what Digg claimed.

Digg may not have the right to tell the general public about Zaibatsu’s record in exact detail, but they certainly have the obligation to inform Zaibatsu of any violations he has made. It may have been a case where the violation was unintentional and a word of caution was enough to fix the problem, but regardless a man accused has the right to know he is being accused.

The hot topic of the past 24 hours has been the fact that Digg’s Number 3 Top User was banned by Digg, but he wasn’t banned for the usual reasons. According to Zaibatsu, in the article “I was banned by Digg and for a pretty lame reason“, Zaibatsu stated:

“I had linked directly to the pictures of the digg user on her site. However the site owner apparently redirected the site to a spam site after my initial post.“

While searching Google, I found a link to an article called “Digg User Zaibatsu banned because of me“, the admin of Jackie’s Jungle stated:

“Recently, I was informed that Zaibatsu, one of Digg’s (digg.com) superusers was banned from the website because he placed two posts linking to my gallery.“

Wait a second here, let’s back the trolley up… since when are photos in a gallery “SPAM“? Something is wrong here somewhere, images – no matter how suggestive they may be — are not considered as Spam by any legitimate definition of the word. The only thing that makes images Spam is if they are being sold, or used to sell something. So what gives?

This is where reading on pays off, Jackie (and I presume that is her name) states:

“Basically, as I heard over the internet broadcast last night @ ustream.tv around 3:00am my time, he noticed I was digging his articles. He visited my site, realized hey I’m not ugly, and posted a link on Digg which lead to my gallery because he found me to be a cute digger. Digg banned him because they say he violated the terms or agreement by promoting my panty sale.

As we were all informed yesterday, Zaibatsu was not even aware I had a panty sale. Like most Digg users he diggs things without even reading them. Regardless if I am selling panties on my site or not, neither of his links lead to the actual post about the sale. They went strictly to my gallery which has absolutely nothing for sale. Therefore he is completely innocent of these alleged crimes and should not be banned from Digg.”

Ok, some things are made a little clearer, but why would a site that just happened to be selling a product be considered as Spam when the site is obviously not all about being commercial? This ties into an article posted on the City Social Marketing site months ago called “SPAM“. In that article, the author stated:

“In general, the term SPAM has come to mean whatever a person thinks SPAM means. Some think that if you post one message, which is off-topic or irrelevant, then it is SPAM. Others think any multiple postings of a similar view, in one or more message threads, is SPAM. Still there others think that SPAM is only something which is applicable to E-Mail. The definition of the word “SPAM” is definitely subjective, however the idea it as being a subjective thing, which is something solely up to the Individual to decide, is a wrong assumption to promote in the various forums around the net. It is wrong due to the fact that it sets the site up for future, potential problems.“

The fact is that just because a site being linked to sells something, it doesn’t mean that an item which links to the site promotes the commercial aspects of the site – nor does it automatically constitutes Spam. If it did then any links to Digg would be considered as spam, any links to CNN or MSNBC would be considered as Spam, and in general any site linking to a site which has any ads at all on them would be considered as Spam. If Spam did take into account this type of definition then places like Digg would be forced to shut down because over 95% of the items submitted links to some site which offers ads selling products or services. No matter how subjective the definition of Spam is, there has to be a commonality in the definitions to make one’s personal definition valid.

I’ve read the article on City Social Marketing, “Digg Uprroar: Zaibatsu banned by Digg” and noted that it appeared a couple of hours before the blog post from Jackie’s Blog appeared. The article made some good points, but sadly like most of the previous articles… not all the facts were out yet. Sometimes it takes days for the facts to unfold. The idea of Zaibatsu being set up may not have been planned, but the idea that some troll could set up any digger is still real enough. CSM was right, Digg has to take this into account and try to avert a situation using such tactics in the future. They can do this by a number of ways, but the first way is to get rid of the idea that just because someone makes a complaint that the one being complained about will automatically be banned. Digg needs a policy of approaching members about a possible TOS Violation and hearing the other side of the issue.

In Jackie’s article, she states:

“Digg isn’t that great anyway. Upon further investigation it turns out a lot of people hate Digg. Here are the 7 posted reasons why digg sucks:

7. In order to get known on Digg one needs to invest a lot of time in their social network.“

I will beg to differ with her, Digg is a great site – potentially speaking that is. Digg has all of the things in place to make it a tremendous success – if it is handled properly. The longer it is being mismanaged, the worse it will become.

If Digg wants the great site that it can become, Digg has to hire someone and put them in charge of the daily operations of the site, as opposed to the technical side. This person has to have the time and be willing to expend the effort to ride heard on Users who are abusing the system. They have to give this admin a limited “Free Hand” in managing the site. In the process some Diggers will leave, but most of them will be the abusers and who gives a fig about them. In return this Admin can do his or her utmost to bring more people to digg by various methods.

What I mean by a limited “Free Hand” is that the admin will come up with a plan of attack, he or she then will run this plan by those at Digg. Once Digg approves the plan, then they take a back seat and work on the things they want to work on, like the technical end which they seem good at. They leave the mundane crap of running the Digg forum to the Admin they chose.

The Admin, in turn, would seek out a team of “Moderators”. He or she would approach these potential Mods with the proposition that these people be the voluntary eyes and ears of the Admin. Whenever they see something wrong, they immediate shoot off an email to the Admin – or make contact via IM. The admin goes and investigates, take whatever action is necessary, then moves on to the next problem.

Now, Digg sets up the “Contact Digg” link that is for complaints to an email account that this admin has access. He or she reads and answers the emails, most of this probably can be done by the use of standard replies (which it seems Digg already uses). The Admin also can set up a method where Digg Users can have a chance at stating their case to appeal a decision to ban.

This is only a part of what Digg could do, and I just happen to know a guy who would be willing to accept the position for a mere $75,000 a year. LoL (Ok, relax people… it’s a joke.)

The drawbacks is that an admin of this sort has to be prepared to have certain people butter up to him or her, while being bomblasted by his detractors. Solution: Don’t announce who is in charge, perhaps this person can be called DiggAdmin and it is forbidden for the person holding that account to actually participate in the daily postings on Digg… except in the role of the Admin. Now this person could use his or her regular nickname and do as they want, but it is probably best if the Admin quit using Digg completely. Perhaps Digg can cover that by banning the Admin’s regular account so that it appears the person just simply went away.

This morning, while trying to decide what to write for my next blog post, I ran into another Digg Uproar. According to an article called “The Grim Reaper Has Visited Digg” on the Get Smart Blog:

“So it looks like Digg has gone on some kind of end of the summer cleaning spree. In the list below are 86 diggers that have been BANNED from Digg.“

It seems as if Digg hit some of it’s moderate to heavy Diggers. Diggers who have helped immensely in the Digg traffic, like Awesomeintheory and babblin5 were banned. Next I stumbled upon an article called “Digg Is Screwing Itself And All It’s Members“, on that site I found out a little more information. Although the author did not exactly say that her friend was using Scripts, she did say:

“Script? All I have to say about that is WHO CARES! Is Digg doing great in traffic and usage? YES! The site could be a little easier to use if you ask me and if script enables people to use it faster….. so be it! It only works in Digg’s favor and you would think they would understand that. It will be very interesting to see what happens in the next few months. Digg might just become a ghost town and Yahoo Buzz could be the next guru.“

The use of scripts and bots is against the Digg TOS, every Digg Member ought to know this for they are responsible for reading the TOS (and other items) before using the system. No matter what my personal feelings are towards people, as an owner and admin of my own sites I know that enforcement of the Rules and Guidelines are important. If a Digg Member uses scripts and bots to take unfair advantage of the system, then they are running a risk of being caught and penalized for it.

As I was reading about this, a friend of mine called and asked me if I heard the news. He explained what was going on, as he saw it, and asked me if there was anything to worry about. I told him:

Remember what I said before signing up to Digg “Don’t use scripts and don’t appear to be using scripts. Use Digg for what it was intended and that is to Digg and submit items.”

He responded by telling me that he had heard one Digger was banned for using a Firefox Add-on. I thought “Oh Shit!”. I never thought of a Firefox Add-on being considered as a Script or Bot by Digg. I asked him for a source. He sent me to an article called “Digg Bannings: Interview With DIggBoss” that said:

“4. Had you kept your Digg scripts secret, only for personal use, would Digg have caught on you?

I could have kept it a secret but I thought it was a benefit to other Digg users so I wanted to share it. I had no idea it was going to end up like this.“

I paused after reading this interview, I knew Diggboss (sort of). When I was on Digg, Diggboss was one of my Mutuals and he was a good Digger. Sure he was highly active, but be provided good content and he was usually quick with a digg in return. I always gave Digg Boss and Zaibatsu credit for being the two people that gave me a break on Digg by being the first two popular Diggers to Friend me. My heart sunk a little when I realized he was nailed.

I couldn’t contemplate this act too hard for my friend was awaiting a response, so I told him to not use any API – even if Digg itself seem to allow it. I then lectured him on the fact that a true Digger doesn’t need help with their digging and pointed him to my articles called “Digg Uproar: Attack on Mr. Babyman And Blind Digging” and “Something Rotten In The State Of Digg“. I advised him to especially pay attention to the second article for it pertains to this the most. I briefly explained that the first article indicates the types of people you are dealing with on Digg, some will make big issues out of little ones and try to control the online lives of others on the site. The second one tells of a man who posted 4,000 Diggs in one day without the use of scripts, bots and add-ons… yet he was banned anyway. This tells of the type of people he is dealing with at Digg.

I told him that a person really doesn’t need scripts to get good numbers for digging, commenting and shouting… it only takes time and effort. Let these script babies use their scripts and fall by the wayside when caught, that only means you’ll elevate your level even faster… if rising in the ranks is your objective.

It’s now about 10 hours since I first heard of these bannings and the uproar still resurfaces now and again. I have nothing against Digg, or it’s people, personally… however I do pick on them from time to time. Some of it is in jest, some is in earnest. I realize some people use Digg for the wrong reasons, on one hand you have some who use it for personal gains and on the other you have people who abuse it by burying posts that should not be buried. Digg really needs to try to regain control of their system and clean it up, but I fear that they are doing it in the wrong way.

In my humble opinion, Digg needs to first deal with the various “Digg Mafia groups” and the “Bury Brigade”. They should set up their system to where one user’s rights cannot usurp another and this means getting rid of the bury button – or changing it to where buries do not affect items submitted Digg-wide. These groups, or people with their mindset, are more of a danger to Digg than 1,000 Mr. Babymans. Next, Digg ought to set up all of the APIs and Scripts that they allow through a link on their site and then tell people that these are the only ‘helps’ that Digg will allow. When someone comes up with a good script, it can be sent to Digg for approval and then Digg can either offer it – or a link to it. I fully agree that Digg could make changes that would actually help their diggers, such as a script that automatically finds who in your shout list already received that shout. There are other things Digg could do to help make it better and more attractive to others… but I am not here to fix Digg, I am here to comment upon it.

The big thing for Digg to understand is that it needs to be more fair to it’s members. It can’t be constantly penalizing it’s best Diggers with out first finding out what is going on. An implementation of notification to ban could be in order, that could have two effects. The first is that it can bring things to Digg’s attention that they haven’t thought about, the second is that it could cause these members to mend their ways.