3monkeys

I happened to be having a conversation with a friend tonight and we were discussing the article The Bury Brigade Exists, and Here’s My Proof. Ironically this article has apparently been removed from the digg front page, without being buried, and digg user, supernova17, has been banned for submitting the article. Long story, short, the article describes the means to identify who is burying stories and why. The original proof of concept can be found at http://www.lemieuxster.com/digg/expose/, but apparently digg has found the hole and plugged it.

Me, being a little tired and weary of digg’s altered course over the last 6 months or so, jokingly stated that I should write an simple RSS filter that would automatically bury stories submitted by non-friends and digg stories by friends. The concept is really simple, just grab the upcoming feed and digg/bury accordingly. I don’t advocate such an action, but surely it was possible. Let’s go check the TOS, and saved here in case there are further revisions.

Before we get to the pertinent portions, this caught my attention, and thus the title and reason for this post.

Section 3

…

Digg may remove any Content and Digg accounts at any time for any reason (including, but not limited to, upon receipt of claims or allegations from third parties or authorities relating to such Content), or for no reason at all.

Which I conveniently read, “Digg may remove any Content … at any time for any reason … or for no reason at all.” Hardly sounds “Democratic” to me, but I’ll let you be the judge. It’s not that I disagree with the statement, it’s intent or even digg’s ability to act in such a manner. Rather, it is the constant branding of digg as a “Democracy“. This clearly indicates that there are moderators on digg, however, this has been pointed out before. And furthermore, these moderators have at their discretion the ability to remove content from digg at their whim.
And for those wondering, apparently my RSS filter idea above is not against the TOS.

with the exception of accessing RSS feeds, you will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission. Additionally, you agree that you will not: (i) take any action that imposes, or may impose in our sole discretion an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure; (ii) interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Site or any activities conducted on the Site; or (iii) bypass any measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Site;

So as long as you use the RSS feeds, you are in the clear. Still, I do not have the time or inclination to implement such a script.

Until next time-

-3Monkeys

Popularity: 6% [?]

My response to digg:

I, for one, am not to concerned over the removal of the top diggers list. Fortunately I got a lot out of it while it was up. A lot of great friends (most of the people on this list), exposure (I’ve been hired by a few other sites, details upcoming), and just a lot of pure fun and excitement. I’ve been a little undersatisfied with digg for a while see my blog post about it. digg remains an interesting diversion for me, but is no longer a true passion. As some of you may have noticed, my participation has drastically dropped over the past few weeks, before this was even on the plate. I wish each of you well, but in my opinion dgg has become way too segmented, needs a moderation system, and as generally outlasted its founding goals. In short, it doesn’t work any more (at least for me). For those that are interested in programming and development, I’ve, for the most part, relocated to dzone.com (Yes, one of the sites where I got hired). Feel free to contact me at any of my contact locations. I’ll still participate on digg in a limited fashion, but don’t expect the dedication and zeal of me from the past.

Stacy, a.k.a. 3Monkeys

Popularity: 4% [?]

A while back I wrote, Observations on Digg’s Quality, today I have found another fundamental flaw with digg’s quality. Here’s how it happened.

I was taking a quick break from the day job earlier and was checking my RSS feeds and saw this:

Three stories about the iPhone had made the Technology front page. However upon opening the Technology front page only one of them was listed, the other two apparently had been buried. Well, I think to myself, this is great the community is policing itself well. Then I open the front page story to read the story. What do I find? A link to a flickr photo, a lousy picture at that.

That got me to wondering, what were the other two post? One was to a blog, that contained only a picture, a better picture mind you, and the other to an engadget article containing not only some prose on the subject, but contained 50 separate pictures. Now considering that this post had not only some prose, but also many more pictures than the other two articles, why was it buried as opposed to the single poor quality post?

Was the digg administrators closing front page stories that were duplicates? Was it digg users mass burying without reading? I can’t begin to guess, but for certain this points out a sever flaw in digg’s duplicate problem. Perhaps more interesting was the time-line of the submissions.

1. http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Announces_iPhone
   (original of the front page article with same title, engadget, never made front page)
2. http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Releases_iPhone
   (1 minute later, engadget, made front page but buried)
3. http://digg.com/apple/Apple_Announces_iPhone_2
   (3 minutes later, poor flickr picture, front page story +6000 diggs)
4. http://digg.com/apple/Apple_iPhone_Announced
   (4 minutes later, blog post, single picture, made front page but buried)

As far a quality and timeliness are concerned, either of the first two articles should be the front page post. So what gives digg? Kevin? Jay? can the digg staff offer any explanation for this?

Until next time.

-3Monkeys

Popularity: 9% [?]