What to do when you are banned from digg.

[polymath22]

According to this blog by zaibatsu, digg.com has been busy again banning many of their top users, under the short-sighted business model that is "Our web site should be worth $300,000,000".

Thats quite a bit of money for a web site that doesn't actually produce anything. digg.com makes ZERO content. Every "widget" they build, every front page article, starts out as nothing more than submission with a title and short description linking to actual content. Only after these submissions are made, are user comments added. This combination of linking to quality content and having quality comments is the "product" that digg produces. Having a community feel is what keeps people coming back, and "digging too much"

If you are not logged in to digg and you look at diggs political opinion upcoming section, you will notice that 'hot' stories have only between 10 and 70 diggs. That means that it only takes a few people working together to control the hot board. Basically, if a few people in your apartment building or cube farm knew how to use digg, they could control any part of it. Believe it or not, in a moment of synergy, my mother, my sister, my wife, and I had posted the majority of front page articles (for that moment) on digg. Be careful to use computers with different IP addresses.

A submitter will want his submission on the hot board, and about the only way to do that is to cooperate with other diggers and "trade votes". You do this by making friends with people who check their "friends submissions file", and vote liberally. Some people may actually follow your link out of digg, but mostly they just digg because they know you will likely return the favor. Once your submission is on the hot board, it is more visible and will attract more attention. Since you submitted quality content, this attention should be positive.

People get upset about this, but if you have a trusted friend who submits an article from a reputable news source, and its an ongoing and developing story, do you really need to RTFA to know that its a good submission, even if you didn't scrutinize every sentence of it before you voted? The alternative is not digging enough, not getting enough favors returned, and having your submissions ignored. Those who use digg more will invariably be more successful submitters.

To digg, this behavior may appear script-like. One digger always seems to vote for another diggers stuff, and vice-versa. It works like this not because of script abuse, but because of cooperation in a competitive environment

I was banned from digg a long time ago, and it was one of the best things that happened to me. Sure, at first I was lost. I didn't really do much on the internet other than digg. I figured if it was worth seeing, I would see it on digg. I was wrong. I went to using mixx.com and then on to using ning.com and then using friendfeed.com to coordinate everything. Now I use a combination of reddit.com and stumbleupon.com

if you don't have the firefox browser, you should get it

When you are done setting up firefox, install stumble buttons and reddit buttons. Then you can go back and forth real easy and use both services at once. Pull from one, feed to the other, back and forth.

Digg is being driven by political news lately, especially with the presidential election grabbing more peoples attention. Since a majority of digg users are pro-Obama, I say we wait until after the election, and then we bury digg. Its been done before.

only this time, instead of a full out assault and a temporary win, go for a slow death by promoting other sites, and recruiting the best diggers for diggs competitor sites, taking eyeballs and pageloads away. Promote crappy stuff on digg. Make digg the myspace of aggregators.

[J.D. Rucker]

Revolting against Digg has worked in the past, but just to get stuff done, not to take the site down. Sadly, even though the majority of the activity is in the hands of a small handful of users (that seems to be getting smaller every week) it is still a site that will survive by sheer bulk.

If you take down the entire top 1000 list, the next 1000 will step up or be replaced by new (or old with new account) users. Despite its flaws, it is still the master of the traffic burst and the one that has all the buttons on every site.

BUT, as I said before, two revolts in particular have been effective. The HD-DVD revolt was effective in that it got good press for the site and its users (btw, do not for a second believe that the revolt was what made Kevin and Jay cave in -- it was their lawyers who said "The code is out there, everywhere - you won't be sued anymore - so make the best of it and be a rebel hero.").

The near revolt was semi-effective because it got Kevin and Jay on the horn to hear what some of us had to say. I would like to believe in my heart that it did have an effect, however minor. Plus, this social network's very existence is a result of that revolt.

So, I would like to propose that we at least meet about the subject. I'm not suggesting anything that is geared to take down Digg, but there are things happening to the site that again need to be addressed.

Friends have been lost. Permanently. I don't care why they were banned, but this blanket of permabans for using scripts is absolute overkill. Submit porn = permaban. Attack other users overly aggressively (i.e. racial slurs, physical threats, etc) = permaban. Scripts that are HARMFUL to the site (i.e. viruses or automated voting) = permaban.

Getting permabanned for using Digg Friends Easier, which simply added a functionality that once existed on the site but was removed, is complete overkill. Death for a misdemeanor. Brian Cuban had a second chance and he blew it, so now nobody gets a second chance. How chicken shit is that?

Here is the real rub of the whole situation: this is their attempt to correct their own flaw. Because the site is not a truly content driven site, those who wanted to get to the front page were forced to do what it took to get Diggs. The way to do that is to digg. Digg a lot. Digg a WHOLE lot. Their system has been tainted by its growth and their continuous, paranoid, over-emphasized primal need to not get gamed. They have expressed it several times how they fight gaming with everything they've got. The solutions are there, right in front of them, and yet they are so bent on making the anti-gaming protocols completely automatic that they have lost site of simple solutions.

Their behavior has always been a bit baffling. At times, they are like children. But this current paradigm shift has changed Digg more than most involved even realize. Users are scared. Even those who don't use scripts are scared of Digging too much. The numbers are lower. The quality of the front page is at an all time low. If it isn't pro-Obama or anti-Palin/McCain, there is no way to have a clear idea of whether a story is going to have a chance or not. The result - even the "power users" who once brought the brightest and most unique content to the site are resorting to HuffPo and Thinkprogress to get to the front page.

Before this turns into an all-out-rant (or am I too late) let me just say that something does need to be done. It's their site, but in reality, it's our site. Every single user has a stake in Digg to some degree. There have been revolts in the past. This time, I'm strongly considering figuring out a way to make it a mutiny.

[dotlizard]

i have been occasionally responding to digg requests, if the story involved seems compelling enough - but i'm considering stopping that too, on principle -- not that it will make a difference either way to Digg, but it would to me, just to know i'm not continuing to support that site with my participation. i would not encourage any sort of 'revolt', but i would love to see all the top Diggers (even the unbanned) try putting the effort they are giving thanklessly to Digg, into Mixx -- a community where a good track record and reputation actually earn you awards and additional privileges. i mean, the main difference between Digg and Mixx (other than their entirely opposite positions on user policy, and the way Mixx listens to its users and is constantly working to improve the site), is numbers. if we could reward Mixx for its refreshing perspective on the way a social news site should be run, and stop rewarding Digg and volunteering our services to make them more money until their next banning whim, Mixx's numbers would improve.

my take on the whole 'what to do if you are banned from Digg' is, 'go somewhere you will be appreciated, listened to, and respected, because it's illogical to stick around when you are treated like dirt'. but then, i've been in a lot of bad relationships, and i know that that advice is not as easy to follow as it sounds :)

[Digidave]

@dotlizard --- very very true.

I personally am very cautious about using Digg now - in fear that the more I use it - the more likely I'll be victimized by them somehow.

Not really a good feeling to give your users.

[dotlizard]

i'm still trying to figure out why people would want to hang out on Digg anymore, when they seem to have the whole community thing turned entirely upside-down? imagine you join a forum. there are people who've been there longer than you, who have contributed considerable time and energy to the site, and earned respect and the status of senior users. so you go to this site and do nothing but make unfounded, ad-hominem attacks against the senior members -- you don't contribute, you don't do anything positive at all - and are rewarded and encouraged by the site? what kind of weird parallel universe is Digg? for nearly a year they've been cranking down the algo to punish successful and prolific contributors in the hopes they'd leave, and then when that didn't work and they still succeeded, they just started banning for totally b.s. reasons.

i understand that the power of a Digg front page is huge - but how is it still worth putting forth so much effort to continue to participate in a place that has a long, long history of treating its dedicated users like snot, while encouraging trolls by letting them spew abuse everywhere and allowing anonymous down-voting, so they can run around being dicks without ever having any accountability for their behavior?

[Digidave]

Interesting proposition Polymath22.

I'll say this: I don't want to censor anything that goes on here at Social News Central. In fact, this space was created in the aftermath of the last Digg curfuffle when they changed the algorithm unexpectedly.

It was created in part because I wanted to promote the fact that there are other great social news sites out there like Propeller, Mixx, NewsTrust, Stumble, Publish2.com, etc etc (the list goes on and on... those are just some that I like).

I'll say this though: Having had some time to think post-the-last-curfuffle, I realize that trying to "revolt" against digg - or taking it on - only makes it stronger, better, bigger, etc.

There is no such thing as bad press.

I almost want to suggest: Let people go where they want. It's an "open market" and the site's owners can regulate their space however they please. Digg will make decisions trying to please some people but will invariably piss others off: That's fine - let them make those decisions and use this space as a way to show what else is out there.

So the idea of promoting other social news sites is great.
The idea of trying to sabotage Digg, even in a slow, cunning way.... seems a bit misguided. All Digg will do is continue to find ways to regulate their site so that it doesn't work. By definition their site is trying to promote only quality content - and if you try and fight that - you end up fighting against any system they put in place to make sure only quality content is promoted and I think it's a lost cause.

I'm not happy that so many of my friends are banned. But I also think that Digg isn't doing this to be mean or vicious - they are doing it because they think it's in their best interest. The way to prove them wrong is to make other sites better - not to try and bring digg down.

Just my two cents. As I said in the beginning - Social News Central is your own space. Consider forming a group on here - inviting those that agree with you and organizing in a way that works for you guys. It sounds like you are familiar with Ning - so you know that any groups formed here give the group's owner the ability to send messages out to that group, etc.

Best!
Digidave