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Digg Changes Algorithm; Top User Resigns

Newspaper current event by tomtolman on 08 September 2006, tagged as internetnetworking

Just last month Digg surpassed the 500,000 user mark, but the celebration has been stifled by the resignation of Digg’s top user. Digg was launched less than two years ago as a technology and science news site that gives users editorial control. Registered users vote or "digg" each other’s stories. Stories with the most votes are promoted to the front page. This model has been very successful. Digg has become a top site on the Internet rivaling traditional media outlets. It has prompted hundreds of copycats including Netscape and received millions in venture capital. Kevin Rose, the site creator, was featured on the August BusinessWeek cover.

Earlier this week a blogger accused top diggers of gaming the system. He watched the top stories over a couple of days and concluded that “a small 'aristocracy' controls the vast majority of the content that gets on Digg.” Digg has been accused of this before, but this time it struck a nerve. Kevin Rose responded by announcing a new algorithm. According to his blog, the “algorithm update will look at the unique digging diversity of the individuals digging the story. [To get promoted] a more diverse pool of individuals will be need to deem the story homepage-worthy.”

Digg’s top user, p9s50W5k4GUD2c6, responded to the changes by angrily announcing his resignation, “I bequeath my measly number one position to whoever wants to reign.” P9 has submitted 1,344 stories over the past seven months and half of them have been promoted to the front page. His resignation is significant because diggers are extremely loyal. Two months ago Jason Calacanis offered top diggers $1,000/month to post their stories to Netscape instead of Digg. Only three of the top twelve took him up on the offer. Most top diggers rejected the offer citing the strength of the Digg community. P9’s defection may signal fissures in the Digg loyalty.

Another top 5 user, Derek van Vilet, has also publicly expressed concerns about the algorithm change, “it sounds like it will take longer for stories to be promoted than it currently does and there are already so many great submissions that miss the boat….” In addition, he thinks that Rose has mishandled the algorithm change announcement, “I was particularly shocked at how he didn't defend the top users against the flame war… he all but validated the idea that the top users are gaming Digg…” Several top users have removed their avatars in protest and support of P9.

This comes at a time when another popular social networking website, Facebook, is facing user rebellion. The democratic nature of social media is their biggest strength yet can also be their biggest problem. How should sites respond when their user base turns against them?

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p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 responds by tomtolman :: NR6

In my opinion, p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 is the top user of Digg for good reason. About a month ago I was looking at the homepage and noticed that he has 2 or 3 of the front page submissions at the time. His articles were always interesting. He has the ability to consistently find great stories from a wide variety of sources and submit them in a very timely manner. I dropped him an email and asked him how he was able to get such quality and quantity. He wrote me back with four tips on being successful on Digg. He said:

    • I use an RSS engine for stories. That has its advantages and disadvantages.
    • In terms of process, I focus on recent stories in an attempt to avoid dupes.
    • Follow your passions, build a network of friendships and digg their stories that interest you.
    • Focus on quality content, with solid descriptions and pithy titles.

I added p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 as a 'friend' and watched his stories closer. Every story he submitted was quality. Good title, good headline and he linked to a wide variety of news sources and blogs. There is no doubt that he has invested a significant amount of time making Digg better and building the community in positive ways. When you add someone as a friend on Digg their submissions are highlighted with a different color. This draws your attention and makes it more likely that you will read and digg your friends submissions. Digg encourages this community building behavior.

This same community building behavior was interpreted as gaming by top users after a blog post Digg the rigged? A closer look at Digg's democratic model. Kevin's announcement about the algorithm change two days after this blog post gave readers the impression that he agreed that top users were gaming the system.

Since I've posted this article p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 has sent me an email with some more of his thoughts about the issue and some important corrections to my article. Here's what he had to say:

The algorithm/changes was NOT the problem (for me at least).

There are lots of Digg users who feel locked out of the process while the stories of top submitters repeatedly hit the front page. That's a material concern that has to be addressed. Just as many of these Digg users need to become better at submitting content for the Digg community, the Digg team needs to find ways to make it easier for quality content to make it to the front page for users that are not top submitters. I think that change process is a good idea - if properly implemented.

But while that issue is real and material, the asinine conspiracy arguments from the blogs and comments were not. They only served as baseless fodder for the latest bitch fest that was designed to pump up blog traffic at Digg's expense. And many Digg users willingly swallowed this load of crap and then licked their lips believing it to be the rise of the Digg masses!

No - Kevin's "fix" was not the problem.

As I wrote to someone earlier today: my jaw dropped and my eyes widened when I read the word Gaming in relation to a power-group of submitters in Kevin's blog.

I know Kevin was trying to put out a fire. I don't believe that it was his intent to infer that top submitters were gaming. But nearly everybody interpreted the equation the same way out of Kevin's blog: top submitters = gamers of the system. And every story across the Internet the next day seemed to interpret Kevin's message the same way we did. I was infuriated to see the founder of Digg give the conspiracy lies undue credibility. And while I know it was not pointed at me, it only served to remind me of other issues within Digg of late.

I posed a question last night in a discussion of this issue: where was the outrage when Albert Pacino got to 800 stories on the front page.

People are free to understand/agree with me or not - but that "messy message" only made matters worse for a good number of rock-solid honest diggers that worked hard every day for that community. And the malevolent comments that many users have been hurling at these good people is only further evidence of an effort of problem resolution that was horribly executed. I do not believe that was Kevin's intent. And intent counts alot, so does collateral damage against the innocent.

One other correction:

The other users did not remove their avatars in support of me. It was in protest of Kevin's message as well as the verbal filth that many Digg users were spewing at Digg's top submitters.

The #33 Digg user, Curtiss Thompson, had many of the same things to say, in an email to Wired's Michael Calore:

The blog post by Kevin Rose in response to the Digg community's outcry about top diggers gaming the system has caused many top diggers to be singled out from the community and buried not on the merit of their content, but on their unfounded accusations that the top Diggers were manipulating or "gaming" Digg's democratic system. Not only was the blog post misrepresented, but it was misinterpreted, by the Internet community to support one Digg user's claim that The Digg System Is Being Gamed By Top Users. This misrepresentation was due to time of the blog post, coming shortly after the Digg community outcry, and the misinterpretation by the Digg community, that Kevin was claiming they were correct in their accusations. While Kevin's statement did anything but point fingers, the Digg community saw it otherwise, and considered their outcry successful. As a result, any user mentioned in these blog posts from the Digg community, and those with high ranks on Digg, including myself, have been censored or buried on Digg without just cause.

Many of the top diggers, myself included, see little reason to submit and contribute to Digg anymore, as we have become the targets of a small group of people who wish to censor us, without regard to justification. Many top Diggers have been trying to hold out and stick with Digg, hoping for things to calm down or for the Digg Team to issue new features that allow the user not to be spammed and buried by this small but vocal group of Diggers. Though for the time being, many top Diggers have moved to other social networking sites, until the site calms down or new changes solve this problem. Some have just simply decided to stop contributing to Digg altogether, seeing no reason to, because of this small group of Diggers are mercilessly burying our contributions. Others have decided not to give up on Digg, and refuse to allow this small group of digg spammers to think they have won. In general though, all of the top diggers would love to stay with Digg, and we are continually working with Jay and the Digg Team to ensure that problems in the Digg system are solved, and that no one user have more of an influence than any others.

I haven't stopped submitting. You can check out my Digg account or my Digg submissions. I have been submitting, but have been disallowed to get stories to the homepage, by this group, the aptly named Digg Bury Brigade. I haven't had a homepage story in a week and a half, and don't expect to in the future because of it, regardless of the content. Look at my most recent submission about Digg River, an official Digg.com service, which has been stalled for quite a while, not yet hitting the homepage. And I wouldn't be surprised to find it buried.

Right now there is a group of users on Digg burying stories submitted by top users in an effort to prevent top users from ‘gaming’ Digg. This is hurting the overall quality of the site because top stories are being buried. Kevin Rose has announced an algorithm change that will "will look at the unique digging diversity of the individuals digging the story." Perhaps if the algorithm also looks at the unique burying diversity of individuals burying the story then top users will no longer be unfairly targeted by Digg.

Posted 09 September 2006, Hide, Reply
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Jay Adelson, Digg CEO, responds to OmniNerd news post by tomtolman :: NR6

Jay Adelson, Digg CEO, has commented on this post:

The mistake we made was not being clearer that we were not associating the algorithm change with the top submitters. These guys are hard working, honest contributors to digg and are being unfairly scapegoated.

Please stop with the targeted burying... Digg what you like, bury what you don't. We'll take care of the abusers.

Basically it sounds like he agrees with what the top users are saying and this is a miscommunication problem that has spiraled out of control.

I suspect that if Jay Adelson feels this way we will see some sort of public statement very soon. I think it is a great response.

As a site note, it appears that the digg story for this OmniNerd article has already been buried by people marking it lame or a duplicate. That's too bad.

Posted 09 September 2006, Hide, Reply
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Many TOP Diggers are just Submiting Good Stories with Good Titles and Descriptions by SearchEngines :: NR0

What is meant by a TOP DIGGER?

Many Top Diggers are just submitting Good Stories - a percentage become homepage popular - they are NOT involved any conspiracy whatsoever

http://digg.com/users/searchengines/homepage

Many Stories on the Homepage get Hundreds and Sometimes THOUSANDS of Diggs.

Can you really have THAT many people around the world who are all virtually strangers, involved in a conspiracy?

The Title and Description used is very influential. And so is the SITE being Digged, Webmasters sometimes INVITE Diggs by placing conspicious "Digg This" or Reddit This" or "Delicious This" links.

As with any innovative Web 2.0 concept, it has to be tweaked and chiseled to perfection.

Posted 09 September 2006, Hide, Reply
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Kinda like the rise of the A-list bloggers, no? by Anonymous :: NR0

I don't know how many of you here are old enough to remember back to 2002, but I remember the launch of blogger and typepad, and I remember reading weblogs over the period of time between 2002 and 2004, and I remember how quickly there developed an A-list of bloggers. The guys who were going to conventions and writing and being written up in side-columns for major news media websites. Those people all linked each other, and how is linking to someone significantly different from digging, in the narrow case of promoting something you like?

The establishment of a hierarchy isn't gaming the system, it's an inevitable result of any social system.

Posted 21 September 2006, Hide, Reply