The Monster that Digg has Become
Welcome back!
It takes a monster to behave and react like one. A monster can be defined in a number of ways — one whose perceived inhumanity or vicious behavior terrifies and disgusts people; something extraordinarily or unusually large; a large ugly terrifying animal or person found in mythology or created by the imagination. In this case I am referring to Digg.com.
Photo Striatic
The site was founded and created by its owners, Kevin Rose and a brat pack of entrepreneurs, and became the leading social media site on the internet largely due to contributions by its members that have submitted great content which one wouldn’t always find in mainstream media. Over the course of recent weeks, Digg has laid the ban hammer down on a large part of its community by banning many if its heaviest contributors.
My apologies to regular readers who are not used to finding this sort of article on this site, while I ask for your forgiveness in a little self-indulgence for something which I have coined “social unity” — unity of members for an online social community. A call to action was brought to my attention to write a blog post today for perceptions and opinions by current and former members over what has become of the Digg social media site.
You will not find the ‘pretty pictures’ you’re used to seeing — unusual stories of creatures, or some far-off forgotten or little-known place on our planet — rather, a story about community and unity. Will it change anything or make a difference? Likely not, but it is about social unity, something which I feel strongly for.
For those unfamiliar with the story, the long line of Digg bans first began to unfold when Brian Cuban wrote a confession on his blog that he had been using scripts to digg his friend’s submissions and shouts, which made front page of Digg. In testament to how the actions of one can affect an entire community, this spawned a witch-hunt for other members using scripts which resulted in nearly 100 ‘heavy users’ to be banned.
The script called “digg friends easier“ that most had been banned for using was not an automatic “robot” that diggs automatically. As some banned users have explained, it merely made it easier to digg friend’s stories, thus saving time.
Shortly thereafter, Reg Saddler, aka Zaibatsu, was banned from Digg which was disturbing and troubling for seemingly contradictory reasons, outlined in the email that he received as an explanation:
“We also want to clear up any misunderstanding regarding your 2 submissions that lead to your account ban. In no way was your account banned for the redirection of the target link(s). It was solely banned, as we stated explicitly in our previous correspondence, for the domain itself, as it is spam and a clear solicitation of products and/or services (http://www.jackiesjungle.com/want-a-piece-of-me).
The redirection of the target link(s) happened after your account ban and played no part in our decision to ban your account.”
What’s puzzling is that the site which Zaibatsu had linked to for his submissions that he was banned for had been submitted 133 times prior to that. Neither the site nor those who had previously submitted pages from it had been banned at the time.
Soon afterwards, the Digg ban hammer fell once again, and another large number of heavy contributors were permanently banned without prior notification — some retroactively for using scripts to digg their friend’s submissions easier, but had stopped using them after the first announcement on Digg’s blog that the use of scripts was against TOU. Others were banned without explanation for reasons unknown, even after repeated inquiries.
Zaibatsu was one of the ‘Top 3 Diggers.’ Many of those who were banned without explanation were high profile users. This has left the community running scared. Many are fearful to submit stories, while others are afraid to digg stories at all.
Photo Angela7dreams
So what happens when the largest percentage of a social media site’s active contributing members are driven out? Not the elimination of ‘Digg cliques’ as the site moderators may have hoped for. The names may change, but there will always be others to fill their shoes.
What does happen is a decline of quality submissions — the little-known ‘golden nugget sites’ those new users are unaware of fall by the way-side, and the front page of Digg becomes little more than an RSS Reader for mainstream media sites.
A report on the “Decline of Digg” explains the drastic drop in Alexa ratings. Statistics show that viewership is dropping dramatically — visitors have fallen 59% in the past 3 months since they started banning people, but page views are up 16%. Do the math and you quickly see that increased page views do not equate unique visitor increase.
As Kevin Rose explained in an interview regarding the recommendation engine, it could appear that administrators are beginning to be concerned about losing long-time members who actually cared enough about the quality of content that was making front page.
“We look at a whole bunch of things and eventually if you Digg things that become more popular then your influence will grow. If you are Digging stuff that is getting buried then you won’t be a strong recommender in that topic.”
“Digg always been its own monster and the users push for things that they want to see on the site.”
When it was pointed out that a recipe for artichokes hit front page last week, one has to really wonder where the quality of content is headed — hardly what I would call news-breaking, which the site had been so famously known for.
Photo Jan Tik
The thrill is gone, and the monster that Digg has become has taken much of the joy out of being the news junkie that I am. I know that I am far from being alone in this sentiment.
As a friend from Digg said to me, “I want my Digg friends back!” Well, so do I. Terribly. I miss the cool content and golden nuggets that you submitted, along with the camaraderie and social unity. So if any of you happen to have made your way back, please contact me via email which can be found on our Contact page. I miss you!
Tags:digg social media
I think digg is really experiencing bad situation right now and they need to work it out. Anyway, sorry for the people they have banned.
Great article and so spot on. As a power digger who also got banned, it sucks but life goes on. If Digg acted in a professional manner, they would have contacted diggers, warned them etc. but they didn’t for most of us. A few select people were banned, given the chance to confirm the TOS again and got their old account back.
Kevin Rose, every dog has their day and you will get yours and it will bite your sorry ass so hard, you will need to ice your ass just to sit down.
Digg has defiantly grown too big. Time for it to fall
I use digg and have gotten some traffic from it. The amount of traffic the featured websites get on the front page is amazing.
I’ve been using Digg for a couple months and sadly, I just experienced trouble logging in. There’s an error, hopefully I’m not banned.
I was very sorry to see that you had been banned, ToeCracker. Being banned retroactively for something you had done only prior to the post on their blog that it was against TOS is just not right. I don’t think that many people using it were aware that it was against TOS prior to that.
A person should at least be given one chance.
You will be missed, my friend
It is very sad that Digg has started banning those members who have built it.!
This is another revealing article about the recent bannings – The Digg Fraud
Well said, Deb. Very odd of Digg to shoot itself in the foot by banning some of the site’s most ardent users. Perhaps they’re trying to level the playing field, but I doubt it as it seems that an even smaller cohort is driving the news.
I’m waiting for Google to buy them out. I think in the right hands, Digg could really flourish. As for the Alexa rank, I wouldn’t put too much weight in them. The rank of 2 of my sites fell 60% int he last 2 months while actual traffic increased 50%.
Brian Krassenstein
Yea basically once you build up a big enough fan base you can make the stupidest things reach front page. Sad but true =(
digg was a nice idea but now it need to be change his algorithm , your article is spot on . digg should look for alternative for ban url
Digg does hav an effect on many things but it is all part of a large process that requires dedication and hard work. One important part of that process is also
You’re very knowledgeable on this subject. Thank you for helping me to understand more of what went down with Digg.
I completely agree with this article – what is happening to to quality articles on Digg? Finding good articles online is only becoming more difficult as the owners of sites like Digg slowly destroy what they had originally created. What happens when we are just redirected to the major media Web sites? Nice article. It really helps us understand what is happening.
I just signed up at digg a day ago it works fine for me im earning lil traffic but its cool, hope they’ll fix this issues soon.
I completely agree with this article – what is happening to to quality articles on Digg?
Well said. I think Digg is neglecting the community that made them what they are today.
@Ralph. The thing the top diggers like Babyman control everything that makes it to the front page. I have been using digg for a while now and I have submitted thigns a couple times before mr baby man then he submits it and his shoots to the top
digg is used a lot for all types of business. I started using that along with delicous and stumble upon and its really helped my site get recognized.
As someone above has already said, it was odd of digg to shoot themselves in the foot by banning high profile users. Does it mean that users who have invested time creating a profile on digg would also be banned when they gain recognition. That said I am against the use of scripts, that is not what digg was meant to be. Came here from digg by the way
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It always happens – a company gets too big and forgets the people that made it what it is.
Digg is user-generated – that is what its success is all about, so declaring war on its users is a really bad idea.
Also if your not a digg fan you can check out stumble upon. Its more organized and you can pick like certain people to follow
First of all…amazing site! I am glad I stumbled upon it looking for dofollow blogs…
Well, this site is worth immensly much more than the link juice! Very inspirational indeed! And also nice to see someone else who realizes the importance of exceptional photography to go with exceptional content.
And about Digg….here in Sweden social bookmarking sites are yet to make their big break through. And I am glad for that. I think niche sites are much nicer…Digg type of sites truly do become monsters.
And I don´t think they will last longer than, oh, say, Altavista….
People have become so frustrated with Digg, this just all makes sense. Take for example, the case of how within hours of fake Miley Cyrus death stories circulating, the Digg page for the hoax had nearly a thousand diggs. Even when it became clear it was a hoax, a few hundred diggs still came in. I know a lot of people just don’t bother with it anymore.
In other thoughts though… I love Edmonton. Being from SK, I can tell you, were I to have to choose Edmonton over Calgary, Edmonton wins hands down.
My apologies to all for such late replies, I’ve had my head buried deeply in paperwork.
Brian, I tend to agree with you, I think that the site would do very well if Google were to buy them out.
Jordans, MrBabyMan has been on Digg nearly from the beginning, and has made many friends by submitting the quality content that he does, which is why he has so much success with his submissions. When I first started on the site about 2 years ago, I had no idea who he was, but he was one of the first people that I friended, simply because I liked the great stories he was submitting regularly.
He was actually the first person to ever friend me on Digg. I’ve spoken to him a number of times, and he’s one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Some people seem to love to hate him merely based on the success rate he has.
And as you mentioned, yes, StumbleUpon is a great site.
While the use of scripts may not be right Sani, the major one that people were banned for using was basically allowing them to do what the site had previously had available for users, to digg submissions from the same page they were on under friend’s submissions. There was no gaming being done, at least none that I can possibly think of that it could have been used for.
The one that Brian Cuban had been using which was a paid subscription to digg shouts and submissions without even having to be at the computer was definitely wrong. I believe that the site has since shut down its service after he had been banned, and countless people were made aware of it.
Thanks Villa, glad you enjoy it here. I’m actually surprised to hear that social sites haven’t really ‘made it’ in Sweden. I can say that many of my friends are from quite a wide range of countries across Europe.
That’s not the first time for something like that to happen on Digg, Fracas
And thanks for your kind words about my home town 
I got frustrated with Digg too. I hardly ever drop by anymore. I spend more time on Reddit or Mixx.
Digg is just another in a long line of Internet monsters that get huge thanks to the people that use them faithfully and then turn around and ban those very same people.
Google does it with Adsense users, eBay does it with power affiliates and power sellers and now Digg with their contributors. With little to no forewarning or explanation they ban arbitrarily kick out those who were making them money or making the site what it was.
It’s sad but it seems to be a trend. Use the “little guy” to get popular and rich then change the rules of the game and summarily dismiss those who help make you what you are.
How can a website get so successful that it decides to stab the same people that made it successful in the back. Well I guess I would agree that its the trend with most dotcoms.
DIGG is slowly dying unless they start to change stuff
Digg is a very successful website. I need to admit that it helps me to learn new information. I hope they can fix the problems.
Yes, I don’t like to have the digg button showed on posts either. And I find it even worse when it shows a huge “0 diggs” next to your title giving everyone a good feeling before reading your article!
Did you experience the same issues with other social bookmarking sites?
i really love diggs because that site help me a lot. to promote some of my stuff
I think they have changed the links so it does not pass any link juice which should reduce the spam. Thanks.
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i found digg and stumble are good but digg is improving and also i get good traffic from digg too.
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