Charles Johnson at LGF has been on a crusade against the "diggbats" at digg.com. If you're not familiar with how digg works and what's been going on over there, here's the skinny:
At digg, a user can submit a news item or blog post to digg, and other digg readers who like the item can in turn "digg" it, thus boosting the item's rating. On the other hand, those who don't like it can bury it. This sounds simple and reasonable. Unfortunately, there seems to be a leftist overwatch at digg that responds quickly and feverishly as a sort of collective hive mind to bury posts from conservative sources, and this is where the diggocracy breaks down.
Here's a chronological list of LGF links to major skirmishes in the war:
02/20/07 08:03 PM: LGF-Digg Feedback Loop
02/24/07 10:33 AM: Mob Rule at Digg
02/25/07 11:38 AM: Real Time LGF Derangement Syndrome at Digg
02/25/07 03:56 PM: Diggbats vs. LGF
02/26/07 07:49 AM: Digg Islamist Calling to Exclude LGF
02/26/07 10:43 AM: Diggbats Enforcing the Groupthink
02/27/07 09:21 AM: Deranged Diggbats Raving About LGF Again
Oh well...another well-intended Internet tool with unintended consequences. Personally, I think digg just needs to eliminate the "bury" feature and let submitted items rise or fall based on how many diggs they get (or don't get).
Update 28 Feb. @ 06:00:
By the way, here's a line from digg's web site on how bury is supposed to work:
Bury. If you find stories with bad links, off-topic content, or duplicate entries, click “Bury.” That’s how we get the spam out of the system.Not a word there about burying stories you disagree with. The diggbats with their diggerators are clearly abusing the system.
4 comments:
As if there is no group mindset, group action, and group politics within other forms of democracy?
Everyone knows about this, and just has to deal with it. It's a reality, plain and simple.
Of course there's that kind of group dynamic in any form of democracy. It's just that thinking of a tool (digg) as a "democracy" is a bit of a stretch.
It's a tool, and its usefulness is diminished by the ability to bury articles a group doesn't agree with.
Hey Eric,
I found you on Digg of all places!
I like the idea of Digg and voting and rating comments and articles, etc.. but the 'bury' thing isn't so cool. I mean, just let it stand no matter what it says -except for true hate speech.
I don't spend that much time there though. And I certainly don't go to items that I don't agree with just to bury them.
Ah well, the flame wars have already started. That's people for ya.
Someone posted a link to one of my old blog posts about beheading in Saudi Arabia and I got an avalanche of hits on it. Its pretty huge out there in diggland. Lots of students I think.
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