A storm has been brewing at Digg over the weekend after top user MrBabyMan was found to have dugg 82 stories in 3 minutes.
To date 3813 diggers have voted up the “Please ban MrBabyMan” story and 3507 have dugg the 82 diggs in 3 minutes story.
All Diggers are equal but some are more equal than others
Most people on Digg seem to be complaining that because MrBabyMan diggs lots of stories and has lots of friends it somehow makes it unfair for the others. That’s like saying Michael Phelps should be banned from the Olympics.
Top Diggers are clever guys who spend time and effort learning not only how to find and submit content that other users will like but also how to make connections and friends who will probably Digg their stories.
Digg has rightly or wrongly decided to create an algorithm that favours its top users – if you don’t like it then go and build your own site that lists the days news stories.
Insulting and banning the people that contribute the most isn’t they way forward and is just one more example of why Digg will never be truly mainstream. Most people who visit news sites want to read news, they don’t want to have an argument.
It’s worth remembering that some digg users don’t digg stories just because they like them, sometimes they digg to showcase the content to others:
Digg user msaleem puts this point across very well via twitter:
msaleem Anyone bashing @mrbabyman doesn’t understand this: You vote not just on things you like, but things you *think* others *might* like.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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This is pretty simple to fix. They should just set the “digging time” to once every 30 or 60 seconds. Maybe even less, but this MrBabyMan checked out a digg item in a little over 2 seconds. That’s impossible.
Impressive. 82 stories in 3 minutes. That is almost a new story every 2 seconds. Can’t have had much quality control on those
Everyone would like to be the top digger,the reason people whine is because they actually can’t understand how to find interesting stories to submit before others.
I started using Digg not so much ago and i’m amazed to see people like MrBabyMan , Maki and Muhammad (to name a few) finding all this great stuff,there’s a lot to learn from them.
Anyway Patrick i’ve added you on stumbleupon
Hard to claim this is simple jealously. As Damien wrote above, that’s 2 secs/story. It makes it highly likely he is using a voting script no?
He has been a significant contributor though to Digg. So they definitely owe him a warning or two before an outright ban. I can’t blame him for cutting corners, the pace of voting/submissions by these top users is frightening – but he shouldn’t have broken the rules.
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Nick I don’t think he has been using a script, 2 seconds per digg can be done as long as you don’t read the stories.
More comments from Patrick AltoftRevolting is the right word. Even Maki was attcaked on that post.
@Patrick
Yep, I guess it depends on the pattern. If he voted everything up from the popular/upcoming page for example then yes, it’s possible to just work your way down the list digging everything with 2 secs/item. You’d need to look at what was voted for and see if the pattern could have been done manually in that time.
But like you say – reading the items is completely out of the question.
@Rishil
Yes Maki seemed to just get attacked by association which was sad. There was no evidence to say he broken the rules. I liked the comment that said Digg should ban these top users *in case* they sell advertising? eh what?
You can digg stories directly from google reader with 2 greasemonkey scripts.
It can be possible to digg 1 story per second (without reading the story)
I bet MrBabyMan is using those scripts,Maki made a blog post few months ago describing all these tools.
But you Dugg the story, Patrick. Why?
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Tamar I knew somebody sharp eyed would pick up on that
. The only reason I dugg it was so I could find it later, kind of like a bookmark.
More comments from Patrick Altofthmm interesting, im sure hes not using any kind of voting script but why digg a story you havent read? but also what is the big problem? es not cheating anyone or scamming, thats the problem with digg, its like yahoo answers, to many do gooders
I quite Digg long time ago due to their policy, i recommend you all yahoo buzz
digging without viewing the story shows exactly why certain sites get on the frontpage. and frankly if you don’t click through to the stories, then how do you know that you want to “share” them with others?
Patrick,you are really something,I benefit a lot from you and your blog,appreciate!
I have often wondered this myself. Like many people out there I wonder what the long term life span of sites like digg will be. I don’t know that it won’t exist in a few years, but I think that if it still does it will be structured differently than it is now.
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