Slashdot Mirror
Growing Censorship Concerns at Digg
I find site rivalries boring, but growing concerns over Digg "censorship" have been submitted steadily for the last few months. Today two such stories were submitted so numerous that I had little choice but to post. The first claims that Digg is
the editor's playground- it explains how a few users control Digg, and that it's not really the 'Democracy' that they claim it to be. Personally I think this is all totally within the rights of their editors to choose content however they like. But it's less pleasant when combined with accounts getting banned for posting content critical of digg, and watching other content getting
removed for being critical of sponsors (also, here is Kevin Rose's reply).
It is also worth noting that Digg has rapidly gained popularity to the point that Slashdot and Digg are now neck and neck according to Alexa.
Digg is an interesting site that implements a number of things many long-time Slashdot users have wished Slashdot would do for quite some time. It would be a shame if they are failing to live up to their claim of non-hierarchial editorial control. If this is true, then they deserve to be outed.
You don't like it? Don't use it.
So you build a website that acts as a community (a webmunity?). And one of the great things is that you get to be God of Gods at your webmunity and do whatever you want to users. You giveth life and taketh life away!
... or is it? Is this the opening salvo in a war of words between the editors of Digg and Slashdot? I hope not, this site is the center of enough flamewars as it is.
And all is good.
But your reader base hates you for it. And one day, dissent might arise. If you don't address it you risk losing your user base. If you try to cover it up and the truth breaks out, I guarantee you will lose your user base.
So the editors do what they want and you vote with your clicks. This is no grand concept, we provide them revenue by visiting their sites. We are traveling to their sites by keystrokes and clicks (not our feet) so vote with them and everyone is happy!
If you can't find a fair site, build your own! Show us how it's done and let us know where it's at. I, for one, would like to see more slash/digg hybrids popping up that rate everything (stories, users, comments, etc) and have a tight handle on who gets how many mod points. I don't care for the easy exploitation of digg and I don't care for the veto happy choice editors for Slashdot.
This isn't a cold war (yet) since they aren't openly bashing each other like the USSR Vs USA war
It would most likely boil down to a witch hunt. Sites will be judged by two qualities: fascist nazism & crap content. It's like precision versus recall, everyone has their own preferred happy medium.
Frankly, the Godaddy digg seems to be there and intact. But I did have to Google it. Remember, you can hate the diggers who submit (and digg) crap, the GNAA trolls & Adolf Hitroll but only as much as you hate your freedom to submit, digg and post yourself.
My work here is dung.
nt
This was posted on Digg two days ago...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
This article was censored on digg weeks ago! Slashdot can't keep up!
Just so we complete the circle, here's a DIGG on this /. story ... ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Every online community has to make some hard decisions. If you take Kevin Rose's explanation at face value, the story removals were due to the community's response to those stories. The item that showed that the same voters were being used to bring an uncommented story to the front page is more interesting, as that is harder to explain away.
Either way, this sounds a *lot* like the stories about Wikipedia's Office account and the stuff that goes on there. Slashdot has had it's share of accusations of administrator manipulations behind the scenes. The question then comes down to: what should the power of the administrator be?
In the case of Slashdot, there is organized resistance against the site via GNAA and other troll groups, not to mention the relentless beating of stupid people upon its shores in an unorganized manner. Overall, I have to say that the end result of the administrator's effort has been successful in keeping the site useful.
Sites like Digg have to make the same types of choices to preserve the value of the site in the face of an endless barrage of stupidity as well. If they are having to promote stories by hand, it indicates that the core ideal has failed it: but reality very rarely treats ideals gently. Wikipedia has learned that lesson as has Slashdot. Looks like it is Digg's turn to find the balance point that is a fit for them.
Sig under construction since 1998.
Hmmm...favoritism or kickbacks at work here? All I can say is if you lose trust it can be very difficult to get it back. While Slashdot plays favorites and practices a form of censorship, at least they don't delete posts. Do they?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I digged it, did you? er...was it just Slashdotted?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
From TFR (the "fine" reply):
Once a story has received enough user reports it is automatically removed from the digg queue or homepage (depending on where the story is living at that time). The number of reports required varies depending on how many diggs the story has.
Couldn't it simply be that this is all much ado about nothing? If anything, could this not be the case that the "annoyed sponsors" are merely reporting the story as lame, thus burying it?
I'm only an occasional Digg-surfer, so I'm not as familiar with their system as with Slashdot's.
At /. they always censor topics such as
The internet is a collection of tiny dictatorship. It's not a huge democratic thing, and it is even no anarchy (even though it comes as close to the classic definition of anarchy, where everyone governs himself and holds no power over others as it can come).
Every server is owned by someone. And he's the dictator. As benevolent or tyrannic as he wants to be. Those pages that claim they're "democratic" are so because the dictator decided it would be nice to let his "peasants", his users, act as the ruling body. But ultimately, he is in charge.
And ultimately, he hangs if something illegal happens on his page.
The difference to a true dictatorship is only that you have the power to vote with your feet. If the dictatorship isn't to your liking anymore, you can leave. That's it, though. There's no such thing as a virtual coup d'etat (well, you can hack the page, granted, but that's usually overthrown quickly again). You can pick your stuff up and head out. You can even create your own "land" and "declare independence".
But what it comes down to is, that every page, every server is owned by someone. And this someone decides what is displayed, who may write stuff, even who may read it. Like it or leave.
Of course, on the other hand, your "international relationships" (i.e. other pages writing about yours) will quickly go down the drain if you turn out as the new Josef Stalin. And other "countries" will cease their "diplomatic agreements", their links, with you.
So unless you're Google or some other virtual equivalent of the USA, better treat your users nicely.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah yeah, I know, all of the relevant statements are in place here in the TOS to let us know that it can be done.
But look. Talking up a "power to the proleteriat" angle, only to have stories that question Digg's editorial practices get removed is more like talking out of both sides of one's mouth.
___ In the words of Gen. Douglas McArthur: "I'll be right back."
It doesn't take that many people to report a story for it to get yanked from the front page. You can have a story that hundreds of diggs and comments just dissapear without any explanation.
And the ability of everyone to moderate every comment without indicating WHY is leading to abuses.
I've seen every pro-Apple comment get marked down in many stories by people who feel that there are too many Apple stories on Digg.
...in order to not like it, you need to know it is happening.
Two front page articles got pulled off within 10 minutes of being promoted.
Users can easily create email accounts, change their IP address by resetting their router/modem and create accounts in digg to eventually digg their articles.
Non-moderated news never works. Digg _is_ moderated. The poor soles who frequent that site just don't know it. As TFA said, digg.com is more of an editor playground that a democratic proccess of picking news.
here are two examples from yesterday
Example 1 Example 2this, the same day I decide to quit "digging" after seeing how their community is racist, sexist, ethnocentric, and so on... weird concidence.
Serves them right for coming up with the "Digg Effect"... pffft.
Ha! Slashdot jumped on this story quickly! ;-)
Turns out digg's revolutionary "let the users pick the top stories" philosophy isn't letting the editors mold the front page content to their liking.
Digg should just be open about it -- I'm fine with the digg editors assign bonus "diggs" to stories they want featured prominently, but at least they should be honest that they're doing it.
boxlight
from comments at http://digg.com/technology/Digg_Censors_Stories_Th at_Offend_Sponsors#c634036
Keng on 12/19/05
Thank you Kevin but shouldn't it still be under stories submitted?
Thanks
kevinrose on 12/19/05
Where do you see it missing?
end of conversation
Also, the general idea of a democracy is that everyone has an equal say. I can promote or bury as many comments as I like. If there is a limit, I've haven't send them yet. So if I vote on 20 comments, doesn't that equate me having 20 votes? If the average user only votes on 5 comments, then I effectively have more power.
...recently. I greatly enjoyed Digg, and, for a while, I actually preferred Digg's setup and variety of content to Slashdot's. Unfortunately, its rising popularity and increased 'democracy' has led to severe degradation. Any comments posted that go against the grain of popular opinion gets modded down, or even controversial ones - people aren't as likely to mod things up that they agree with as they are to mod down statements they don't like. Say ANYTHING negative of Apple gets modded down to oblivion, whether the comment is valid or not.
r onicle_Article_on_Social_News_Sites . Who wants to go to Digg to read about how great Digg is?
Additionally, more and more articles linked hide referral URLs, or link to the submitters blog instead of the actual meaty articles.
I've also grown weary of self-masturbatory articles, such as http://digg.com/technology/Digg_Featured_in_SF_Ch
One last nitpick: the extreme sensationalism that goes into the headline writing that submitters choose, in hopes that their headline will be voted up. Unfortunately, it seems to work, as the masses mod up or down without reading the articles.
I started collecting links on this subject a few hours before this hit slashdot... http://linux-blog.org/index.php?/archives/134-The- Dirt-on-Suspicious-Digging-at-Digg.com.html
Just FYI for everyone...if you have another link, comment it and I'll update it.
Insert_Ending_Here
Ever wonder what that prominently placed "problem?" popup menu was for on Digg? The GoDaddy article was removed simply because enough people used that to report it as "ok, this is lame" and inaccurate. The article basically falsely accused GoDaddy of buying domains that people expressed interest in on their site. According to the vast majority of the comments on the article, the reality is that it was other registrars who intercept GoDaddy's queries (which are necessarily sent to many services in order to see if the domain is taken, iirc). Since GoDaddy is a darling company of many, and the article was patently incorrect and defamatory, many people (as you could see in the comments) reported the article as lame or inaccurate. Hence, it was removed. Oh yeah, GoDaddy isn't even a sponsor of Digg.
As for the other allegations, I have no idea, but if you're going to bash on a rival site, at least do some research before you post false information. Too bad there's no way to report crappy articles on Slashdot...
And, wasn't Mr. Rose fingered as being the 1st "BSD is Dying" poster here on /.?
Each website has its own specific qualities that make it good and bad. For instance, I like Digg because it is updated more frequently than Slashdot (see diggvsdot), but apparently "these updates" maybe too frequent (i.e. stories deleted). I think Slashdot has better comments. I cannot stand Digg comments. Digg comments are the same type of comments that Fark has... people talking about stuff they have no clue of. At least with Slashdot, most of the comments are made by informed people.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Round 1, Slashdot Diggs For Dirt
Round 2, Dig Slashes Back
Round 3, Slash Diggs Grave
Round 4, Both Sides Look Dirty
Round 5, Audience Can't Tell SlashDigg Apart
Today was the first time I ever tried to participate in Digg. I'm not impressed at all. I know that by starting off on such a contentious issue, I've skewed my data, but general consensus in the comments seems to be that people won't "digg" anything that's even slightly critical of Digg.
So I say that the censorship issue is nothing to do with the admins at Digg. It's the users. Here at Slashdot we see views and ideas that are critical of this site all the time, often at +5. This is a very important difference, and I don't think I'll be going back to Digg after this. Either too many users are too narrow-minded to listen to potential criticism, or the balance of the story selection algorithm is off, and is too conducive to groupthink.
Slashdot and Digg are not capable of censorship. The first ammendment states "Congress shall make no law....". Slashdot is not Congress, Digg is not Congress.
If you don't like what happens on a website, don't go there, start your own. That's the real democracy of the internet.
Digg.com, to put it simply, sucks. Without any true editors, their focus and target audience have drifted far from their stated "we're a tech site" definition.
Most stories have no bearing at all on tech, and comments range for the childish to outright stupid.
Digg.com is more like Fark.com, except it's not as good.
As to Kevin Rose, who cares. Like his site, he's a major tech poser.
15 minutes ago on the front page of Digg was a link to a review of the two sites with Slashdot taking a vicious beating from the Obvious Digg Fan... Now its "buried" the second this article is posted here.. Wierd..
So many injustices..so little time..
Frankly digg has already become more useful to me than Slashdot. I really just keep visiting here out of very old habit. I've been using this site for years and frankly it has been neglected by the "editors". Maybe this will actually encourage some innovation at this site for the first time in years.
The more you know, the less you understand.
It's way to easy to cheat Digg. Create 50 accounts and you write buzz-word-compliant texts for all the apple freaks to drool over and you have a instant money-machine. There has been numerous stories on the frontpage that promotes lame blogs and/or worthless tools hacked together by 15yr olds which _never_ would have achieved that kind of attention unless someone was doing something fishy.
Ofcourse, I cant prove anything of this .
Sorry, his explanation was bullshit.
I read Digg for a while because I found it to be an interesting idea. The day that story about Go Daddy got pulled off the front page for no good reason was the day I stopped visiting the site. The story was getting more and more "Diggs", and it kept moving up, then, nothing. It was pulled out, which obviously makes it stop getting "Diggs" because nobody was seeing it anymore.
That is not democracy, I can't believe that anybody would rationalize something like "Well it was pulled off the page because it was getting negative reviews" when hundreds of people are obviously not finding any problem with the story since they are "Digging" it.
Digg is bullshit. Go Daddy sponsors their podcast, not Digg. Fiiiiiiiiine, whatever. They get revenue from Diggnation, Diggnation depands on Digg.com, end of fucking story. Kevin Rose is a jackass.
Where's the unDigg? It seems to me that you can only show your support for a story by "digging" it, but if you don't like a story your only recourse is to report it. I always thought reporting was meant for something that was inappropriate - like spam.
Their comment system has a thumbs up/down approach, why not use that model for the stories?
It's quite hard to make the censorship case though, the kind of stories that do well are perfectly suited to the digg demographic, digital artists, and offcourse mac fans. Other stories do make it, but don't do as well in terms of diggs.
It should only be logical that the demographic play a big role in the kind of stories that do good on digg, It's the simplest of markets, one digg, one user.
diggcode might be good to play around with.
Remember, you can hate the diggers who submit (and digg) crap, the GNAA trolls & Adolf Hitroll but only as much as you hate your freedom to submit, digg and post yourself.
Freedom is not a binary concept
At least on digg you know who is modding you up or down. Plus everyone's article and comments are accepted.
On slashdot you have no idea who is removing your submitted articles and comments, not who is modding you down.
In both groups there is an intolerant and active "politically correct" core. If you dont agree with them on IT or social comments, you get abused.
My prediction is this comment will disappear because it is "wrong".
It made me want to post a tongue-in-cheek headline like "Digg and the Christian agenda" but I realize that people on both sides of the ID/Evolution pissing match wouldn't take well to that at all.
What gets really frustrating is that once your story gets marked for review, that's about all you know, and that URL can not be resubmitted. I had a story go front-page fairly quickly, only to disappear. It didn't say why - it had more diggs than other stories on the front page. I had to do a specialized search to find out that it was marked as 'buried.' If Digg can count and display positive diggs, why can't it show the negative marks as well?
I find it a little troubling that a site that rejects stories for not being techy enough seems to also reject stories that are too techie for modern semi-fundamentalist Christian religions.
This is a fundamental problem of 'true' democracy (assuming Digg is a simple voting system.) What is popular is not always what is best. It is for this reason that I personally prefer sites with editors, no matter how many mistakes they may make. I used to go to Digg several times a day, but after actively participating in the system for a few days (and managing to get the word cunnybungler on the front page, if only for a few minutes), this made apparent to me the opaque-to-a-fault rating system driving the site... and now I don't go there as often.
It's still interesting, but I felt pretty disappointed after watching this phenomenon.
I am Leviathant and I approve this message.
Slashdot and Digg are linking to each other! An endless loop of Slashdot Effect and Digg Effect! Is the internet going to explode?
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Hi. I represent anti-slash. We have entered into sacred jihad against slashdot's editors to expose their censorship. We operate through informative posts such as this one and by trolling to discredit the site.
Consider the following evidence against the infidels: anti-slash (http://anti-slash.org/) has recently compiled a library of injustices that precisely document the abuses of slashdot's editors. From the stupidity to the censorship, you can view and share the facts all recorded in one place. Consider especially the case of the infamous slashdot troll investigation post.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to invite you to use the database tool. With this database of highly-moderated slashdot posts, you can repost and gain carma for future jihad operations, and suck up mod points and pollute the meta-moderation system. These disruptive activities help lower slashdot's already low signal-to-noise ratio and further discredit the editors.
In sacred jihad,
jihadi_31337
A lot of people promote democracy - "government by the people". Somehow this became a thing for companies to promote and websites to make money off of. But there is more to our idea of democracy that just democracy. There is more to our freedoms than just "do what you want".
The stable democracies today are heavily influenced by Western/liberal democratic republicanism. The Communist statists learned the hard way that founding a society/order on one system was unmaintainable.
The problem in governments is unchecked power. Whether it's the mob or the elite, power needs to be balanced. Digg quite naturally needs to find ways to balance power. Executive powers are always necessary at some point, so it shouldn't be surprising that Digg exercises them. Democracy is only a *part* of the system.
If you think about it, our centrist ideals of freedom really are not absolute freedom, but a balance of freedom and responsibility. We exchange some liberty for a more controlled system.
It is a dark time for Web 2.0. Although the Beatles_Beatles has been destroyed, Slashbot troops have driven the Digg forces from their Ajax den and pursued them across the Internet.
Evading the dreaded Slashdot Moderator Fleet, a group of Web 2.0 upstarts led by Kevin Rose has established a new Digg site on the remote web servers of Revision3 Corporation.
The evil lord Darth Neal, obsessed with finding young Rose, has dispatched thousands of remote links, DDoSing into the far reaches of webspace....
May the Maths Be with you!
1. Is community self-policing the best approach? If so, what's the best system for ratings? Is there an algorithm that works, because I've seen several good forums break up over complaints about the rating system.
2. Is editing at all a good idea? I say this especially in the face of the emerging view that the DMCA seems to mean that editing equals taking responsibility for all the content.
3. What's the safest yet most open format? How do you work a good and enforcable user agreement around something that is essentially a compromise between conflicting interests?
We're all generally users more often than we are editors. My natural sympathy has been toward the users. But, as I get closer to having to live with the responsibility for a horde's actions, my sympathies are waning.
Is Digg doing the right thing?
If not, what would you tell someone with a similar dilemma to do?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
And the poor haddock and trout.
Would it not be pulled out if an "annoyed sponsor" reported it as Lame N number of times, based on Kevin's explanation? I don't see how your scenario contradicts mine. Here's an illustration:
Assume that a story critical of CompanyX has 200 Diggs. Also assume that a story is removed from the queue if it receives Lame reports of, say, 5% of the number of Diggs. Now, CompanyX wants to bury this story. They need only sign up for a maximum of 10 accounts (less if others report the story themselves) before the story disappears. 20 accounts if 10% is required, whatever. It certainly doesn't seem that unattainable.
From what I've seen, most people Digg/Report stories that are on the main page, and very few people actually bother checking out the queue. Similar to Slashdot, where front-page stories will often have hundreds of replies, whereas those other stories nestled in Games or IT have around 75 a piece.
As for the banning and whatnot, I have no idea. Perhaps there was prior history, or perhaps the editors there really are choosing to exert their editorial powers. It's rather hard to tell when the disjointed info in his blog reads like "I submitted a story, it wasn't Dugg, so I resubmitted the same story, got banned, got reinstated when I asked what happened, then I saw that some stories with very few Diggs are on the front page". IIRC, a story isn't just promoted to the front page based on the number of Diggs, but also the amount of time it has been in the queue, etc.
It depends on the Lame threshold set by the Digg editors. Once it's passed, a story gets removed. Perhaps you should ask Kevin how the threshold is calculated and, if that doesn't seem "democratic", then maybe you'd like to open up discussions on what a suitable threshold would be. Of course, you might not want to submit such a request through Digg. :)
doesn't matter how ethical editors or any other people claim to be
in fact, most people are greedy and stupid
greed for personal wealth and power corrupts
slash and digg have both been corrupted by those in power
selfishness rules the world because people simply aren't smart enough to cooperate more
those in power are the least ethical and the most ignoble
their gains come at our loss
and so the evil grows
I know that one of the hardest things to do in a business - and digg and /. are businesses - is to let the customers choose their product all by themselves - even if they find out about that product from your business. That shows morals and ethics, and by putting this story on the front page, /. shows it's taken the moral high road. Cheers!
(Interestingly, I stopped going to digg about 3-4 weeks ago because it takes FOREVER to render when I swich to its tab in FF)
Wikipedia BLAH BLAH BLAH. Digg BLAH BLAH BLAH. We're victims of a few BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Don't like it? Go create the Competition with Integrity... and once you sell out like DiggH^H^H^H^ GoogleH^H^H^ Yahoo... (insert new stalwart defender of your rights which was once a cool website with an idea), then you'll understand: true democratic freedom for all things is Anarchy. And if you/you're company/your website has goals, anarchy is your enemy.
Is there a way to filter articles on slashdot so I never have to see Wikipedia/Digg whiners ever again?
If they have crazy editors, we have crazy Anonymous Cowards!
.. the two sites should merge into a single super site! Long live Sliggdot!
firestream.net
I submit my blog entries to digg regularly (and so do my readers)
... like blog spam or lame article. The commenter has neither read nor commented on what was right or wrong about the article.
.... Slashdigg
Every other one gets a crappy comment on it
It made me so mad the other day I posted in the comments to my own submission: "Take your crappy comments to Slashdot!"
Digg has more or less turned into a censorship site because a few users DO ruin and bury good articles and promote silly ones.
Funny ?. would post this because the joke is: calling Digg
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Gee, Digg comes along and takes all of Slashdot's ad revenue...
...and this story comes along. No bias there!
I'd love to see Slashdot's "rejected" queue. That would really be a testament to "open source", of the journalistic kind.
--
make install -not war
The racist, xenophobic and jingoist slur's that is posted now a days in slashdot and digg makes me doubt that there is any censorship in these forums.
But then wait who r the moderators !!
...Plato's original use of the term democracy was to describe mob rule.
That's essentially what you get at digg. People don't digg stories because they disagree with the viewpoint, they mod down people because of their viewpoints being unpopular. There's no accounting for intelligence there. One important user with a fan base might digg a story and cause everyone else to digg it as well. It's basically mob rule.
That being said, it isn't without merit. A lot of news arrives faster on digg than slashdot, even if the moderation system does need work.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
"The first claims that Digg is the editor's playground- it explains how a few users control Digg, and that it's not really the 'Democracy' that they claim it to be. Personally I think this is all totally within the rights of their editors to choose content however they like."
Well, it is possible to exercise your rights and not be a dick about it.
Of course, the admins of digg can do whatever they want. They are within their rights to have a heavy, silent editorial control over content -- but don't then turn around and say you are a democracy. That's a dickweed move. Again, you are well within your rights to lie and mispresent editorial policy, but it doesn't foster community.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I have been a reader of slashdot for years and a reader of Digg for a few months. What's going on at Digg doesn't really suprise me. Once a site become popular it's bound to be exploited, for marketing, for personal ego trips, you name it. Letting the community run the show is a neat idea in small doses. But collective intelligence sooner or later devolves into the lowest common denominator and open to manipulation. Just look at congress for a good example of that.
To people who think collective intelligence can truely make us all better, I point you to despair inc's take on it http://www.despair.com/idiocy.html
Slashdot is not perfect, neither is digg. I consider slashdot a tyranny of editors that happen to point stories of interest to me. I consider digg a mob of mindless users who sometimes find stories of interest to me. So now digg is a bit more on the tyranny side. So what?
I really do. I have a lot of cool projects, and need a way to get the word out without spamming or whoring. The problem is, Digg doesn't work.
1. Popularity breeds popularity
I thought democracy would be great. You have a brilliant idea, and the world will recognize it as such. No money needed, it is the ultimate word-of-mouth. But the thing is, there is a snowball effect. The more mass a story has, the greater the gravity, and so the more mass it sucks in. For people like me, with no blog or friends, there is no initial mass, and so it never builds because it has no weight.
2. Mobs are dumb
There are some situations where swarms are very intelligent, but the conditions must be setup in a specific way where individualism is practically enforced. Digg clumps everyone together into a heaving goo of stupidity. Unfortunately, this mob is far more effective at vigilantism, as demonstrated in multiple incidents where they collectively attacked businesses, than at recognizing what deserves promotion. I have a sincere fear that one day someone will post information about an actual person who is considered to be socially deviant to the Digg Mobb's values, and his life will be ruined. Think white hoods, stones, burning witches.
3. It is rigged!
As the article shows, it isn't even a democracy as it claims. I made an account to promote my projects, by simply reporting major news about them and if I deserve it the people would vote me up. I submit a story, which I later found to be of questionable legality to their terms because the site has nudity. So the next day I go to submit another one, about something totally acceptable, and it says my story was submitted... but it never showed up. I realized I had been bozo-binned. I e-mailed support to ask if it was a bug or a bozo-bin and that went nowhere. So I replied to tell them it would be fine to just delete my account and stories so we could forget all of this. Instead of deleting the account, they banned my IP. So I changed my IP and saw they at least deleted the story. I e-mailed again asking for the actual account to be deleted, and they replied saying sorry, they now deleted it... but I see instead the account was merely banned for misuse.
My experience with the Digg community and the site operators isn't very cheery. But I don't like Slashdot either because even when I post comments that are pure gold, they rarely are seen because I don't wish to have an account.
Digg is an open mobb of stupidity that is secretly influenced by people behind the scenes and social mechanisms making people like me left out. Slashdot is closed and intelligent, but pushes the news after it's already been on Digg for a day, and is difficult for people to get noticed due to it's elitism.
In conclusion, fuck both of your sites, I will make my own.
TFA in a nutshell: the original poster lambasted a company because he was TOO STUPID to understand his bandwidth woes. it OH SO OBVIOUSLY must have been is providers fault, so he wrote a hack piece on it. the piece got deleted because it was made of stupid and fail, and he bitched censorship.
I have personally posted first about several issues only to find that someone else who posted a dupe was allowed to ascend to the top of Digg's list over my own post. At first I thought it was a mistake but now I realize that in someway they are allowing or making this happen. The reason I know this is that in several recent cases the topic and links in my story were so close to the one that ascended that there was no resonable reason to think that one would get more eyes than the orginal. There seems to be some kinds of bias built into to Digg that make me suspicious that some person or group is manipulating the results.
Those who oppose it should get together and start their own Digg-like site, but with the features they like and want. If it's better then people will go to it instead.
Can I bum a sig?
This also happens at dslreports.com. An account might not be banned outright, but posts are routinely edited or removed, and posting privileges in those forums can be taken away on a moderator's whim. Anything critical against dslreports and its sponsors immediately gets flagged. Moderators are instructed to make it look better for the sponsors.
There is *one* forum where complaints about ISPs or other companies can be made. Complaints aren't welcome in those company's forums. Attacks against complainers are not encouraged, but nothing is ever done to discourage them. Defending oneself is not an option.
Sure, it's privately run, but what good is a *help* forum if valid criticisms can't be lodged without apologists going on the warpath and moderators creatively editing content?
At least on Slashdot, comments are only moderated down, not edited, nor deleted completely!
Seriously, I've never heard of them until today.
You mean there actually exists a whole 'nuther world outside of Slashdot????
I think its important to note that "kevin rose's reply" was posted on 12/19/05. much earlier than all these recent accusations.
I'm sorry, but IMHO this kinda seems like a bit of sour grapes. The forevergeek.com article really didn't give any hard evidence to suggest some sort of "digg-rigging" is going on. However, it did elude to/mention that their site was blocked from Digg about 9 times, at least one of those in bold text. The fact that the same group of users are the first to digg stories that make it to the homepage could be because of many different factors. Maybe they're all friendly with each other and digg each other's stories, which isn't in itself some sort of shady dealing, it's how communities work. Friends help out other friends. Then again, maybe those same 15-20 users spend most of their days using Digg's "Digg Spy" feature and just seem to always be the first to digg a story because they spend alot of time watching the site and digging whenever they see a story they like. God knows this would be the first time people with too much time on their hands hang around a certain website in order to be the first to respond to a posted article. ::COUGH:: "first post" ::COUGH::
I'm sorry, it just seems to me that all of this uproar is coming from people who may have gotten the short end of the stick because the system was working as intended, and not necessarily because there's a room full of people secretly editorializing the site.
so... is Rose CowboyNeal's son? noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
... that digg is the site which claims to be user-driven. Slashdot never has. Slashdot may do slimy moderating behind the scenes, but they don't claim to be pure as the driven snow. Digg does, and digg isn't, and digg got well and truly caught and called out on it, and retaliated, and the story goes on. Evil is one thing, but evil claiming to be good is another kettle of fish altogether.
Infuriate left and right
What if the editors bitchslap the wrong person? Of course, that could never happen...
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
>If you can't find a fair site, build your own! Show us how it's done and let us
>know where it's at. I, for one, would like to see more slash/digg hybrids
>popping up that rate everything (stories, users, comments, etc) and have a tight
>handle on who gets how many mod points. I don't care for the easy exploitation
>of digg and I don't care for the veto happy choice editors for Slashdot.
If you want to create your own site, these guys let you create one...of course, its probably no walk in the park to get the traffic and build a community to the size of slashdot/digg, but....
http://www.crispynews.com/
Anyone can create their own. Personally, I think the more innovation exists in this space, the better for us readers. We'll eventually get a good solution that works.
it was just removed from digg right now. 413 diggs was the last count i saw.
Work smarter, not harder.
As has been stated (and proven) many times, when enough users mark a story as lame/inaccurate/whatever, stories get taken back OFF the front page. I've had this happen. I've watched this happen. This is not the editors doing anything it's built into the system itself.
If the admins pulled it, the story would simply not be there at all. They've done this in the past. The fact that the story you point to is still there at all just shows that the editors did not do it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
A digg story referring to this /. thread did make the front page with 100+ diggs. However, the story was quickly labled as being "under review" and not soon thereafter it was gone from the front page. I actually read some of the comments and most were pretty well thought out and showed concern over whether this is an issue at digg or not. I guess those people got their answer.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Here is an example of a forced FPP:r oversy_about_Not_Being_1_-_Wrong_Wrong_Wrong
http://digg.com/technology/Yahoo_Responds_to_Cont
That is not democracy, I can't believe that anybody would rationalize something like "Well it was pulled off the page because it was getting negative reviews" when hundreds of people are obviously not finding any problem with the story since they are "Digging" it.
It's not a matter of "negative reviews". See that pulldown menu on each story that says "report this story as lame" and so forth? People using that are burying the story. And unlike "diggs", you don't see a counter of "lames" and so forth.
Doesn't matter if hundreds of people digg a story if hundreds more mark it as lame.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I think there's a missing link in the posted story.
Ignore and let them co-exist. /. for the comments whereas you can find fun and interesting stuff that gives you a minute of fun on digg.
They are no rivals and have completely different models of providing news.
Most people come to
Let's not follow into the thinking many digg-users seem to have that "a war is going on".
All this hue and cry of censorship seems to be simply because people don't understand the system.
A story reaches the front page by people "digging" that story. The total number of "diggs" is listed on the page.
However, a story can be yanked from the front page by people who mark it as lame or inaccurate or spam, or whatever. These numbers are NOT listed.
So when a story is yanked back off, there is no visibility as to WHY it was yanked off the front page. Lots of people seem to think that the admins do it themselves, when in fact it's some algorithim taking it off because enough people marked it down.
If they made this information visible, then there'd be less complaining. Instead of having several options like lame and so forth, they should have a simple button marked "Bury" to allow people to say that the story is stupid (or whatever they feel). Put a counter next to the bury link, to show how many people don't like it. Then when a story is autoyanked from the front page, there will be visibility. People won't have room to complain, because the story clearly got buried from people marking it down.
The REAL reason people are complaining is because of a poor user interface, not censorship.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"This, the same day I decide to quit "digging" after seeing how their community is racist, sexist, ethnocentric, and so on." News flash, the rest of the world is like that too. Have you stopped going outside? And one other thing, you're a liar. Just because someone doesn't subscribe to the same idiotic uber-liberal garbage that you've been too stupid to see through, that's no reason to throw around falsehoods. You fucking homophobe.
But they rarely completely censor people here. Does the occasional bitchslap happen? Sure, but it usually gets plenty of attention, and the comment isn't summarily deleted, nor is the user account deleted. And how many posts have we seen that poke fun at slashdot, it's editors, or it's moderation system? I've seen plenty, and that's at +5. While it would be ideal that complaints about slashdot are listenened to and fixed, it speaks well of slashdot's operators that they are not summarily censored out of hand. Not to mention that many complaints about slashdot have been addressed, albeit not in a timely fashion.
Nathan's blog
As an occasional user at digg, what bothers me is not the lack of visibility in their moderation system. What bothers me is the sequence of 16 or so users digging two stories in the same chronological order on the same day, from the same submitter. One of the users happened to be Kevin Rose according to TFA. I'm not sure what it means, but I would like to see some attempt at an explanation.
...meet kettle.
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
The oddity in that one was the very large number of Diggs it received so quickly to get FPP.
ALSO that one of the Diggs was from Diggnation. That being the first time such a low digg count article received a Diggnation stamp of approval.
It looked very strongly like someone at Digg gamed the article to get in a Pro-Yahoo! article to the front page. Not quite a democracy, but the editors overriding the democracy.
Taco, you made a grammatical error so lingo that I feel compelled to point it out.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Oh, but there's meta-moderation to deal with the abusers. Whatever. The same people that only want to see certain viewpoints also judge the moderation. That works. Not!
I lost interest in slashdot (and let my sponsorship lapse) when I lost moderation privileges. I was never told I was black listed. I simply stopped receiving mod points. It doesn't really matter if the editors or the hive mind blacklisted me; the result is the same. The moderation system here is not an asset, it's just a tool for the status quo. It's not even available if you don't pass some test of conformity.
It pains me to read some other forums because the quality of the commentary is so bad. Slashdot is capable of so much more, but it takes more time than I have to find the good through the parrotry. Go ahead, mod me down. Whatever.
I'm not exactly sure how digg works, but about 5 minutes ago i noticed a link to this /. story on digg.com's front page. now it is nowhere to be found. can a story be demoted from digg's front page? is there somewhere where i can see which stories have been demoted? it appears to me that digg intentionally removed the story.
Unusual.
All replying in the first 45 mins. of the original post.
Is that just a weird coincidence or did /. take a leaf out of the Digg book? :)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
If you mark somebody as a friend, you see the stories they submit.
If you have a group of people, all friends, and they routinely check out and digg stories submitted by their friends, then that explains the identical users.
The order being the same would be expected in such a case because that's simply the order in which they viewed their "friend's stories" page. They then each just digg all the stories on their list. Since most stories are not on the homepage (and have no diggs), the result is the result being talked about.
It's a pretty straightforward explanation, really. You just have to assume that this group of users is routinely checking their friend's submissions and automatically digging them (since they were submitted by their friend).
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
CmdrTaco: What happen? ....
CoyboyNeal: Somebody set up us the digg.
CoyboyNeal: We get signal.
Zonk: Somebody set up us the digg.
CmdrTaco: What!
Zonk: Somebody set up us the digg.
CoyboyNeal: index.shtml turn on.
CmdrTaco: It's You!!
Kevin: How are you gentlemen!!
Kevin: All your index.php are belong to us.
Kevin: You are on the way to diggination.
CmdrTaco: What you say!!
Zonk: Somebody set up us the digg.
Kevin: You have no chance to survive emerge your gentoo.
Kevin: Ha Ha Ha Ha
CmdrTaco: Take off every "slash."
CmdrTaco: You know what you doing.
CmdrTaco: Move "dot".
CmdrTaco: For great justice.
Zonk: Somebody set up us the digg.
any time the story gets to the front page it gets pushed off by digg zealots reporting it as lame. I've felt this for a while now, the digg system is just bursting at the seams. as it stands it isn't gonna survive much longer, it just doesn't work as it is. it's frelled. game over man game over.
But, it does really piss me off and frustrate me. I want to like digg, I want it to be good. The idea is great, but it's so fucking badly implemented it's not true. the worst bit about digg for me is not actually the digg story system but the comment system, its abysmal and seems to have a bunch of cavemen trolls living in it.
I think there needs to be serious discussion about transparency in digg, if they want to keep their readership.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
You'd never see that kind of bad behaviour here! We're always scrupulous in praising Slashdot's esteemed sponsor...
you had me at #!
what the fuck is it and why should anyone care? yet another place where the same stories that are repeated everywhere else, are repeated again?
that's soooooooooooooooooooo important to our civilization!
move on dot org.
do they have the story of Red Paper Clip boy yet?
Aye. My account was banned years ago from moderation for moderating up a post on slashdot critical of slashdot policies. The same happened to others.
I have been similarly blacklisted from mod points. That doesn't bother me as much as how sneaky the slashdot mafia are about it. If my account went around with a metric that showed I tend to get up and down modded I wouldn't mind. For example, it would be easy to record the average moderation and average deviation for each account from that value (a measure of opinion polarisation). But my account is listed to the public is if I were in good standing. We have "karma". What the hell is that? My guess is you will never see real metric because they will take power away from the self-appointed oligarchs.
an ill wind that blows no good
With moderation, I find /. bearable, but it does suffer from that "attention curve" -- comments posted after attention has decayed from the story will probably never be moderated up. If you want moderation attention, you have to post very early.
you had me at #!
Well, along those same lines you could argue that the United States is a collection of tiny dictatorships, yet as a whole we still consider it a democratic republic.
Every piece of private property is owned by someone. As benevolent or tyrannic as he wants to be. Those households that claim they're "democratic" are so because the dictator decided it would be nice to let his or her "peasants", his or her family, act as the ruling body. But ultimately, one person is in charge.
When you look at the internet as a whole, you do see some democratic elements. The community is pretty well agreed that being deliberately misleading, spamming or DOS'ing, etc are inappropriate. There are agreed upon standards, which much like laws, were decided on by trusted representatives that guide the general operation and growth of the internet despite being sometimes broken. I think you get my point.
I'd say it's more fair to compare Slashdot or Digg to place of entertainment (that's what they are, aren't they?) than a nation. If they don't offer what the patrons want, people stop visiting. I think you're kind of going out on a limb trying to draw parallels between a site and state or nation, when in scale and function within the greater internet, the similarities seem much greater between a site and business or private home.
Accusing a private website of 'censorship' is an inappropriate use of the word, in my opinion. This is why I have a problem with many of the 'censorship' stories that Slashdot posts. Ok, so if it's about China, fine, but a private website? Come on ...
Yeah, and somebody pointed out the Digg Spy to me as well, which I had forgotten about. If you turn off all but the red icons, you'll see only the reports on stories. And stories get reported almost as fast as they get dugg.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Good Digg posters are harder to find, but they are catching up in that area too.
I would think anyone who's been around here long enuff knows that /.'s management, although they claim we should not be concerned with their Moderation/Karma system, seem to be totaly obsessed with it themselves.
Anyone can look at the myriads of posts that I've submitted over the years, and see that nearly all of them are not only within the /. guidelines, but that I have put alot of effort into many of them, as far as research, and true feelings from my heart.
However because a hand full of these posts have somehow struck a nerve with the powers that be at /., I have been cast into a foreverness of the 'Bad Karma' abyss-- which has lasted well over a year steady. I have been labeled as such, more than not, as 'Bad Karma' during my approximate three years as an active poster/member.
This not only limits the readers who count on /. to 'weed' out the trash, but it gives the false, terrible impression that I am nothing but a troll & spammer
WORSE is that it puts a 'chilling effect' on anyone elses freedom to 'speak their mind' in full, when they see what happens to 'guys like me', should they 'do as I do'.
Of course anyone that has read my signitures know that I make light of this, and even relish in it, as I have come to believe that there is a new found exuberance, when being labeled a malcontent, by people who you volunteer for, to keep their web site active.
Who looks worse?
There is also a MUCH greater freedom in knowing that since they've basically 'hit me as hard as they can' in labeling me in a most negative way, that I am now truely free to express myself, without fear of being modded down any further.
However I do rarely post anymore on /. because of managements policies... not because of my label.
Frankly because of this article, knocking a web site who is more alternative, free, and controversial, is the only reason I am posting today, for the first time, in quite a while.
I'm sure the head Mods here at /. are sitting there thinking, that they 'look good', and all democratic and everything, because they are 'letting' Halvy run his mouth- again.
But it is exactly that arrogant thinking, that is the obvious and ominous, future down fall of /.
--The InterNet is a terrible thing to waste. Arrest Bill Gates, and shut down Microsoft immediately.
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
This is my situation also; from about the time I hit "Excellent" karma until a while ago, I pretty much got mod points weekly, but then all of a sudden stopped getting them. I'm not sure if it's just a quirk of the algorithm, or whether I made some particularly unpopular moderation / metamoderation, or what. Or maybe it was because I let some points expire.
I just treat mod points as a kind of weird force of nature, like the weather. Only less predictable and occasionally vindictive. (So, kind of like the weather to someone in 341 BC.) The fact that I haven't gotten any hasn't really affected my use of the site that much, in fact I think I probably post more when I don't have any.
This is changing the topic for a moment, but I always thought it was odd that Slashdot doesn't have any sort of a "Meta" section, kind of like K5 does, where discussion about the site itself could happen. We don't really get stories like this one (that lend themselves to a discussion of online discussion in general and Slashdot in particular) very often, so most of the talk about Slashdot occurs in odd bits and pieces, in off-topic threads. It seems like it would be more useful if it was centralized, either by posting a story once in a while about the site itself, or by having some sort of an open story/thread somewhere. It would obviously have the potential to turn into an obnoxious bitchfest, but on the other hand it would remove a lot of the off-topic Slashdot meta-comments from other stories. Call it a meta-commenting ghetto, if you will.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
than seeing nerd groups fighting with one another. Except, maybe, for the epic feud between snowboarders and skiers.
Maybe I didn't understand the system very well since I don't have many friends in either meat or cyber space, but your explanation does make sense.
Has anybody told Jon Katz about this?
Perhaps he could post a scathing investigate report on this....
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Best thing I've read all week. Somebody get some mod points over here!
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
That may be, but the site popularity is comparable in at least some metrics. For example, a Digg link can generate more traffic to target sites than even the notorious Slashdot Effect. For example, the big Nmap 4.00 release was covered by both Slashdot and Digg. According to my referrer logs, Slashdot delivered a respectable 4,934 hits, while Digg brought more than twice as many (11,349). An article in Heise.De generated more traffic than either of them.
Of course there could be other explanations for these results. Maybe it is just more evidence for the sterotype that Sladhot readers don't RTFA. And I realize there are many other variables involved -- but the results surprised me.
-Fyodor (still a loyal /. reader)
Who greenlit this?
Netcraft is dead!
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
In essence the 'public' companies (ie. isps, /.'s etc) are in effect doing the Government censoreship for them.
Same thing in 'real life'...only more live threatening.
If you are a male who continuely goes into supermarkets and 'flirts' with females.. and get 'tresspassed' to never go on their property, then the saying; 'just go somewhere else' will eventually not hold up, and you will literally get sick or die from not being able to go anywhere to buy food-- should you decide to 'excersise your right' to freedom of speech.
In both of these very real examples, the government was nowhere to be found, or had nothing to do with initiating any 'censorship'.
However they may have a hand in enforcing, what regular 'public', 'citizens', or businesses, have initiated as an attack on your personal/individual freedoms.
-- My favorite thing about OSS, is its MILITANCY!!
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
If you can't find a fair site, build your own!
Yeah, I'm going to go bulid my own site! With booze... and hookers! Yeah that's it. In fact, forget the site.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
How do these numbers relate to the question ?
.. and I didn't ask if the demographics of Netcraft and Alexa users are different (neither of both is statistically representative by the way).
The original statement was that Digg users were "led to install Alexa for the sake of adding to the view count for Digg". I want to know what this accusation is based on
Was there a campaign "Help Digg, Install Alexa toolbar" ?
Where they not letting you create an account on digg.com if you haven't had Alexa toolbar installed ?
What was the evil stuff they did to cook the numbers ?
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Perhaps this is a dumb/obvious question, but how did the respondant to that post get the precise number of moderations of each type? (E.g., Moderation Totals: Offtopic=377, Flamebait=4 ... etc.) Was this a feature that's since been removed in favor of the percentage-based readout?
... I'm interested to see how they handle the "next generation" of moderation with the tags and everything.
I'm sort of curious how many moderations are on some comments, rather than just the percentages. I've always thought that there should be some sort of weighting based on how many moderations are on a particular post
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That... *crys*.. was the most beautiful thing I've ever read!
I couldn't care less about Digg or what it happens to censor. The Digg community/comments are worthless and the topic selection is overrun with a stale mix of "Web 2.0" lists and plagiaroggers who submit links to their own worthless blogs that only exist to collect hits by linking to what is often yet another page summarizing second-hand content.
To me, Digg symbolizes everything I don't like about the direction of the modern web where page links and page rank rules over original content and reasonably intelligent discussion.
Did you think that Slashdot was conceived by the internet via immaculate conception?
Slashdot is a business. They are paid by advertisers in exchange for my attention. When they lose my attention pulling their silly shit, I go elsewhere. I posted in hope that someone who runs the site would read it and benefit.
It's precisely this attitude of being entitled to stuff other people created that makes socialists so annoying.
What is worse is being a fatalistic slave to the status quo who is inexplicably compelled to offer every orifice to your corporate masters. For that you take solice in being a good capitalist. But is that behavior American?
an ill wind that blows no good
What are you, a TERRORIST!! ;)
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
I like the fact that varied opinions arise on Digg. The selection of Slashdot's articles shows the obvious biases of the Slashdot editors. I agree with a previous poster that if /. wants to be free of complaints about editorial abuse, they should publish the rejected list. Even better would be to let users promote articles like Kuro5hin or Digg.
You can be one too.
And you are.. for calling him one.
But I'm not one, because I called you one.
Because you are really one, and I'm not...
A Jack Ass, that is, which Kevin can't be, for doing things 'his way', on 'his site'.
And you, who are definitely one, but probably doesn't think so.
I am definitely NOT one, unless I continue on. ;)
-- My favorite thing about OSS, is its MILITANCY!!
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
Digg's censorship is as plain as day. While I dislike when something I submit to /. isn't posted, the difference is /. doesn't make any claims of democracy and doesn't really have any sponsors that I'm aware of to censor competitors.
Anyhow, here is how they censored me.
The site is based on popularity.
If "x" number of people vote that the story is not newsworthy, it finds its way right off the list of news stories.
The censorship concerns brought up are from people trying to get a number added to their score. (You score every time a story you post makes it to the front page.) The person posts a story and if other people think it's crap, they simple mod it off. It's as simple as that.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
You fucking hypocrites. My IP has been banned from posting to /. for over a month. /. system of karma produces a positive feedback system that rewards the majority opinion and excludes the minority opinion to the point where you are no longer even allowed to post half the time. For a site that claims to have a lot of opinions about free speech, /. certainly doesn't practice what it preaches
should read "had been banned from posting to /. for over a month"
Kevin: All your index.php are belong to us.
Psh. Everybody knows Slashcode is Perl.
more of the same on Twitter.
Too many whiny bitches think that services on the net should be free-for-all.
When you're playing in someone else's sandbox, you have to play by their rules. While I agree that articles getting dugg by lots of the same people in a row is suspicious, there are other avenues for bringing these concerns to light. What do you think is going to happen when you log on to someone's site and start ragging it? You're certainly not going to make friends and influence people.
If I ran digg, or anything like it, I would be banning bitches left right and center for being whiny gits. If you don't like it, GET THE FUCK OUT. It's not your given right to use the page. Start up something better if you don't like it.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Nothing makes a point quite like a realistic example that people find relatable and sympathetic.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I am almost done with Slashdot. It has ceased to entertain and inform me. Digg is much better, IMHO. About one more month and I will cease to visit /.
What Digg is accused of doing is deleting entire stories along with comments.
Who is to say the stories were not removed simply because they were lame and a lot of people flagged them as such? I've seen a story get deleted, but I had marked it as lame and so it wasn't really unexpected.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seriously, I don't read Digg for comments unless I'm bored, but I will get current and more news without all the dupes and old hat out of date news that we see on Slashdot every now and then.
;)
But I like Slashdot because most of the times the comments are more interesting than the news articles.
They are two different beasts in that respect... Besides, you don't have to read the comments on Digg, nor you have to read the articles on slashdot
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Hahah. Well, I like both sites. Slashdot stories are always 3 days old, but at least they are not nonsense. I like Digg because it changes frequently, but its a lot harder to get on the front page than you would think - unless you use "cheats"
Plus, I think Digg has way more flamers than Slashdot and a much younger, immature fanboy club.
Sensoring for sponsor's sake is as gay as the Bush admin's wiretapping of anti-war hippies.
check out this thread where every single comment was modded down to -1
Am I the only one seeing plenty of 1's and 2's in that thread... even a 5 or two? Unless it's been fixed in the last few hours due to your comments...
And so you came to SLASHDOT?!!1!??
How does this differ from Slashdot's bitchslap?
This story belongs in today's "TOP LINKS". Looks like they've edited it out of the "TOP LINKS"... it definitely has enough votes to be today's #2 digg.
. SLASHDOT: Home of the vicious nerd.
NOOOOOO! Say it isn't so. What I find ironic is that Slashdot posted this article, saying that "Digg got busted editing their story submissions".. which is exactly what Slashdot does. I think this underscores just how cool Digg is - Digg has suddenly made article approving and filtering a shameless act! A couple of months ago, people would look at you like you were an idiot if you said that. So in a wierd way... VIVA LA DIGG! Adios, Slashdot.
Or don't new Slashdot users get to be part of it? And yes, I'm FUCKING serious. Now I've seen this discussion, I don't think I'll bother coming back here. Sounds like this 'Digg' is a much better site. The first informative Slashdot article ever - alternatives to Slashdot.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
Roland Piquepaille submits an article which links to his blog story about a Dvorak article which summises that Apple will merge with SCO and obviously buy out KFC for the rights to its chicken plucking patents...
This will be my last post due to the censorship on this site as well. The karma system here is nothing more than an excuse to be the china of the net. The only way you keep good karma is to be a clone and say what the majority say here and why are they the majority you ask? They are the majority because you can only read what the editors wish you to see and those they don't wish you to see have been modded down so low its off everyone's scope regardless of how mature, insightful, intelligent or right the post they have made were in the past. To put it simply if you don't say what they want you to say you will cease to have a voice here. The only views that are allowed here are the Democrats view points... Republicans need not apply. The only way to fix /. is to abolish the karma system entirely.
If you think what I have said is wrong then in your world the earth would still be flat since the view that it was round would have been modded -4 troll.
Karma: a way in which to silence those with an unpopular viewpoint regardless if the view is correct and just.
Are you back again for another whoopin'? Well, if you insist.
Simplified: constructive criticism good, whining bad.
You see the word "whining" used on this site a lot used in response to sharp criticism. It is a sure sign that the author has exhausted any counter argument and is looking for a face saving way out. You should avoid using the word as a substitute for thought.
You're like the internet debate equivalent of an emo kid.
Emo kid? Amusing! I had to look it up. No, I grew up watching the 60's counter culture wreck this country and then watched Reagan fix it. I am Reagan conservative through and through. Blind corporatism which is apparently your comfort zone is a relatively new phenomenon. Your response does nothing but confirm my observation. I prefer the Jeffersonian philosophy of the role of the informed, sceptical individual.
an ill wind that blows no good
A fellow Tyrian addict, I presume?
Thanks a lot. I just spat water all over my keyboard (we've run out of cofee) !
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Not to long ago Digg had a political piece which conservatives took over and modded each other up and modded down all the liberal posts. I went in and modded every post in the opposite direction, those modded up were modded down and those modded down were modded up, then I complained about hiding opposing viewpoints. ;-)
I went back several hours later to check on the results and the entire topic had been deleted from the site. Poof, it was gone
Everyone knows Googlefight is the appropriate tool for this job.
Digg vs Slashdot. Slashdot wins!
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
"Quite frankly, if it makes even *one* person think before hitting the submit button"
It didn't work for you, and based on the absolute uselessness of your comment, I suspect yours would be exactly the
"comment that no one really cares about"
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
But slash does... what are the best ones? I've started a list on listible. http://www.listible.com/list/slash-sites