The creator is NOT a spammer, he is indirectly making a contribution to Digg and has every right to earn income from his work.

No one can make 934 people – mostly strangers from different areas, DIGG any one piece.

Even if Diggers DID vote just based on the alluring Title – some stories get to the front page and DO NOT get even close to 900 Diggs!!

And now more than ever, it is harder to get to the homepage, a provocative title will mean nothing without content to validate it.

Also, no one can force 89 people to comment on an article. 89 is an above average comment total. The comments are entertaining, so the story did provide that incentive.

There were many other previous dental articles on this blog that did NOT get Digged

In terms of the Delicious links – No one forced 142 people to save it to their favorites.

Even if statistically, some of the Delicious and Diggs were false – it does not nix the overall population of honest bookmarkers.

The blog is over two months old,

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using the Web 2.0 viral media to help promote your site – after all, Digg is a business and is also making a profit from hundreds of thousands of volunteer submitters. And also, is providing a VERY valuable FREE service to the world.

The article is no less a spam article then it would be if there was no affiliate option.

The dental plan search form does not in any way intrude on the article. No one is being forced to search and spend the 60 seconds it takes to get a result.

Unlike very large companies who can buy and PR their way to the top, UGC and social bookmarketing is an option for less money’ed webmasters with quality content, to get publicity and income.

The very nature of these Web 2.0 options means that just on major success will translate into viral promotion from shared content feeds. BUT YOU MUST GET THAT ONE SUCCESS, FIRST!!!

In terms of Diggers who appear to get many homepage stories – the secret is Digging other stories (especially from the top diggers) – Making interesting comments, and adding alot of friends in high places, or rising stars.

Again, this is NOT a perfect system.

Don’t forget, it’s that SAME UGC, social bookmarking tech that allowed That ’subjective criticsm’ sleuthing article to get 564 Diggs and 37 comments

digg.com/software/The_Spam_Farms_of_the_Social_Web_if_you_are_a_regular_digg_user_read_this

Oh, Search Engines Web

(this reply was also posted on that blog, but it has not been approved yet)