Digg, the social news site where anyone can submit and vote on their favorite online articles, has changed its method of deciding which articles are featured on the Digg homepage. Top users say their votes now count for less, and are on strike — refusing to submit stories until Monday, unless the company responds to their demands.
The reason for the change is that San Francisco-based Digg is for sale, with an asking price of more than $300 million. And it’s trying to broaden its content and its audience in order to attract purchasers.
Digg is a large, influential site with millions of users, or “Diggers” — tens of thousands visit articles on sites around the web through what they find on the Digg site, especially when stories get to the site’s homepage. Right now, most diggers are young men who are particularly interested in technology, especially Apple and Linux.
The site’s change is an attempt to ensure that “popular content dugg by a diverse, unique group of Diggers reaches the home page,” according to founder Kevin Rose, rather than by groups of top users.
A story submitted to Digg may now need more than 200 votes to make it to the site’s front page, regardless of who’s doing the voting. It used to be that the top Diggers, basically users who regularly submit stories that make the front page, had algorithmically-calculated extra-powerful votes that would send their submitted stories to the front page with far fewer votes.
One site, called RevoltNation, has been set up by top Diggers and is running a petition intended to get a large amount of Diggers to use other sites. The “change in the algorithm [for deciding what stories get to the front page] along with rumors of secret editors, auto-buries, etc., have led us to believe it is time to break ties with Digg.com,” the site’s manifesto says.
Many top Diggers, including “MrBabyMan,” “DigiDave” and others, have been holding a group videoconference and chat session to discuss how to respond, here.
Top Diggers see themselves as largely responsible for the site’s growth over the years. Some of these users have submitted and voted on thousands of articles, and spend many hours on the site per week.
7 Comments
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Digidave said:
Okay. That was interesting. It got really interesting when Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson showed up.
The conversation will be posted on the Drill Down.
The hope is that Kevin and Jay follow up with what they said - they will build a mode for future communication. If they do - most of the concerns will be met. Onward.
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Ted said:
And remember Digg was supposed to be the anti-slashdot that was controlled by a few elite users.
I might actually start using Digg again if the I-have-no-life digg abusers are algorithmically out. So far I spent all of 2007 and all of 2008 w/o once visiting digg or reddit. My own slew of rss feeds keeps me more in tune than the stupidity of crowds social media. (and, yes, this site is in my feeds)
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Jitendra said:
I have a huge problem with mysterious buries…where stories don’t make it to the front for no good reason.
Also taking away some juice from top-diggers make it more gameable, in my opinion, not less.
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Don said:
Power elites - of any kind - don’t like it when their power is diminished. They fight with whatever tools are at their disposal. The so-called progressive types at Digg are no different.
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Dave said:
Leave it to the holier-than-thou whining Apple/Linux crowd to get their panties all in a bunch. The best part is that all they have going for them is their fervor for technology…no real marketable skills that people need/want. Love it.
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supaswag said:
The shocking reality: What REALLY goes on behind the curtains at digg.com >> http://supaswag.blogspot.com/2008/02/can-you-digg-it.html
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erichansa said:
how to pay them?
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