Thursday, March 15, 2007
When Digg Falls Down IV
Well, well, well. It looks like I'm a little late to this party, but there has been a burst of interest in the apparently-widespread abuse of digg.com's "bury" feature over the last few weeks. Does the "bury brigade" or "Digg mafia" exist? Read the following and judge for yourself.
Based on what I've read and seen, there may not be any organized groups working to bury particular discussions or ideas. But, if there were, you'd never be able to pick them out among the vast sea of diggers driven to abuse the "bury" feature by their own personal motivations.
While the idea of the bury feature seems useful, it's rapidly becoming clear that the honor system and anonymity don't mix very well when it comes to serving the intended purpose. A tool purportedly developed to restrict the level of abuse has instead increased it dramatically.
One possible solution: Watch the watchers.
I have no idea what the algorithm for deciding an automatic bury is, but suppose that instead of an automatic bury, the item is flagged for a 30-second inspection by someone on the digg.com staff. If the staff member believes that the buries have been applied incorrectly, he can wipe them out -- ideally sending notifications to all users who had buried the story that it was overturned and that their account was flagged as having submitted an inappropriate bury.
Too many inappropriate buries, and the account in question is banned. That ought to dampen the bury abuse pretty fast. Even if this was done on a fractional sample of stories before automatic burying, I would expect a big improvement.
Another idea: Offer diggers a chance to veto.
Whatever the current method is for determining when it's OK to bury a story, it appears that the algorithm heavily favors "bury" votes over "digg" votes. Suppose, instead of an automatic bury, that digg.com just flags the entry as about-to-be-buried for the alleged reason. Let it stay up for a short time (10-15 minutes would probably be enough for front page stories) with a special "veto" vote option or the like. If the bury is overturned by veto, refer it to a human for inspection as in the first idea above. If it was an appropriate bury, flag the vetoer's accounts.
At any rate, I love digg, and I hate to see it suffer like this. I've caught a number of short-lived stories over the last couple of weeks that probably should have gotten more attention. Digg needs to be reminded as much as everyone that secrecy and democracy need to be carefully balanced if one is also trying to serve justice.
- Hunting Down Digg's Bury Brigade (Wired News)
- The Bury Brigade Exists, and Here's My Proof (Pronet Advertising, hopefully not someone who attempts to abuse digg for commercial purposes)
- Digg's Bury Feature Needs a Funeral (ReeVerb)
- Digg's Dark Future and the Battle for Online Censorship (deep jive interests)
- Watching Digg's Bury Brigade (Guardian Unlimited)
- Why Digg Needs the Bury Brigade (Social Media News) (short version of hypothesis: to hide their own censorship efforts)
Based on what I've read and seen, there may not be any organized groups working to bury particular discussions or ideas. But, if there were, you'd never be able to pick them out among the vast sea of diggers driven to abuse the "bury" feature by their own personal motivations.
While the idea of the bury feature seems useful, it's rapidly becoming clear that the honor system and anonymity don't mix very well when it comes to serving the intended purpose. A tool purportedly developed to restrict the level of abuse has instead increased it dramatically.
One possible solution: Watch the watchers.
I have no idea what the algorithm for deciding an automatic bury is, but suppose that instead of an automatic bury, the item is flagged for a 30-second inspection by someone on the digg.com staff. If the staff member believes that the buries have been applied incorrectly, he can wipe them out -- ideally sending notifications to all users who had buried the story that it was overturned and that their account was flagged as having submitted an inappropriate bury.
Too many inappropriate buries, and the account in question is banned. That ought to dampen the bury abuse pretty fast. Even if this was done on a fractional sample of stories before automatic burying, I would expect a big improvement.
Another idea: Offer diggers a chance to veto.
Whatever the current method is for determining when it's OK to bury a story, it appears that the algorithm heavily favors "bury" votes over "digg" votes. Suppose, instead of an automatic bury, that digg.com just flags the entry as about-to-be-buried for the alleged reason. Let it stay up for a short time (10-15 minutes would probably be enough for front page stories) with a special "veto" vote option or the like. If the bury is overturned by veto, refer it to a human for inspection as in the first idea above. If it was an appropriate bury, flag the vetoer's accounts.
At any rate, I love digg, and I hate to see it suffer like this. I've caught a number of short-lived stories over the last couple of weeks that probably should have gotten more attention. Digg needs to be reminded as much as everyone that secrecy and democracy need to be carefully balanced if one is also trying to serve justice.
