I just wanted to throw my two cents out there on a particular aspect of it, and explain why the hive can be dangerous without some sort of mechanism for followup.
This just isn't true. It's the top result on Page 2 when my name is searched via google. For the non-geeky folks reading this, I'll do my best to explain why this would be such a "horrible" thing to be said.
To digg users, who are notably young and 94% male, this admission would have been evidence of "gaming the system." Gaming is naturally against the spirit of the democratic site, where the better content should win out with more votes. It strikes many of them as unfair to ask people you know to "digg" material that you submitted. In Weblogs, Inc's case, they believe that its an unfair advantage to have colleagues. Oddly, I'm positive everyone of these kids have begged their friends to digg their false accusations, but hey, what's hypocrisy in the face of teenage angst and a cause.
In reality, what was said was in response to the suggestion that Digg has anti-asking-your-friend-tools and we should develop them too. I replied with something funny like "i can assure you that they don't", or "if they do, they don't work very well", or something to that effect. I say this after doing our own research and evaluation, judging the content posted there, and more importantly by simplistic logic. I simply don't think that they have such tools, can't have such tools, and shouldn't have such tools. If they do have these tools, then it's obvious that they suck. Plus, what would it matter to them. Digg wants more people to come to their site. E-mail your friends. Please. From Netscape's perspective, I think it's a losing battle. I'd rather spend our resources on finding ways to innovate within the space. And yeah, e-mail the hell out of your friends. Spread the word.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I was misquoted as saying something that I didn't, and now it's attached to my name on google for ever and ever.
Digg.com takes pride in their we-have-no-editors approach. That's their whole jam. That's their cause that they sell to the young teenage male. Ask someone like Ryan Block, the managing editor at Engadget.com, about how he has to defend himself and his organization what seems like once a month. Without linking to any of that nonsense, the kids over there pretty much look for any reason to attack him. He's constantly taken out of context or reported as doing something that is either completely false or not entirely accurate. The problem is, there's no way to address it. It gets posted, it gets indexed, and there's no one to call and pester for its removal or correction. The only responses are buried deep in user comments and probably never seen nor read.
That wouldn't be such a problem if there weren't a large number of people who trust digg. There are even more people who trust the Google Results that index Digg. Like a growing number of employers.
Imagine I was misquoted as saying something worse, maybe something that could actually get me in trouble. Maybe it's time for a promotion, or theres a new boss to report to, or I seek employment with another company, or whatever other scenario you can think of. In the heat of all the anti-netscape sentiment, some 14 year old brat posts a misquote on a "news" site, and now there's zero method for rebuttal. Awesome... An organized, democratic method for slander controlled by the Hive Mind where liability is skewed in the name of social news and lack of editor accountability.
At Netscape, we've tried to develop mechanisms for users to report stories as inaccurate. An on-duty "anchor" (there's someone online 24 hours, 7 days a week) can research the story and alert users to the dispute. Often, it doesn't need to be removed, it simply needs a notice posted addressing the concern for other users to see. It's simple, it's clean. It's still democratic and user's still have a voice. There's just a basic system of checks to keep things in balance. Seems resonable (and proven) enough to me.
There's a lot of issues surrounding the Hive Mind. Maybe this post can help serve as a plain vanilla example of a basic aspect of it. This particular case is small, it's silly, it doesn't even matter -- but it's a simple demonstration of how the unrestricted hive can't be trusted. It's kind of like the Hitchhikers Guide. It's entertaining but it's inaccuracy has potentially dangerous consequences if you put to much trust into it.
Comments...
(Page 1)1. I agree with you that the crowd at digg is young, I am 36 and all of my friends that I communicate with via e-mail or IM with are younger than me, but the youngest I think is 20. So I kind of think that your stereotype is inaccurate, sure there are teens,(it is one of the "hot things" to do on the internet right now, that they can control themselves!) but not as bad as you make it out to be, I think the large majority of the digg crowd are in there 20's and early 30's. I think I would be fairly qualified to say that. http://www.digg.com/users/wayjer/profile
As far as your complaint I am sure you could send an e-mail to digg's support team to address the issues, I have contacted them on multiple occassions and they are more than willing to help out in anyway they can. So I kind of disagree with "The problem is, there's no way to address it. It gets posted, it gets indexed, and there's no one to call and pester for its removal or correction. The only responses are buried deep in user comments and probably never seen nor read."
Digg has a way to report a story via the "diggers" to report a story as inaccurate and they put a warning label on the story once that it has been reported, but it is still indexed and I don't think you can tell that if you looked it up in google. You (Netscape) have an opportunity here. Anyways I am signed up on your site and I am trying to get into it but I am still strong with Digg, they have changed a bit and there are some things I dont like and some things I do like. I do have to say I like what you did in the short amount of time. I can go on and on and I am sure you could too, would like to chat mucho grande about this subject, but I will let this much sink in for now.
P.S. Moved from NSB in 1996 to Annapolis, moved last year from Annapolis to Orlando! Wife is a graduate from UCF in '95, I am a converted Knights fan, will be a season ticket holder to all the games, we should get together some time, I am sure we would have alot to talk about! Tell Madams Organ I said Hello! ~wayjer
5:29PM on Jul 1st 2006 by Wayne Welch (wayjer) on Digg and Netscape
2. Wayne,
Great response, I'm sure your probably right about the crowd being older than it comes across. From my perspective, we deal with the lowest of the low and take the brunt of all the digg trolls. Hopefully in a little bit we'll improve our comment structure some and can filter out a lot of that. In the meantime, it's left me with a fairly bad taste (the view of the community being crazy immature over there).
In some circumstances, I'm sure your right -- someone could contact the digg team and have items removed. In a case like Ryan Block's various episodes, where things garner 1000 diggs, removal of such an item would cause a serious uproar from the community. It'd be "censorship" and against the spirit of things. It probably shouldn't be removed, but can you see how an "anchor commentary" note comes into play in that situation? That's the kind of response we tend to have, and precisely the thing Digg themselves seem to be against (I base this on their CEO's kinda lame "bring it on" challenge. He must be a decider.)
Anyway, the real point of this post wasn't to rip on Digg, but to point out why the hive mind can be a problem -- a problem shared with both Digg and Netscape (and wikipedia, etc). If people start truly seeing it as an issue, then people will be more open minded towards proposed solutions -- which is a good thing I think.
Hit me up anytime if you want to chat some on things, I'm totally game for it. Also let me know about football season -- my season tickets are in section 109, row b, 1-3 (I fly down for about half).
And I will most certainly tell the Madam you said hello ;)
9:25PM on Jul 1st 2006 by Alex Rudloff
3. For lack of having a better way to communicate (email or IM instead of here) with you I have submitted a story on digg from your website that has a chance at making the front page, (my digg friends ain't liking this)but I just wanted to see what would happen. I like you guys and I submitted some of my digg stories over here so it is only fair. So if you know a couple of people, it is the weekend, ;) we have a good shot! http://tech.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/07/01/check-your-internet-speed-with-a-cool-speedometer/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ookla.com%2Fspeedtest%2F&frame=true
10:38PM on Jul 1st 2006 by Wayne Welch (wayjer) on Digg and Netscape
4. Check this out:
I have submitted digg stuff to your site that did well, I am returning the favor here:
http://digg.com/software/Check_Your_Download_and_Upload_Speed
10:53PM on Jul 1st 2006 by Wayne Welch (wayjer) on Digg and Netscape
5. http://digg.com/software/Check_Your_Download_and_Upload_Speed
I apologize, I submitted the wrong link on the last comment, here is the correct link. ~wayjer
10:58PM on Jul 1st 2006 by Wayne Welch (wayjer) on Digg and Netscape
6. A holiday weekend at that ;) Unfortunately I'm on the road in detroit, and the internet here is terrible right now.. It's like rocking a 14.4 (ouch)
Thanks for the support Wayne. Add me as a friend on netscape (alexrudloff) and I'll PM you my aim name.
12:43AM on Jul 2nd 2006 by Alex Rudloff
7. Alex:
When you change a screen like Netscape, you must remember that it is a;so used a tool for maintaining the system by people in India. It is also used by people who are NOT interested in voting on some news article that they have to hunt to find in the first place. I was in the computer business for over 30 years before retiring and you always spent many days or weeks with end users checking out the interface of your product. Look what happended when the people writing the package for the FBI did NOT do that. Your change for Netscape is just that for many people. It is NOT user friendly. I do not like AOL but where can I turn, because if I have a problem, the system software want Internet explorer and Netscape, and your version is NOT what I want to have as my boot version, my.netscape is closer, but who likes to always has to change?
5:40PM on Jul 2nd 2006 by Bill
8. I note your comment on reduced social interaction as a good item for conversation. How?
So, whassup, Alex?
Dad
7:29AM on Jul 3rd 2006 by Dad
9. May want to comment on the other post instead of on this ;) But yes, I think it's a good seed for conversation.
How much of the internet was designed to increase communication between folks, yet when it's actually studied, people are still becoming more and more isolated. Is it work? Is it technology? Are people just changing and losing a sense of communal activity? Lot's of sociological questions arise when you start poking at it. :)
10:38AM on Jul 3rd 2006 by Alex Rudloff
10. You people still don't get the idea of what I'm talking about. The screen that comes up should be staight forward and to the point, not making the end user having to hunt all over to find something. Oh well, I guess that voting on what was hunted for is more important than a well designed screen for the end user.
6:55AM on Jul 24th 2006 by Bill