rinzai a site for raven zachary

Why Digg is going down the tubes

(Double meaning of the title intended) I have been noticing a disturbing trend on Digg, a user driven social content website. Based on a feature called ‘Bury It’, user comments on a news item are hidden or visible based on an open voting system. The end result? If you’re in the minority, your voice will not effectively be heard. The heavily geek-oriented userbase of Digg will regularly vote a comment down simply on the basis that it’s in opposition, even if the comment is well-informed, thoughtful, and polite. Jerry Falwell’s death today is but the most recent example of this trend. The Digg posting entitled Rev. Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority, Dead at 74. Rest In Peace has a number of perspectives, such as…

“Hey man, regardless of your thoughts, the man is dead and a whole community is grieving. Give it some time before you bash.”

The comment above was hidden and marked with a score of -78. That means 78 more people voted thumbs down on this comment than thumbs up.

I hope it’s not too hot where he’s at right now. Oh wait. I do. Good riddance you ***ing *****. I hope you’re burning in a place you’ve feared in your life.

The comment above was visible and marked with a score of +76. That means 76 more people voted thumbs up on this comment than thumbs down.

There are hundreds of other comments on this news posting, and you will notice that most of the opposition voices, those praising Falwell’s life or at least asking for civility, are buried. I don’t know much about Jerry Falwell, and therefore don’t have an informed opinion on the matter. Religious personalities are not an area I have much interest in. However, it’s tactless to post rude and obnoxious comments about someone’s death. Online anonymity accentuates nasty people.

I continue to read Digg regularly and find it to be an excellent source of news tidbits, mostly technology related. I have found myself no longer reading comments, however, due to the burying of diverse and clearly unappreciated voices.

First off, I agree that digg is going down the tubes. The comments being the main offender.

I think part of the problem is that negative ratings in comments are counterproductive. There’s no objective criteria like when you buy something from ebay. A defective purchase on ebay provides a relatively clear case for a negative rating.

As Danah Boyd has pointed out, negative taste based ratings provide an opportunity for trolls, which removes an incentive for others to post constructive new content.

This is why I only used the thumbs up on Tivo except in very rare instances. Giving things thumbs down seemed to only add noise to the Tivo recommendation engine.

Perhaps digg needs to remove the thumbs down, or add meta-moderation and randomize mod points like Slashdot.

Under your user profile you can change the settings to display all comments, regardless of how other people have voted on those comments. I just made that change myself after reading your post.

If you’re not familiar with Fallwell, btw, here’s the Boing Boing post on some of his greatest hits: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/15/falwells_stupidest_q.html

I just learned about some extreme things that Jerry Falwell said, thanks to a BoingBoing article. Clearly, I have a different set of values than this man, but no one deserves to be ripped into shreds on the day of passing.