Why I Hate Digg

Personally I like Digg as an aggregator - it frequently generates stories that interest me. However I have found that the community seems to be very negative and vitriolic and that I just do not want participate there. Sadly I'm beginning to think that Newsvine may be heading down the same path -ubt at least they do not have the bury button.

Digg suffers from 20/80-syndrome, where 20% of the users decide over (digg, bury, etc.) 80% of the content.

It's almost impossible to get a story on the front page if it doesn't get dugg by at least a handful of the people from that 20% group, and since there's a strong clique-atmosphere within that 20% group, it's a very biased site as a whole.

It's just a matter of developing a numbness/blindness from all the flamers, wise-asses, fanboys, blog spammers, etc., and concentrating on the cool nuggets of information. Much like how we handle life in the real world, actually.

I look at Digg as a way to get so some news that I may have not otherwise known about. I almost never read the comments since most of the time they are either singing the praises of their "buddy" who seeded it or they are ripping who ever put the link out there. the basic premise is great, if it is a good article, it rises to the top. But as mentioned above where 20% of the population can decide whether or not the story is "worthy", this is not always the case. It has not become a perfect democratic process, and instead has almost become elitist in a way

Like others have said, I like Digg primarily as a source of content - there are a lot of very interesting articles posted. The Digg "community," however, sucks. I rarely read the comments, because there's rarely anything interesting said. It seems like most of the people who comment have the mentality of a 14-year old boy. Which may be the case.

Is it wrong of me to want to bury this story?

I agree with the original poster. And the categories are so limitted.

I only have digg up in a tab to see what new stories are coming through. I don't bother commenting, and usually don't bother reading the comments... unless I want to bury a whole bunch of smart-ass punk teenagers who think they know a lot more than they really do.

There are some fun games in the games section occasionally as well.

I know. The big problem is you can't set your profile to display any comment -80 or above. I think -5 or -10 is the limit. Lame. At least on slashdot you could browse at -1 and read all the trolls.

Digg does indeed have a great idea, and it's good for Technology news. But for what I care for the most (Foreign Affairs), the Digg community is full of little children who have absolutely no idea what goes on in our planet, then bury comments or say "YOU R CRAZY DUDE, SAUDIS DON'T HAVE CONTROL OVER OIL MARKETS LOLLOL" and @!$%# like that.

Whoever sent me a Newsvine Beta invite in February...Merci beaucoup.

I use Digg on and off as a good source of geekier or more offbeat tech-related news.

This being said, when I look at news, I like having torrents of condensed news fired at my retinas from an 8-gauge Tubenet shotgun. This is why I use Bloglines and Popurls. Clean, minimalist, very information-dense, and completely browser-based.

Both of these emphasize easy-to-use UIs and information density over "OMFG! j00 r such lamerz, d00dz!!!"

For debate and community interaction online, Newsvine is all I use now.

So you're telling me: the members of Digg are creating a fantasy by selectively ignoring parts of reality?

If you don't like some part of reality, vote it down?

Interesting.

Not useful, but interesting.

Digg is awesome, I dont know what you are talking about. What I hate about newsvine is there is more neocon/republican bull@!$%# that people spew out that shouldn't be published. Newsvine totally needs a this sucks button or vote down at least. At least on digg if there is something that I disagree with I can do something about it. Blocking users is great too.

Hey look you got dugg.

http://digg.com/tech_news/Newsvine_Why_I_Hate_Digg

Hate it if you will, but Digg just crossed half a million users.

http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/great-news-for-digg.html

I do not hate digg, but agree 100% with Gold Rust. I have started feeling the same way on the comments. Lots of America and Bush suck! Arabs are victims of US imperialism or Israel Zionist crap. I think it is basically a bunch of kids that live at home or still live of their parents thinking they are in know.
You guys do know 9/11 was set-up by the government??? See how in the know I am?

I agree completely that the Digg comments section is not conducive to the free exchange of ideas from all angles. Certain opinion will be dugg down even if they are correct and vice versa. In their defense about 40% of the time i find the comments section as informative as the posted article. You can find links to similar programs, further articles about the topic, direct links to downloads, publishers main site etc. As with everything else in life nothing will please everyone but as long as you can garner some good out of it there is not a total waste.

I have been on digg since it inception, I think I joined a day after it launched, and I have seen the digg site change drastically. At first it was a outstanding tech news site. Just a few former techtv viewers who happened to stumble on kevin rose's blog. I could get tech stories way before slashdot and all the top stories had some credence at the top. Even before digg v3 their were political stories on digg, especially when a lot of liberals on the web were going crazy over the Colbert speech.

When digg v3 came out with the politics category I was a little worried that it might get crazy and I have not been wrong. The comment system is innovative, and I think it would work correctly if people acted maturely about their comment digging. Digg up informative comments and digg down uninformative comments even if you disagree. But obviously that has not been happening. Also the politics section is a mess where every political story no matter what side gets marked as inaccurate. But I guess that is because politics is such a contentious item today.

Typical DIGG Comment timeline.

1. A story appears.
2. Within the first 6 comments, some idiot says something stupid. Gets -20 digs.
3. Somebody tries to make a point,
4. Is called an idiot by somebody else who thinks they know better.
5. Somebody cracks a joke that is really funny to themself... and nobody else.
6. You tell yourself, "God, what a bunch of idiots..." Then out of habit... scroll to the bottom, and start typing. Before you know it, you're just another idiot.

Like me.

Source: http://digg.com/programming/Digg_s_Eli_White_Releases_PHP_Book#c2881531

If I had not Googled, "I hate digg", I would have never found this site.

I agree with this post 100%. Digg has become not only this left biased news source as well as user base, but it's getting the the point that I describe it as extreme.

I used to be able to argue on Digg from the right side of the isle and have a good time, however in the few months, it has become this source of hatred and spite for conservative news readers and politics.

I can't stand Digg any more. Everything from tv shows to comics has become politicized and I can't find out, for any reason, why everything can be spun and blamed on the US government, specifically Bush. It's sickening and appalling to read the disdain most diggers have for our government, not just right-wing politicians. Everything's a conspiracy and talking just a bit of sense get's you marked down substantially.

Thanks Goldrust for posting this, hopefully NewsVine will be a way more balanced website!

Part of what drew me to Newsvine was that I was getting bored on Digg. It's alright in general, but you are correct, as you say the politics are not very reliable.