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Evidence That The Digg Algorithm is Actually Fair

soshable.com — Three weeks into Digg's promotion algorithm updates, it's becoming clear that the 'playing field' has indeed been leveled. Even the site's creator appears now to be on equal footing.

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  • Tamriel, on 02/12/2008, -2/+135The reason his stories didn't make the front page is because they were lame and actually had some content that could only be understood through reading paragraphs. This is Digg, damnit. Where are those pictures of cats saying grammatically incorrect things?
    • Zarokima, on 02/12/2008, -1/+31http://www.icanhascheezburger.com/
    • sgtbutterscotch, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Did anyone else see a picture submitted by pizzler, a popular submitter, that had around 35 diggs and was right above this story on the front page? I checked back and it was gone...
    • anononon, on 02/12/2008, -3/+12IM IN UR DIGG STEELIN UR ALGORITHUMS
    • kirakun, on 02/12/2008, -3/+1Um... It's "grammatically-incorrect things." You need the hyphen. Just saying. :p
      • Zarokima, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3No you don't. It's not a hyphenated adjective: "grammatically" is an adverb describing "incorrect."
      • Wolfboy, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1the rule-of-thumb is that you don't hyphenate when the first word ends in "ly"

        Just saying...

    • pault107, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Yep, three in a row. The last time Kevin submitted a story that didn't hit the front page was October 2007:

      http://www.zuubu.com/?username=kevinrose
  • DiggnessFalls, on 02/12/2008, -5/+25Nice article, I actually find it funny not even Kevin can get his stories dugg now. I gave it a Favorite!
  • bullcutter, on 02/12/2008, -13/+78what?! there's no way this is true, and this one example is not "proof of fairness" of the new algorithm system. that's a retarded conjecture.

    there was at least 6 stories by msaleem that made the front page today, 4 by Zaibatsu, a couple from MakiMaki or whatever and the obligatory 4 for Mr Baby Man.

    6 or 7 users consistently submit half or more of the front-page stories, and there are... how many thousands of submitters on Digg? how does this make the algorithm "more fair"???

    Digg is becoming stale, even if the people who know how to manipulate the system don't see it this way.
    • dildoolielly, on 02/12/2008, -15/+3The reason you're being dugg down is just more proof this article is innaccurate
    • sarge96, on 02/12/2008, -16/+12Don't be a douche. I've heard enough about how crappy the algorithm is. For the record, I've never had a popular story, but I'm not bitching. The reason those diggers have so many popular stories is because they have massive networks of friends who diligently Digg whatever they are sent.
      • salmonmoose, on 02/12/2008, -1/+37That's the problem.

        It's not a popularity contest, it's an "interesting article" contest.
        • bullcutter, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2you mean, it _should_ be an "interesting article" contest, but instead its become a popularity contest, like every other "social networking" site. have you seen some of the articles msaleem and babyman have been popularizing recently?? i've had ***** that were more "interesting".
      • capiCrimm, on 02/12/2008, -1/+37"they have massive networks of friends who diligently Digg whatever they are sent."

        in other words, they game the system.
        • xTRUMANx, on 02/12/2008, -7/+2Not really. I'm pretty sure msaleem and co. don't ask their 'massive network of friends' to digg their stories. Its their fanboys who do so. As much as I don't like the fact that a handful of diggers are submitting most of the frontpage content (it makes digg just like every other editor based website), its mostly not their fault. That is if you turn a blind eye to the number of times they dupe somebody else.
    • neptunebk, on 02/12/2008, -4/+12Yea, obviously people with over 200+ friends are just spamming *****. So their must be a limit set for how many friends you can add.
    • sgtbutterscotch, on 02/12/2008, -8/+2Wouldn't an algorithm that is "fair" mean putting down a flat number of diggs one has to get to make a story popular?
      • Darkhacker, on 02/12/2008, -0/+13No. If person X *always* diggs submissions by person Y, does that make their digg worth anything? The problem is fanboys who digg articles based on who submitted it rather than the content. That would be like saying that Paris Hilton's opinion actually matters (it doesn't) because more people listen to what she has to say than what you have to say.
        • sgtbutterscotch, on 02/12/2008, -5/+1I get what you are saying, but it is still "fair" for other people to be idiots and jerks. It may be extremely frustrating and annoying as balls, but that is literally fair. Just because you are at a disadvantage does not mean something is not fair.
          • capiCrimm, on 02/12/2008, -1/+4"Just because you are at a disadvantage does not mean something is not fair."

            is this a Fox news definition of fair?

            webster: marked by *impartiality* and honesty : free from self-interest, *prejudice*, or *favoritism*
          • sgtbutterscotch, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2It wasn't a definition, but rather a statement in logic, such as just because you don't have a lot of money doesn't mean you are homeless. You still have the abilities to what top diggers do. You have the option that every one else has (see impartial) to make "friends" who will game your submissions.
            And I see you are a Ron Paul fan, but I bet you aren't totally for pure capitalism to the degree Ron Paul is. I also read an article about Paul being the lone opponent of a bill that commemorated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he said owners of businesses should be allowed to discriminate if they wanted to. See the irony?
          • capiCrimm, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3I'm anti-capitalist. I'm also not a Ron Paul supporter, but simply interested in what he has to say. If we're talking logic here, however, Ron Paul is a red herring. The actual argument was 'X is Y'. Now, logically that's true, but lets extend that. Have cat for X and fish for Y, and you have 'A cat is a fish'. Logically it's perfect, but is it true? No.

            Sure everyone has the option to make friends, but in a card game everyone has the options to shove aces up their sleeves. Or every politician has the option to have a mob churn out votes for them by force. However, digg is not about making friends just like card games don't tend to promote cheating. It goes contrary to the idea of digg, which is to spread good articles/info.
          • sgtbutterscotch, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2I got a little off track with the politics things and I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that XY thing. The main point, I think, is that if diggers want more "good articles/info" is to look in the upcoming section for "good articles/info" instead of waiting for your submission to be magically dugg up. Then maybe you can "make friends" with people who you think submit quality stuff. There really is good stuff being spread around Digg, but a lot of people don't check the upcoming sections.
    • sgtbutterscotch, on 02/12/2008, -1/+6I want to add that I think the system would seem more fair if more Diggers checked the upcoming section. There's a lot of quality stuff there from submitters who aren't that popular and a lot of it just dies there. And I'm not just talking about the upcoming popular section, but all the little sections that you are interested in. I think that is one of the main problems because while Diggers are complaining that they can't their stuff popular, they should be checking out the upcoming section to digg up other diggers' submissions.
    • inchrnt, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5Sadly, I think the algorithm is working fine. It's the people who are broken. Stop digging spam!!!

      Digg proves we are sheep.

      click click bah bah click bah bah click click
  • Alex2, on 02/12/2008, -21/+7The system is easily gamed by spammers.
    I recall an 'anon' vid having only 200 views, but 2000 diggs.

    For Epic Spam.
    • Rikushix, on 02/12/2008, -1/+15Don't jump to conclusions. Youtube views are not updated in real time (constantly, that is), there are very long intervals between refresh rates. I know the video you're talking about, I came back hours after it had made the top 10 on the front page and the view count was still at mid to high 200s. It happens. The system's fine.
    • dvsbastard, on 02/12/2008, -1/+4I recall multiple people posting that video view figures on YouTube are not updated live and so are not indicative of the recent number of views...
  • MasterThief117, on 02/12/2008, -4/+46Now that the Digg algorithm is working, how about a picture secti... oh wait
    A better comment syst... wait, no...
    Uhh... a cheese section?
    • FatLoser, on 02/12/2008, -3/+36I think the section you're thinking of is... porn.
      • qwertydvorak, on 02/12/2008, -1/+20i hope that doesn't fall under the main heading of cheese...
        • FatLoser, on 02/12/2008, -1/+16No, that's what you make while you visit the porn section.
        • xTRUMANx, on 02/12/2008, -4/+3@FatLoser
          YOU WIN!
    • xTRUMANx, on 02/12/2008, -3/+2xkcd section?
      • CptNiemo, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2that's what bookmarks are for.
        • xTRUMANx, on 02/13/2008, -0/+1If so, why do people keep submitting xkcd comics all the time?
    • Lythium, on 02/15/2008, -0/+1Need a section for Blogs... Seems like 3/4 of the submissions I see aren't links to the actual news but to some blogger expounding on it.
  • chetanthaker, on 02/12/2008, -3/+14Kevin Rose has a front Page hit ratio of 99% to 101% - Dugg for using cheats !!
  • Auzy, on 02/12/2008, -3/+19I actually think its just the illusion of fairness.

    I have noticed that unlike the old days of digg, nobody seems to actually check what they are digging anymore. So there are a lot of crappy articles making it to the front (Like rumors of a 3G iphone, which is just so obvious its painful, and the article was crap, and certainly not front page material), whilst many better articles I have seen being submitted (yes I go through them one by one, unlike most), get maybe 5 or so diggs and die, just because they don't mention apple, ubuntu, or prediction in the title.

    People who are planning on digging articles shouldn't, unless they are actually going to go through them properly (like the good old days). These days front page is becoming crowded by dugg articles, which were only dugg because they are promoting a certain OS.
  • Lapper, on 02/12/2008, -0/+13101%? Don't you get it? An average of one out of every one hundred stories he submits is made made popular... twice. :P
  • Privil3g3, on 02/12/2008, -2/+47I used to be logged into Digg all day at work, but now find that i can check it once a day and check out the top rated for the 24 and not miss anything important, Digg is getting stale.
    • techlyc, on 02/12/2008, -2/+10Dugg you up, but man the more heroin you use, the less high you get. Good luck with "using less".
    • Okari, on 02/12/2008, -1/+9I agree, the only thing that makes it to the front page are political propaganda, Apple stories, or Scientology *****. I find myself just going to the news sites these days instead of Digg.
    • cphelps, on 02/12/2008, -1/+8It's pretty much the same story for me except I sometimes don't even look at Digg at work, even on my break. I'll check it once in the morning and once in the evening if that. It's just not for me anymore. Whatever the site is turning into is what it turns into, but I probably won't be here for it if it continues like it is. To much crap on the front page. "Oh my god, look at this cat" "Oh my god, this guy is falling". Useless ***** that any non-moron wouldn't want to read.
    • grimward, on 02/12/2008, -0/+9Yeah, digg is certainly getting stale now, I don't know if it's the change that happend in the algorithm that's responsible, but I can say that this site has changed from interesting news more to pointless images and "look at this clip!" kind of deals. I agree that we need a cheese section as somebody up there commented on.
  • D3koy, on 02/12/2008, -9/+4Kevin Rose not getting the front page != Fair and balanced...
    The algorithm should not take into account who submits what, but rather how many diggs per minute, and how many buries...that is all!
    • FatLoser, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5I agree! Contingent, of course, on all stories being submitted anonymously! The submitter shouldn't matter at all.
  • chubbybubba, on 02/12/2008, -2/+5Great job with the new algo. I'm happy as long as it's not those three arrogant guys stuffing the front page. They were alright at first but all their whining regarding the new algo is annoying.
  • borez, on 02/12/2008, -8/+360910 diggs and 24,301 comments..and this has made the front page WTF???!!!???
  • BackEnThaWomb, on 02/12/2008, -1/+4i got a 403 error
  • themastersb, on 02/12/2008, -1/+13Mirror: http://soshable.com.nyud.net:8080/rose-digg-front- ...
  • Celeron, on 02/12/2008, -2/+9Mirror: http://duggmirror.com/programming/Evidence_That_Th ...
  • gypsi, on 02/12/2008, -2/+19yawwwwn for digg drama
  • JoeF8577, on 02/12/2008, -2/+1I get a 404 error??
  • jmkiii, on 02/12/2008, -3/+1FORBIDDEN
  • oboy, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1http://duggmirror.com/programming/Evidence_That_Th ...
  • Richandler, on 02/12/2008, -4/+2Yah it's really fair when a website doesn't work and makes the front page.
  • ThreeDee912, on 02/12/2008, -0/+5If you look at who diggs mrbabyman's stories, it's the same people every single time. The top diggers, plus some people like arbiterofcool, suxmonkey, etc (who are also somewhat 'top' diggers). They are definitely still getting onto the FP, but not as much as before.
  • RedPhalanx, on 02/12/2008, -5/+35Before: Paulspam
    After: Obamaspam

    not much of an improvement, really
    • jtq1, on 02/12/2008, -0/+20always: crackedspam
    • doyoulikeworms, on 02/12/2008, -6/+10Except the obamaspam is like 10x worse than the paulspam ever was. But yes, both were bad.
    • IrvineS2K, on 02/12/2008, -8/+8Correction:
      BEFORE: An honest discussion and discovery of what's going on in this country, and lo and behold, a presidential candidate that can be a conduit for our unfairly marginalized voices, and an internet site that doesn't discriminate! As a country, we are saved! OOPS we pissed off the masses with our incessant and boring message of ensuring a better quality of life for our generation and our children's generation and our grandchildren's generation.
      AFTER: The teeming masses chant "Yes we can" stifle honest rational thought and replace it with "OMG that speech made me feel so emotional, so weak-kneed, and everything he says just makes sense!" and yet fail to realize that if they were to become acquainted with Ron Paul's principles, the issues, the big picture..... no one would be voting for Obama or Hilary AT ALL. :-|
    • da_bradler, on 02/12/2008, -0/+10The worst part about it is digg is now entirely useless for any political news, I log onto digg the day after a vote and the stories on the front page don't reflect the outcome they just reflect who digg wanted to win.

      Hillary wins story reads "Obama has a strong showing" "Possible voter fraud" "rigged election"
      Obama wins story reads "It's over Obama is the master of the universe."

      I mean I come to digg to try and get all my news but now it's just crap. A certain site will pop up often for a week and then digg rebels against it simply for the fact that it's been up front a lot, not anything to do with the quality of content. People get told to just bookmark the sites and stop submiting from them, well I mean ***** sakes I come to digg BECAUSE to dig on my own threw dozen of sites looking for the good content.

      The very nature of how diggers ban together is what makes it unusable
  • meatwaddancin, on 02/12/2008, -3/+0This doesn't make any sense, they obviously should have hit front page if Kevin Rose is so big that a story about him not making front page does.
  • edebolt, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4there has been some strange stuff with only dozens of diggs on the front page lately... Is this progress?
  • tacojohn, on 02/12/2008, -2/+3I just emailed digg asking them about the "super users" and they didn't respond...

  • franklymister, on 02/12/2008, -0/+11I don't think the problem is with certain users getting to the front page too much, it's with quality stories getting lost in the overwhelming sea of noise.

    So many people are submitting spam, weird vanity posts, or other crap that I've given up trying to look at anything upcoming if it doesn't already have at least 30 diggs. Try and crawl through the new stuff (1 or 2 diggs) without gouging your eyes out after a few minutes. It's just too hard to find the good stories.

    As a result, I think that a lot of really quality stuff is getting missed because it doesn't have one of the buzzwords of the moment in the headline, or worse yet, when a good story is submitted with a terrible headline, so that no one else can put it up in a way that might actually pique anyone's interest.

    I don't care if my stories or someone else's get to the home page, but I would love to be able to find more diversity and quality in what does get there.
    • crapmatic, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3I would digg you up twice if I could. Not only is it too hard to find good content in the ocean of upcoming stories, but it feels pointless to digg any of them because Digg is churning through so much
    • crapmatic, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1.... so much bottom feeder content that never sees the light of day.
  • schmitey, on 02/12/2008, -1/+3I find it humorous and slightly ironic that the page is down...
  • SantaClauz, on 02/12/2008, -2/+9The Digg algorithm in my opinion is anything but fair. You can go out of your way to submit articles that you find interesting and you know a majority of other digg users will as well, but you have no way of letting them know. Promoting your stories through comments is frowned upon on digg, so unless you have a massive friend base or multiple accounts you can never get your story to get enough diggs to be seen. I don't really know how you can fix this problem, but I'm sure most of us can agree it exists. I doubt I'm the only one who has submitted stories time and time again only to see them die out after 5 or 6 diggs.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but IMHO I felt that when i submitted this story http://digg.com/comedy/What_To_Look_For_In_A_Woman it deserved a lot more diggs than it got. Especially because I know diggs userbase, I felt that they would find it funny. But, other than the 5 diggs it got from my friends, it didn't go anywhere.

    Anyways....
    /rant
    • mbraynard, on 02/12/2008, -2/+1Actually, I dugg it out of pity, since that was the purpose for putting it there. My bad, because after I read it, it was pretty clear why no one 'dugg' it, other than your 'friends' who also must have felt pretty sorry for you.
  • JAG731, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2I like Digg. Well, sometimes. Ok, maybe once in a while as Digg isn't what it used to be. But one thing I've learned - there's more to life than being dugg.
  • BETA7, on 02/12/2008, -1/+1i love the whole Forbidden, access denied error in trying to prove how fair digg is lol
  • phazon88, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4Reddit is better, but the frontpage moves too slow it seems like between the beginning and the end of the day basically the same articles are on the frontpage.
    • basic0, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2I've really been using reddit a lot more lately. I think it does a couple of key things better than Digg:

      1. It's lightweight. It doesn't slow Firefox to a crawl while I navigate around, and there isn't any superfluous graphic and AJAX stuff. Maybe I'm a minimalist, but I like a site that just gives me a list of stories to vote on and a comment area, and that's it.

      2. When I downvote a story on reddit, it's gone. I don't see it anymore. On Digg I'm constantly seeing stories that I've buried show up on the main page (in smaller, faded text). The top stories section shows stories I've buried, and stories from categories I've blocked. For example, I'm not interested the 2008 election, so I've blocked that category, but if 1500 other Diggers think the latest "Obama vs. Hillary" story is worth Digging, I have to see it in the sidebar anyways.
  • N4S74, on 02/12/2008, -1/+4For all of those whining about the content on digg.
    The reasons that digg is starting to suck is not because of the algorithm it's because the digg user base is getting lazy, this is a democratic system if you only look and vote for stuff on the front page thats all thats going to be successful. The digg userbase needs to start looking in the upcoming section more and start becoming active in the stories that make it to the front page. To many people are just going to the homepage and digging what they see. If you don't like the content on digg submit or look for content that you like in the the upcoming section and digg it.
    • JDym00, on 02/12/2008, -2/+0N4S74, do you have any proof that this is why digg is starting to suck? Or is just a hypothesis of yours?
    • i88gerbils, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2N4S74 is correct. Digg sucks because it has become much like popular media. And any media that caters to the "masses" is going to suck. Don't you hate when the news shows some retarded story at 11? Yes, the same thing has happened to Digg. It's not Digg's fault that the mass of people are stupid.

      Personally I'd automatically bury diggs if they are one or more of the following:
      * is only a picture or set of pictures
      * is only a video
      * contains the word PICS, IMG
      * starts with the word Top
      * contains a number like 20, 10, or 5

      How are any of what I listed "news"? They're stupid, ***** wastes of time that clock up a list of what was supposed to be grass roots news and interesting topics.

      What digg needs to fix this is a page for "anti-diggers" to list offending diggs and then bury the ***** out of them before the stupid masses can reach them to digg them up.

      There's no way to fix the massive spam since people are stupid and will digg anything they see up, even if it was already posted before.
  • davidg11, on 02/12/2008, -1/+4You're right. It must be fair because everyone here really wants 6 out of 10 the top DIGG stories to be about Scientology.
  • DiggityDugged, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Not that anyone cares... but:

    My big gripe is that I used to be a top submitter, and then I took a half year off from Digg. Now that I've come back, I'm still listed high up enough in the Digg user stats so that the things I submit need a ton more Diggs to go front page, but since I haven't been around for 5 of the last 6 months, I don't have some sort of devoted fan base that people like MrBabyMan obviously has. So I've been put in an extra hard space on Digg it seems.

    That's just my personal gripe, though. Overall it seems to be doing well.
  • robbh66, on 02/12/2008, -1/+2One user, and the founder no less, is hardly evidence of the algorithm working the way it should.
  • fonik, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3Now everyone has an equal chance of pimping their inaccurate, grammatically incorrect fluff article to the front page solely to generate ad revenue!
  • nicky7, on 02/12/2008, -1/+3A Search for "Ron Paul" on Digg yields 2539 pages, 2258 of those are Buried Articles. 89% buried
    A Search for "Obama" on Digg yields 1422 pages, only 147 of those are Buried Articles. 10% buried
    This is why I left Digg and went to Reddit (well 90% of my Digging has moved to Reddit) While the torrent of the Paul/Obama articles is as annoying as spam, I don't consider it spam. And when tons of people are excitedly trying to shout his name at the top of the mountain, I'm not going to childishly bury every obama article just because he's getting a ton of submissions right now which is hard to wade through. It's right in the middle of his ***** campaign, of course there are going to be more articles.
  • jonester, on 02/12/2008, -1/+1Thats a good study............
  • frode!, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4Is there a way I can exclude stories submitted from a user defined list of names from appearing on my front page?

    This would allow people who really like what Zaibatsu, MakiMaki, etc submit to see their stories but let others who don't like their stories to never even see them.

    Personally I'm in the second group and digg is becoming a lot less interesting for me.
    • bullcutter, on 02/12/2008, -0/+2that's a really good idea actually.

      there should be such a filter anyway to block TRUTH ABOUT SCIENTOLOGY and other such spam submitters.
  • notque, on 02/12/2008, -0/+4Msaleem has 4 articles on the front page right now.
  • Yage2006, on 02/12/2008, -0/+1Dunno about how fair it is, But one big thing I have have noticed is there is half as many stories making it to the top page. I check digg once a day and there was always about 10 pages worth of new stories and now there is 4-5 every 24 hours.
  • bioskope, on 02/12/2008, -0/+3"32 diggs in an anemic 12 hours"

    WTF if one of my submissions had 32 diggs in 12 hours I'd throw a freakin party. Admittedly it would be a party for fellow masters students in Computer Science a.k.a nerds but still!!!!
  • techresearcher, on 02/13/2008, -0/+1Ok, so from reading this comment thread, this is what I learned:

    *Digg users should look in the Upcoming section more often to get the quality content
    *Fanboy diggs in a story should be left uncounted (this can be calculated using freind base and digging history)
    *If a digger does not even view the story/vid/img that he/she diggs, the vote shouldnt count.
  • EjderAlp, on 02/17/2008, -0/+1waaovv very good by http://www.kaiserdealxa.com
  • merol77, on 03/08/2008, -0/+0I used to be logged into Digg all day at work, but now find that i can check it once a day and check out the top rated for the 24 and not miss anything important, Digg is getting stale.ttnet http://www.adslteknikservis.com
  • JameSEO, on 03/11/2008, -0/+1There's always algorithms waiting to be cracked/solved, just give this one time.
  •  

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