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How To Effectively Utilize Digg Shouts 101

pulse2.com — When Digg first introduced shouting capabilities, I ruled it out as a stupid feature because I thought it was nothing but e-mail spam. In many circumstances it is still spam, depending on the users that you allow shouts from. But now I have realized that shouts have value to them.

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  • irfanmp, on 06/28/2008, -5/+16Great tips. As long as we're on the topic, how about "Do not send shouts asking to BURY a story?" I haven't seen this as a prevalent trend, but I have gotten some shouts asking to bury an article...
  • techguru2006, on 06/28/2008, -3/+10That's a good idea. I haven't received any of those yet. Sending shouts to bury spam.
  • alapoet, on 06/28/2008, -6/+4Good solid advice.
  • stormdesign, on 06/28/2008, -4/+7i would only bury a crappy/stupid article
    i digg whatever sounds interesting. i dont mind shouts my way.... however sometimes its way too much... cant read the 40 shouts i receive everyday! :)
  • MissLilyBug, on 06/28/2008, -3/+7the thing I hate is when you have added a friend, they have not added you, but they shout to you, and expect you to digg them...and you can't even shout to them. That is my gripe!
  • kavutu, on 06/29/2008, -5/+2How do you tell who is digging your stuff?
  • ThinkBox, on 06/29/2008, -0/+23I have 65 friends.
    837 people have friended me.
    Most of them friend me so I will friend them back and then they will spam me with shouts.

    When someone adds me, I check their profile to see what stories we have both checked out.
    I have 0 in common and they have added 50 friends that same day.

    One of the biggest problems with Digg is that friends get a lot of friends and build spam networks - that is the only way stories get out of the 30s and 40's before actual people start to see them.

    The system is broken, the wisdom of the crowds works about as well as a 90 year-old's prostate.
    • arcticblue, on 06/29/2008, -0/+7I tend to stay in the upcoming sections more often nowadays since the stuff getting to the front page is dupes and *****. I go in to upcoming expecting to see dupes and more *****, but there are some excellent articles that float around that never make it to the front page that really deserve it. Yes, articles submitted by normal people (ie: people that don't send shout spam). Those articles make upcoming worth it, but it sucks that after their 24 hours of fame in the "Hot" column, they'll never be seen again.

      All digg needs to do to fix their system is make the upcoming sections more "in your face". Too few people go to upcoming and digg stuff and the algorithm requires an insane amount of diggs (more than you could get if you didn't shout every single person you've ever seen on digg) so that means the only submissions that make it to the front page are the ones that got spammed all to hell. If digg put another column on the front page of each section titled something like "Top 10 most recently submitted" and included just the titles to keep it out of the way of the real front page content, it would help out alot.
      • estvir, on 06/29/2008, -0/+7Digg seems to be going the opposite way. First they broke the various ways to view the upcoming stories in the cloud view (Such as by 'most popular') and now the cloud view is gone.

        I no longer browse upcoming stories outside of checking the top 10 because it's retarded to try and look at all the stories submitted without the cloud view especially so considering the majority of it is spam.

        Digg needs to focus on better content.
    • estvir, on 06/29/2008, -0/+4I have 648 friends and 1,304 have added me, it would be interesting to hear why they've added me 'cause for the most part it baffles me as I have no idea why they have and I completely ignore shouts. The people I add as friends are basically only ones who's comments I like (Even if I've seen a single once hence why I've added so many yet most of them I tend to never see again or do not notice) or people who I consider 'enemies' or arch-nemesises.

      Shouts are useless, stupid and an impedient towards unbiased Digging. I don't particularly care who submits a story, I'll Digg it based upon what it is.

      Digg should get rid of all this petty "Me too!" social web 2.0 rubbish and just focus on content. They should make stories anonymous till they hit the frontpage.
  • chatster, on 06/29/2008, -5/+2Great tips! For me, embracing comments is a good one to learn, and other helpful insights too... thanks!
  • M724, on 06/29/2008, -3/+3I got some shouts. Until now, I simply ignored them.
  • benologist, on 06/29/2008, -3/+17More spam ***** spreading advice on how to ruin digg. Digg would be a lot better if you all just ***** off.
    • SonicRush, on 06/29/2008, -1/+11No friggin kidding. Title should be "How To Effectively Game Digg 101"
      It's no wonder the front page gets less interesting every day and the comments are a cesspool of stupid jokes.
      • Konstantino, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1This is a feature build into Digg, no one is gaming the system here. It's extremely hard to get your stories to the home page solely by letting them go by in the upcoming stories. Almost every story would disappear within a few hours to page 4 or higher.
  • duckyinc, on 06/29/2008, -0/+17My tip.. just don't use shout
  • estvir, on 06/29/2008, -3/+8Buried as spam.
  • WallnutBoy, on 06/29/2008, -0/+9To fix Digg - Don't view the submitter's info until it gets FP'd.

    I hate this stupid popularity contest thing which is going on with Digg. Hiding Submitter info would stop the stupid Armies that some submitters have, and it would call for a much fairer system.
    Of course, the amount of dupes that would cause would be immense... I don't know how they could combat that without completely redesigning their dupe algorithms.

    And the 'Shout' feature needs to seriously be ditched. It's just ridiculous having hundreds of people adding me just because they want to spam me with their ***** stories.
    "Digg me I'll digg you." -_-
  • YoWhatDaFuxUp, on 06/29/2008, -1/+6Some Digg users revolted against MrBabyMan in the comments of the stories he submitted because they believed his submission of articles were influenced by money. I don’t know much about that, but TechBlorge has more details. MrBabyMan almost quit the site because of the revolt even though he used Digg for years.
    lol
    • MWeather, on 06/29/2008, -0/+1He didn't almost quit. His employers almost stopped paying him. There's a difference.
  • webresources, on 06/29/2008, -2/+2Very nice post. Getting a proper friends list takes really so much time. And I believe there should be, shouts & "special shouts" or "friend lists" & "shouts from friend lists" so we can put the shouts to an importance order.
  • ileftfark, on 06/29/2008, -0/+13Or... "How to Ensure Digg Will Continue to Frontpage Worthless Crap, With Even More Worthless Comments".

    User-generated content = good
    Content that is popular due to pandering = 99% *****

    I digg down every story shoutspammed to me on principle and digg up stories I find generally appealing with quality content. Take Digg back.
  • qbthemc, on 06/29/2008, -0/+4LMAO I guess I will be removing some people. First person is Kevin Rose.
  • MetalGear7, on 06/29/2008, -0/+6I never submit articles, i feel sorry for people that do your just gonna get pushed out of the line by the top 100 or bots
  • Angostura, on 06/29/2008, -0/+6What on *earth* is the point? Why should I *want* to effectively utilize shouts?

    Digg isn't meant to be a bloody beauty competition/popularity freek-show. It is meant to be a place where interesting stuff bubbles to the top based on ... wait for it ... the merit of the content. Madness, I know.
  • MWeather, on 06/29/2008, -0/+5Great advice on how to manipulate the system.
  • Atomic1fire, on 06/29/2008, -0/+2I dont add people to my friends list..
    If they want to befriend me, Fine but dont expect me to digg your stuff up just because you can click a button for popularity
    I have never gotten shout spam using this method because I only come to digg to digg the things Im interested, Not the things other people want dugg
    Do I get digg emails? yes but do I ever listen to them no
    being notified of someone adding me is about as effective as trying to give a job to someone on welfare who prefers living off the government
  • crapuccino, on 06/29/2008, -0/+3I got totally pissed of with people sending me links to their ***** blogspam crapula. I did get very irritated with one particular person and scribbled a load of trash comments all over their articles, then made a point of burying everything they posted for a while.
    The thing that really got me is that digg sent me an email every time somebody sent me a shout. It would be OK if it remained on digg because than I could simply ignore it, but if you invade my mailbox I get pissed.
    I eventually turned the whole shouts/friends thing off. The spam problem far outweighs it's usefulness.
  • bara3190, on 06/29/2008, -0/+1I like your article and thought the topic very informative as I traipse through learning the do's and don't of Digg, what works and doesn't. It’s makes sense if you shout and add a friend that it should be reciprocated in a timely manner.
  • gskill, on 06/29/2008, -0/+2Good tips for anyone who doesn't know.
  • blonde20, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Great tips!!
  • MommaLu, on 07/25/2008, -0/+1Those are great tips, I'm just learning how to use shouts and this article was very informative.
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