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AOL busted for spamming DIGG

diggforlife.blogspot.com — AOL has now been publicly called out for spamming on Digg. It was discussed in a Digg topic yesterday. Despite Calacanis' efforts, the anti-AOL commenter still got +28 diggs. Let's force this to the main page so Digg can take action. They do the exact thing on Digg that gets people banned from Netscape. (Contains list of 25+ spam accounts).

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  • khag7, on 10/15/2007, -41/+481this is a comment on digg about a digg submission which links to a digg blog with an article about comments left on digg...

    you guys are way too into this whole digg thing
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -30/+213Digg rules, and we hate to see people wreck it with their own agenda. That's all.

      And it's not really a "digg blog", just some free web hosting to get the word out.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -16/+42Look at the hypocrisy here:

      http://www.calacanis.com/2006/08/09/gaming-on-netscape/#comments
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -23/+50Ok this has jus killed any respect I have for AOL and any thing related to it, I feel dirty for using AIM now.
    • JimV, on 10/12/2007, -35/+122This is such a non-issue it pains me. Any group of friends/co-workers could do the same damn thing that these guys are doing. That they happen to work for AOL is irrelevant. They could work for any company and do the same thing.

      It's not "AOL" that's spamming Digg, it's a group of buddies who happen to work for AOL.

      I guess it's cool to put something negative about AOL in your blog so you get more traffic/Diggs.

      Move along.
    • cwill341, on 10/12/2007, -8/+156You had respect for AOL????
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -39/+7@ cwill341 yes, very little, only because of that 5 GB online storage thing.
    • MobbyG, on 10/12/2007, -34/+20I digg it. Get it?

      But what else is new? AOL is known for spamming! Isn't AOL where it all started?
    • exsst, on 10/12/2007, -11/+43I'm not sure about my fellow digg'ers, but I totally digg this story, and I digg that digg has come out and sorted out those fake digg users digging their own fake digg articles.

      Diggity.
    • bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -18/+24If it's like the Libertarians, they formed a mailing list to blind digg six articles at a time. They really don't care if the articles are interesting or even relevant.

      http://bigdavediode.googlepages.com/diggfixexposed

      And if you criticize this, they take over the thread, argue that "this is what digg is for", and mod any and all posts you make into oblivion.

      Expect much, much more of these little ideological spam groups in a future.

      And yes, it wrecks digg.
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13http://tech.netscape.com/story/2006/08/15/aol-busted-for-spamming-digg/ Lets see it hit the front page on Netscrape.
    • dnthomps, on 10/12/2007, -7/+22That is cool that people are acting on this. I have been emailing Digg almost daily with bad accounts.

      Check out this guy
      http://digg.com/users/webtickle/dugg/page34

      Webtickle has Dugg over 544 stories in 24 hours. This has been going on for over a week. There are more accounts like this. Has to be automated. The account will digg from dusk til dawn. Digg emailed me back saying they would look into this but they keep diggin.

      This is a problem for digg. Even if a story is getting just 1 fake digg, it is still a fake digg and does not represent how many people actually though this was an interesting post.

      I do not think that this is related to Netscape, but I do think Digg has A LOT of abuse to look into.
    • apzdsx, on 10/12/2007, -9/+11Libertarians, Michelle Malkin, and now AOL.

      Btw the digg staff doesn't give a crap.
    • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8dave go whine somewhere else...every single time you comment you post a link to your stupid blog..and you accuse others of spamming WTF?
    • LegendarySock, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Calacanis is a weed in society
    • bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -14/+11Petrarch:

      >dave go whine somewhere else...every single time you comment you post a link to your stupid blog..and you accuse others of spamming WTF?

      Maybe you should get your cult-like friends to not bury it each time, and I wouldn't have to repost it. I want people to know what you do. I want the word to get out. I want people to see the archives of your posts, and see what kind of people you are. Before I thought the Libertarians were just nutty. Now based on what I've read from your posts, I think you guys are incredibly dangerous.

      I want people to make their own decisions. Smart move removing the archive of the L-diggers mailing list, by the way.


    • scott1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Btw the digg staff doesn't give a crap."
      They might but they might not tell anyone about it and I think they do make a investgation and not tell anyone.

      I don't see Kevin Rose making a post in digg the blog for every users that gets banned.

      BTW they did have problmes like this before:
      http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/digging-fraud.html
    • dubiousalibi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19C'mon guys, wake up and shake off that naiveity.

      I hate to say this, but the more popular and influencial digg becomes, the more susceptible it will be to external manipulation and corruption. From Friendster to Google, as soon as anything gets traction, markets will look for a way to engineer it's power for personal benefit operating under the guise of community particpation. Seeded forums, search engine optimisation and click fraud are just a few classic examples. It's not hard for any company with the will, to be able to "force" a mildly interesting puff piece on to the front page should they have the desire. It'll happen more and more.

      I'm sure the digg team are well aware of these issues and are looking at ways to disrupt this kind of 'inside trading'. Ultimately they'll need to in order to maintain their well earned creditabilty.
    • bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7dubious:

      >I hate to say this, but the more popular and influencial digg becomes, the more susceptible it will be to external manipulation and corruption. From Friendster to Google, as soon as anything gets traction, markets will look for a way to engineer it's power for personal benefit operating under the guise of community particpation. Seeded forums, search engine optimisation and click fraud are just a few classic examples.

      I 100% agree with you on this one. If you make a fair game, the first thing that the scumbags of the world do is try to figure out a way to rig it. I think that Digg should look at something like figuring out if the same group of people keep blindly digging the same submitter's stories. That is, if the story has 1) not hit the front page, and 2) guys like Rhiannon, SWCarson (Stephen Carson) and so on just start digging it immediately.

      If whatever group it is diggs the same submitters' stories over and over, eventually it should be an automatic ban, as the fix is in. I realize that this isn't perfect, but it would reduce the tendency for these amoral people to blindly digg six stories at a time in their endless agenda pushing.
    • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5Dave, accept the fact that some people have different viewpoints than you. If you can't do that, at least don't try to stop them from expressing their views. You point out all these so called problems with Digg, yet what is your solution?
    • bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -9/+10Petrarch:

      >Dave, accept the fact that some people have different viewpoints than you. If you can't do that, at least don't try to stop them from expressing their views. You point out all these so called problems with Digg, yet what is your solution?

      I just gave my solution. Here, I'll give it again.

      First, examine guys like you to see if you are digging up stories within minutes of them being posted. Secondly, (before a story hits the front page) check guys like you to see if they keep digging up the same submitters' stories. These are always the same groups.

      If guys like you consistently do this, either disregard all your diggs forever, or just ban you. This prevents Digg from becoming a walking billboard for every nutty group who wants to pump an ideology or other spam.
    • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -11/+8I dont think its a good idea to ban users who have different viewpoints than you.
    • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5Dave: your solution is to ban users who have different viewpoints than you and that's no solution at all
    • fohat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10@ petrarch
      methinks thou dost protest too much... You just said the same thing 3 times in 10 minutes...
    • bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10Petrarch:

      >I dont think its a good idea to ban users who have different viewpoints than you.

      That's a load of crap and you know it. The AOL spammers that are currently doing this are not being opposed just because people (rightly) hate AOL. We want to preserve Digg, keep it from becoming the sandwich board that you guys so desperately want to turn it in to.

      It's not a billboard, and it's not your advertising medium. And it's not a conspiracy of people who hate AOL or Libertarians or any other fruitcake oraganization -- WE HATE SPAM.

      And your Orwellian (and lame) tactics of trying to pretend that people oppose you, or AOL because it's some sort of disagreement about beliefs, and other Orwellian tactics like that, is one of the reasons why I now believe that Libertarianism is extremely dangerous.

      But this is about wrecking Digg. And unless you have the ability to apply whatever sleep deprivation they applied to you across the Internet, it will always be about small groups of people like yours or the AOL guys trying to wreck something that's pretty darn good.
    • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Dave there is a topic for users to post to for political ideas, posting political links in this topic is not spam.
    • bigdavediode, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8Petrarch:

      >Dave there is a topic for users to post to for political ideas, posting political links in this topic is not spam.

      Yes, it is, when even you guys don't read the articles that you're spamming. (And you guys don't and I can prove it.) That's just spam.
    • Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2diggers arent reading the articles? i am speechless
    • chaokwan, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1It's amazing how many diggs this story got, when the allegation in the post is baseless. There is no evidential proof in the blog linked. It's natural for friends to digg the same stories. I just want to highlight that the title of this story is misleading and wastes time of diggers to look into it. It probably got so much traffic because it's now the in-thing to hate AOL and Calacanis. But Digg is not the place for ***** like this.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10You must be blind. Either that or you can't read. Why would these supposed "friends" ONLY submit Weblogs Inc stories and continually Digg each other's posts? Are you really that thick? Use your brain for a minute and stop trying to be the devil's advocate.

      Haven't you seen the other comments by WIN bloggers here? No one is denying that they do this. They think what they are doing is a-ok.
    • talledega500, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2this is a little exaggerated. Isnt the whole point of DIGG to democratically remove the bias by letting everyone contribute?

      How are 12 people going to matter? If AOL had an entire call-center going out no SPAM missions that would be one thing but cmon this is nothing,.
    • FinishdLawSkool, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1But the basic premise remains ***** AOL and to a lesser degree ***** Netscape...

      And then there are the other usual suspects as well:
      ***** RIAA
      ***** MPAA
      ***** terrorists
    • frank3000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1who the hell let jason calacanis have a digg account??
      http://digg.com/users/jdawg/profile
    • chaokwan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3netscapeblows. I have not investigated whether these guys are spamming or not. I just don't think you have made out your argument that they are spamming in your link. What is spamming? Is Digging not allowed for AOL staffers? How is submitting a story and having it Dugg by your friends (numbering 14 in all - assuming that they are even friends), spamming? What you have caught with your submission is a wave of anti-AOL / Calacanis sentiment. Nothing more. If you want to AOL/Calacanis bash, Digg is not the forum for that. Digg is a great idea, and can hold its own even if the 14 "busted" BY YOU are really acting in collusion. But you have not proven that they are friends or that they are AOL staffers.
    • Smoove, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3@bigdavediode

      You're still on a rampage, I see. If it's true that gay-bashers are overcompensating for their own homosexual feelings, then perhaps something similar is true in your case. Your level of hysteria suggests that you're conflicted by deep libertarian feelings that leave you terrified.
    • Cameleopard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I lean heavily toward Libertarianism and have even liked some of the lewrockwell (not so much mises) articles posted, but I agree with bigdavediode that the mass, organized submission and promotion of articles of any sort is despicable. Such people are attempting to manufacture the apparence of interest and legitimacy. If a group of people started submitting and digging phentermine, viagra and cialis links would we call it anything but spam?
    • Smoove, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"I agree with bigdavediode that the mass, organized submission and promotion of articles of any sort is despicable."

      I use my friends list to find interesting articles. At the moment I have 81 friends, and 37 people have befriended me. When I see an interesting article, I dig it. That includes current events and op-ed stuff that I find interesting and thought-provoking---including liberals bashing conservatives, conservatives bashing liberals, and libertarians bashing everyone. Also technical articles on biotechnology, Apple, Linux and Mathematics. If the article has already hit the front page, I usually don't bother to dig it, and as a result I don't usually end up digging tech articles--they hit the front page by the time I see them.

      Oh, and I just about always mod down anything anti-Israeli or that smells the leasst bit anti-semitic to me. I also mod down conservative rants such as Coulter's and Malkin's.

      Anyway, using friends to find interesting material, and expressing your interest one way or the other, is called "social content" generation. "Social content" is the very premise behind Digg, and that's what you're calling "despicable." If I understand you correctly, you're calling Digg itself "despicable."

      If you feel that way, why don't you go back to Slashdot?
    • mcduckov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Back to slashdot? Just the thought makes me feel dirty.

      All of this becomes much lass of an issue if you read digg at the "top weekly" or "top" monthly" level. A few nuts on IRC or a mailing list or what ever can get a temporary bump to the "front page" but to get to the "top weekly" list it usually has to be good stuff.

      You just have to read strategically. By the way, the "top weekly" "top monthly" was something I recommended a long time ago (when digg was still just one front page with "scrolling" articles).
    • infobeat234, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good to see Rose keeps a level head about this stuff.

      One has to wonder: how many diggers on this post sent it to their friends, coworkers and families in an effort to ask/lobby them to digg it? Or worse: how many have multiple accounts and dugg it more than once themselves?

      Can we stop inaccurately sensationalizing it now?
      http://qqbq.info/sitemap.htm
  • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -64/+3oops, duped my comment
    • Schug, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21Is anyone gonna submit this to Netscape?
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9http://tech.netscape.com/story/2006/08/15/aol-busted-for-spamming-digg/
    • oddmanout, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17i "dugg" it. it also says "The validity of this story is under dispute." haha... apparently they claim its not true.
    • scott1, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Here's there anchor cmmentory(THANK GOD DIGG DOESN'T HAVE THIS) there are some key points in it that can give a sign of this really happing:
      "Anchor C.K.: OpEd: I'm not going to comment much on this, but it warrants some comment here."
      Sounds like there not going to do anything untill Jason says what to do. Company's usually say somthing like:
      " does not comment on specultion of illegeal coporte activity's"

      "First, consider the source of this story: a blog called Digg For Life that has clearly been launched solely as an anti-Netscape blog."
      Ture I agree but he does give some eveidence so it has to be considerd to be vaild.

      "Secondly, AOL was not "busted" for anything. This blogger decided to look at all the people who voted on some stories and jumps to several far-fetched conclusions."
      Well there is strong eveindence that they seem to be connected. How would you explain all of there stories dugg are from weblogs.inc?

      "Thirdly, group spamming behaviour is discouraged at Netscape. Natural community group voting that originates from people with shared interests who vote if they are interested in the story is okay."
      Agreed but there somthing strange here...

      "Finally, the example used in the blog post has 14 votes. That sounds like a group of similarly-minded people with similar ideas. Nothing about it makes me think that those 14 votes mean that the 200+ Weblogs, Inc bloggers are group voting on stories"
      ...So your saying that it was ok to be digging the same story because it said in NETSCAPE's POLICY!
    • SilentBobSC, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Big Brother already got his hands in it, they've retitled the "scape" to: Digg For Life Blog accuses Weblogs, Inc bloggers of gaming Digg

      ... as well as having a nice "Anchor Commentary" posted... so much for controlled by the users... LMAO Calacanis is a tool of his own making.
  • vdxc, on 09/29/2008, -3/+26what goes around comes around I guess. i agree people should not do this to netscape, as much as a dislike the site, and in return I don't expect to see the same on digg.

    what makes it worse is that it is aol staff doing the digging, the problem is the new digg friends system makes it easy for people to do this.
  • linkinpark342, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16This is just plain rude on Netscape/whoever-it-was-in-that-company-that-came-up-with-this-scheme's part. We have done nothing, they copy the website model, and then commece to spam us; it's so underhanded... Someone _must_ slap whichever smacktard came up with this idea.

    edit: @mporcheron, wait what'd we do to deserve this?
    • ilyag, on 10/12/2007, -16/+29I, a comitted Digg user with no interest in Netscape, am voting this as "lame" for the simple fact that I don't understand what the hell this guy is trying to say, but from what I did understand, he's just whining about stuff that's not news-worthy in the slightest, especially for Digg front page.

      Boo-hoo, some guy who runs Netscape.com a hypocrite! Boo-hoo! WHO CARES!
    • vdxc, on 09/29/2008, -3/+4what i tried to say/mean is that, no site deserves to be vandalised. while it was amusing to see the creaters of javascript feel the wrath of their creation (and they were informed but didn't do anything about it) I don't believe it was or is fair to damange sites or their reputation.

      if netscape wants digg to play fair then they should really do the same, by what goes around comes around, I mean basically because of the damage diggers did to netscape, netscape is now doing it back in another form. i don't agree with either side doing it; although I am an avid digg supporter and don't really like netscape all that much.
    • JimV, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7@ilyag

      Agreed.

      Who cares what Netscape does? Digg is more popular and will continue to be more popular. Quit with the little kid whiney shizit.
    • fredsterss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3check out the aol employees above ^^^^^

      "i agree, its not lame" "i want to suck some corporate ass to try and revive my whacked out company"
    • JimV, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Ha ha...me, an AOL employee...ha ha ha.

      You're funny.
    • brad3378, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1>they copy the website model,

      Not so fast..... Digg me down for the truth if you want, but both Netscape & Digg are clones of what http://www.Slashdot.org has been doing for years. The main difference is that Slashdot specializes in nerd news.
  • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -12/+12They are probably going to try to report this story as lame etc, so if it doesn't make front page with 40 diggs or so we need to email the digg staff and tell them someone has maliciously dugg-down this story.
    • slapshot24, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Or people who are in no way associated think that it's lame and have lives outside of Myspace/Digg/Slashdot and think that this whole "they started it" nonsense is a little absurd.

      That said, you're on the homepage. Feel vindicated now?
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5Will feel vindicated when Digg implements new rules to prevent this.
  • MixedSpleens, on 10/12/2007, -12/+11I honestly think the evidence of this is circumstantial at best, about as solid as the Kevin Rose being a bot snafu. I'm sure that if there is any true foul play going on the friendly digg staff will get to the bottom of it. I am not trying to defend AOL/Netscape, I just think that becoming so self referential in our "news" content (ie the blogpost about a comment thread argument) will do more harm then you can imagine to the reputation of the site, driving people away.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -14/+31Go through each user profile that's listed and look at the stories they've submitted. They're almost ALL weblogs inc sites. And they all just magically digg each other's stories within minutes of each other? Puh-lease!

      There's really nothing circumstantial about it.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -11/+14And why is it that one of their stories gets 20 diggs in an hour when an identical story by someone else gets 3 diggs?

      I'll tell you why -- they like forcing their content on the Digg community, even if we don't give a damn about it.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -13/+23just look at my "friends" list. i added all the staffers so i could track them

      http://digg.com/users/netscapeblows/friends/list

      look at the stuff they digg. it's all the same AOL/WIN garbage.
    • JimV, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16@NetscapeBlows

      I wonder if you looked, how many stories that make the frontpage have had the same thing done to them, just by other groups? I'll bet it happens all the time...especially with some of the lame crap that makes the front page some time.
    • slapshot24, on 10/12/2007, -7/+30@netscapeblows

      You've put like 50 comments in this story. Go outside, get a breath of fresh air, and maybe talk to somebody in real life. Calm down. The world is not ending. AOL/Netscape/CNN/CBS/TimeWarner is not going to destroy Digg in the time that it takes to get outside and do something else for a few minutes to get perspective.

      I know that you think that this is Really Important, but stop commenting on your own story.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -12/+3JimV: Then there needs to be rules against ANYONE doing this. Netscape has rules against it. So should we.
    • slapshot24, on 10/12/2007, -13/+3Dangit, wrong link again -- digg this down.
    • nstern2, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14A little off topic but if you block netscapeblows the number of comments goes down about 30.
    • scott1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3@slapshot24
      netscapeblows is going to need to explain alot of things and answear alot questions. If doesn't no one would belevie him.

      He needs to give a lot of eviendnce if anything is going to happen and right now while it hasn't been burried(AOL staffers are going to mark it as inaccurate even if it is ture...) is the time to do give eviendnce.
    • SilentBobSC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@netscapeblows:

      "Then there needs to be rules against ANYONE doing this. Netscape has rules against it. So should we."

      "we"? You've only been with "us" for 6 days.
  • rtoo, on 10/12/2007, -8/+43AOL is drowning and gasping for air. Just die already, nobody likes you.
  • lostboy, on 10/12/2007, -14/+30So, what exactly is wrong with this. it's all very theatrical, but it means nothing at all. So what if people have been bumping their friends stories, what the ***** do you think happens every day on digg, where a good percentage of the stories submitted is submitted by a small percentage of the readership.

    time for less digg lovin' and a a bit more digg criticism. If this is currently possible, it's because there is a fundamental flaw in the way digg operates. Don't diss netscape, fix digg.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7The difference is that those top digg submitters genuinely want to post good content, and people trust their judgement.

      In the case of AOL, they just want to get more traffic to their sites to make more money. As stated, they don't care if someone has already submitted a similar or better story 1 hour earlier. All they care about is their own objectives.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6ahahha. i have all the AOL bloggers on my "friends list."

      I see AOL blogger "swirlee" has just dugg lostboy's comment. how fitting....
    • xorvious, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Friends are one thing, all the employees in an office is something different. When a corporation starts to influence something that is supposed to be a publicly social newsite, then they are screwing things up, since when did a mega-corp actually care about an individual other than as a statistic? You like advertising spam in your forum threads? Its not about the news anymore then, its about an agenda, and it sure as hell isn't in a digger's best interests.
    • Avalontor, on 10/12/2007, -11/+5@Netscapeblows

      Wow, you have a problem. Why don't you look at how digg is meant to work. It is working as intended. Since when do YOU judge what is on the front page and what isn't?

    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -7/+8Avalontor:

      When Story A from JoeBlow gets 5 diggs, then one hour later Story B about the exact same thing gets 30 diggs from AOL, that tells me what deserves front page, and what does not.
    • TheCount, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Netscapeblows has a point here.

      Imagine a corp hired millions of people to vote a certain way for a certain president, or some other official. Would you still think there was nothing wrong with that, even though all the employees voted of their own "free-will"?

      What they are doing isn't wrong, per say, but they are most definitely working the system. It is completely within reason then (if you let this pass without complaint) that some other company could have all their employees digg up articles from their site as part of a standard promotion plan. Is that what you really want to see?
    • Nation, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1xorvious, so you want to ban all groups of people in the real world from being on digg or do you just want to censor the "rights" of those you don't like, don't agree with, or down right hate?
    • Nation, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2netscapeblows, what you don't understand is that ... that is how the digg system is designed.

      If Person A has nobody monitoring his submissions (no friends) and Person B has 5,000,000 friends ... then if they submit the same story at the same time then Person B will always receive a lot more diggs.

      I believe your issue is two fold:
      1. too much hate - You hate AOL
      2. you have no real world friends

      Now #2 might be an overkill, but think of it this way. You get your 30 friends involved in digg. They all mark you as a friend on digg. Thy might not look for great articles to submit like you do, but each time that you submit one they digg it. How is that different from a group of employees doing it? The relationship between the individuals? Ok, so because they work for a company they should not be allowed to digg or should they not be allowed to digg the submissions of their friends?
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The whole friends system should not exist. It just allows power to be horded
    • Nation, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2look, even if the friends system was not there ... this same thing would go on. People know people ... I can see what anyone has submitted.

      If I want to find good articles, I look for people who either submit or digg good articles. Then I go though those.

      Now I don't personally do that, what I do is to use an RSS reader to keep up with front page stories. Those are the only stories I ever see. It saves me time, but also keeps me relatively informed. If I wanted more info I would find one or more people and watch what they submit. The next level would be following all the submissions. (I am sure there are steps in-between).

      Your arguments are both short sided and fall through when you really think about normal human interaction. Add in a little hatred for a company and you end up with stupid paranoid posts and spamming digg like this one guy did:
      http://digg.com/tech_news/A_small_group_of_users_may_be_controlling_parts_of_Digg
      http://digg.com/tech_news/How_Michelle_Malkin_s_followers_are_promoting_Digg_articles
  • totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Netscape is still around? Is Marc Andreessen still there?
    • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Uh... No. Andreeson left a long time ago and works at LoudCloud (I think that's the name).

      Netscape doesn't exist as an entity anymore and hasn't for a long time. AOL simply took the AOL trademark and slapped it on a half-assed portal website and then slapped it on a branch of the Mozilla browser with a crappy skin/theme. That seems to be the extent that they've done anything with "Netscape".

      Although they have taken some of the Netscape server products and moved those into the AOL brand (Netscape Directory Server, Messaging Server, etc -- which I believe all became AOL server products).

      I know plenty of managers and employees at AOL and I don't have anything against the people there. I would probably never take a job there (which is why I don't care about talking about my bad experiences as a webmaster dealing with their users and policies), but . . . man. They really make life frustrating. Even if you aren't a customer you are forced to deal with them.
  • bUND, on 10/12/2007, -20/+5
    BITCHES GOT PWN3D !!!!!!11
  • DTJunkie07, on 10/12/2007, -14/+7AOL needs to go ***** off and die........as a company that is.....they should just go bankrupt
  • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6It doesn't matter. AOL doesn't care, anyway.

    I run a site with about 40,000 registered users and many more visitors and an AOL user kept creating dozens and dozens of AOL accounts and spamming, harassing, threatening and generally disrupting my website. Their users names were threatening (things like "killseumas" and "dieseumas". Also postest racist, disgusting things on my site. Also created user names bragging about how he was glad that one of my members' wife was sick and "dying" (she wasn't, but that doesn't excuse a username that hopes a real person is going to die).

    Since a lot of these accounts and comments were directly threatening of my own life and my users', I reported it to AOL. Several times. They never so much as acknowledged the situation. It's strange, because they were breaking about a dozen items in AOL's TOS. Imagine if this person actually did something and it turned out that they had been reported to AOL a number of times, but AOL did nothing but ignore it and continue to allow the person to generate countless more false threatening accounts and disrupting someone's website?
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -14/+6Well ***** AOL. The difference here is Digg can ban all of AOL's sites for 14 days like AOL does to spammers on Netscrape.
    • bUND, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4It was probably some Russian port-monkey fag with an affiliate account.

      notice any new members with email addresses that end in .RU ?
      or "cashette.com" ?

      Ban the spammers. If you can't ban their IP address then write a small script banning all countries but the US from accessing your site.
    • Tetraca, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Monopolies don't care about average people. As long as they get money from computer illiterates for their crappy, adware infested browser, spam infested mail, and poor website they don't care what their users post on your site.
    • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4That isn't really a workable solution when a significant number of members are from outside the US. All AOL needs to know is that users with threatening screennames are coming through their proxy servers on AOL accounts and doing illegal things. I can't go around banning entire AOL proxies when a huge portion of members are throuugh AOL and neither can Digg. So one jack off in Chicago is going to cause the entire city to be *****?

      And while it's nice to think you can just say "screw people if they're dumb enough to stick with AOL!" . . . until those AOL people just find a competitor that doesn't ban them for simply being AOL members.
    • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1"Monopolies don't care about average people. As long as they get money from computer illiterates for their crappy, adware infested browser, spam infested mail, and poor website they don't care what their users post on your site."

      They typically care when they are providing the means for someone to break the law and harass people and, knowing about the situation, continue to enable the means for the persons to keep doing it. Imagine if some hoser was picking up on teenage girls via AOL and AOL was warned about it, given specific information and evidence of it, they ignored it and some kid was raped and killed by the freak later on, via AOL? Big liability.

      I haven't seen this person around for a few weeks now (after several MONTHS of harassment that was destroying the community and driving people away), but since AOL never so much as acknowledged my complaint to their security department (both external and internal), I have no way of knowing if it's because of actions they took or if the person finally grew up and moved on. Hell, I have people still harassing me and disrupting my site simply because I banned them for their bad behavior or fraudulent actions YEARS ago.. and they're still doing it to this day because they are so upset at having been kicked off!

      I am always happy to praise companies when they do the right thing, so it's not just a matter of AOL-bashing. If they offered a simple way to deal with reports like this and interacted with those complaining so something actually was resolved, I'd be talking them up right now, instead of talking them down.

      Of course, as a former Netscape employee (before AOL came in), I do have a tiny bias that will always hang over my head simply because of the craptastic failure they've turned Netscape into (or rather, the AOL crap they've simply slapped the Netscape trademark on).
  • danlovejoy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7How is this different than people mindlessly digging up their friends' stories without reading them or giving them serious consideration? Motive, yes, but the negative affect on the quality of stories is the same.

    The "friends" system is the root of this problem. It has replaced a meritocracy of stories with a good-old-boy network. Anyone that can gather or buy such a network can get their stories to the front page, desevedly or not.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5Well that may be a problem too, but at least it's not a corporation doing it to make money and screw over everyone else.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4from digg for life:

      Is there a solution to this? One option would be to prevent people from submitting their own content to Digg, though this might be a little extreme. Another option would be to remove the ability to subscribe to someone's RSS feed unless they are a top Digger. Digg could also remove the 'Friends' feature. Unfortunately, this wouldn't stop people from setting up mailing lists and so on.

      The only solution I can think of is to temporarily ban any site or network that is found to be conducting systematic Digg spam. Perhaps starting with a 14 day ban, and going up from there. The point is they need to be called out and asked to STOP.

      In fact, Netscape has a policy on this. Let's hold them to their own rules:

      "If sites are reported by users or our anti-spamming algorithms for spamming the system with stories, we place a 14 day ban on the site while we investigate and as a warning to the possible spammers. If there is a repeat second offense the ban will be reinitiated and extended for 90 days. If the site has been reported and temporarily banned multiple times and shows evidence of actual spamming tactics, Netscape will ban the URL permanently."
    • danlovejoy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6"Well that may be a problem too, but at least it's not a corporation doing it to make money and screw over everyone else."
      Who cares if it's a corporation? What difference does it make? Corporations are made up of people just like you and me.

      Whether the remuneration is something as crude as money or the intangible warm-fuzzies one gets from being dugg to the front page, the effect is the same. No one is trying to "screw over" anyone. They're just trying to attract eyeballs in a way that the community disapproves of. If it's bad for AOL to do it, it's bad for everyone.

      Digg stories should reach the front page on their own merit, not on the friends list of the person who posted them.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3danlovejoy: Agreed. No one should be able to do this for any reason.
    • diggnate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In stead of relying on the owners/operators of digg to police this kind of activity by creating new policies, why don't we use the "power of the people" policy?

      Netscape is the kind of site that would see a problem, then quickly come up with a rule to fix the problem....problem solved, right? Not exactly. Eventually, there just gets to be too many rules.

      So, being as digg is a place with only 1 major rule (the people rule), let's use that to our advantage.

      If we see activity like this, let's mob together (much like the spammers did) and bury their stories. Someone could even create a blog that is dedicated to just listing the stories under suspicion. Or, keep a list of digg users that are suspected spammers, and every time one of them submits a story, bury it.

      We have the same, if not more, power than they do. Why not use it?
  • isewise, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3MJBurnsy is actually a friend of mine. He writes for the blog:

    http://www.hdbeat.com

    Hdbeat is owned by AOL. I wonder if the AOL tells the bloggers to digg each others stories?
  • uglybob17, on 10/12/2007, -12/+7AOL about a cool as that guy who died of a perforated colon after taking it in the ass from a horse.
  • NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Caught the Drooling Retard with "it's" hand in the Digg Jar ehh

    Goes to show that AOL probably hires more retards then they have old ladies using their worthless service.

    Go 56K and continue charging dead people to subscribe

    Ohh this must go underneath the department of "Customer Retention"

    Good job guys for catching this one. If only this company could be thrown into the sun with the help of Superman

    PLEEEEAAAASSSSEEEE mess with Digg
    hehehehe

    Looking forward to seeing this Dugg down within the hour
  • gonknet, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Maybe there could be some kind of formula alteration? Like multiple "groups" of unconnected friends need to dig for it to get to the front page? We could use collections of friends to determine whether a submitted story is widely interesting/appealing to the digg readership.
  • spanner, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2As a frequent viewer on the upcoming stories section, I see this and posters spamming their own sites quite frequently. That and blog spamming with pathetic content.

    We need some sort of tool, an "alert" to admin that such events are happening. Either that or a dedicated Bury tool for obvious board spammers. The spam tool isn't really an accurate description. How about "Site spam"?

    People trying to drive traffic to their site merely for financial gain deserve to be ejected, such parasites ruin the net for us all.
    • Dweller99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I hope someone is paying attention. I know of at least 3 groups that spam Digg then team up to digg up the submissions.

  • NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2P.S.
    Nothing against Retards
    i hold them in higher regard then AOL

    Sorry for the Stereotype handicaps of the world
  • xswag, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6This submission is just more spam for a stupid blog "diggforlife".
    http://digg.com/userblock/544265

    AOL Sux even worse than that blog with 2 posts.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4xswag: it's not anyone's blog you moron, it's just some free web hosting since there's no way to do posts directly to digg. Do you see any ads on that site? no. idiot....
    • slapshot24, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3> no. idiot....

      Dude, now I see you as the next coming of Napolean Dynamite.

      Breath of fresh air. Go learn some skills or something. Chicks dig guys with good skills.
  • ralphie81, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4First their crappy customer service (http://media.putfile.com/AOL-Cancellation) and now this. Run away, yellow man, run away!
  • thedove, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8the sad part is...AOL is probably loving this. big press for a pretty inconsequential thing

    but it's good this is out in the open. the whole weblogs, inc. thing is so corrupt with their linking. at the VERY LAST possible moment they'll link the original source. shady business tactics and obviously epidemic b/c it's creeped into netscape now with trying to steal digg submitters
  • JohnnyRad, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5my question is: who cares about this? i'm seeing a link to your blog, are you trying to drive hits? don't get me wrong aol and those people are lame but i know they're not the only people bumping diggs to push stories that link to their blog or site.
    • xswag, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8That is exactly what this is about. Trying to get visits to some useless blog with 2 entries.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3xswag: Actually, no. Why would someone drive traffic to a blog that is about a single story. It's just a free/easy place to put the article you moron.
    • TheJosher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3netscapeblows: Uhhh... check your sarcasm detector, it seems to be busted.
  • jeffness, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11as an indepentant third party who isn't taking any sides, because frankly my priorities lie well above taking sides in an online "the blog/link aggregator i visit is better than the blog/link aggregator you visit".. I still find the dynamic interesting.

    Here we have one group of users, probably real people, probably real acquaintances, non bots.. All they're doing is Digg-ing each others content..

    I must say that, you know, I'm not really sure it's "Spam", per se. It could be a group of friends who digg each others stuff.. Is that really against the Digg ethos?

    I'm sure there are other, more prominent, power bloc's in Digg that have yet to be discovered. These guys just happen to be working together to try and get their voice herd above the rest of the flotsam that floats around on Digg. I think the evil is being exaggerated by the anti-AOL/netscape sentiment, honestly.

    If you had some sort of concerted sinister effort of bots undermining the system, then you've got a good case for attacking them.. but as it is, i'm not sure.

    The question on whether or not that is a bad/evil/naughty thing is left to the community that crucifies them, of course, whether legitimately or not.. but I have to say that any community where you have more than a few people naturally develops bloc's that balance and counter balance each other. It's part of the laissez faire philosophy of economics.
  • bUND, on 10/12/2007, -7/+6Netscape still exists ????

    I thought the Netscape brower I used back in 1998 had gone the way of the DoDo bird....


  • 22pages, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1OMG how low can AOL sink? Maybe their next merger will be with an outsourced click fraud provider (we'll pay you to click on other people's ads, welcome to web $2.00).

    I'm sure those same 14 jergoffs go arround modding up pro NS posts and modding down anti NS comments.
  • heptahedron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I wonder if digg needs a modulator function that multiplies each digg point by a user-specific karma-like (0 < C < 1) modulator coefficient. The value of C would decline in proportion to the number of userblocks a person has. The value of C might increase with the number of dugg comments/stories one has or with the number of friends (assuming those friends have a high C, too). Trolls and spammers (even if organized in a gang) would lose effectiveness as their diggs and buries would not count as full votes. I might also make C a function of the number of buries versus diggs to reduce both excessive demotion of stories. People who dole out hundreds of buries for every digg are probably trolls.

    Digg needs some automated mechanism for modulating the impact of vociferous abusive users -- some mechanism for muting loud trolls.

    Any thoughts?
    • jeffness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I like this idea and I suggested it to Slashdot years ago in an email. They never implemented it, but modulation is a GREAT idea. I think Digg has a better chance at implementing such a system just because they have more ratings built into the site from the start.

      personally, though, I would like to see more weight to the people who digg LESS.. In theory, the people who digg fewer times have more "quality" diggs than the people who digg alot. I only digg one story every 2 or 3 weeks... I have a high bar..

      I don't think the difference should be huge at all, perhaps threshold would be 0.8 to 1.2 or something like that.. But it would give more wait to "Quality" diggs and less to massive amounts of digging.
    • jeffness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Also, one reason why a system based on down-mods of comments might actually be bad is the significant amount of anti-digging that goes on against people who don't share the same view point.

      Disagreeing with someone often gets you down-modded (happens to me ALL the time), even if you have a valid point in comments. The digg system definately rewards the mob mentality by re-inforcing the majority and drowning out the minority.

      Which is unfortunate, since well, the internet should enable the minority in some way, but whatever.
    • danlovejoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Who's to say that some version of that doesn't exist already? Haven't you seen stories on the front page with just a few Diggs?
  • NinjAlt, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1The digg system is broken. More wood to the funeral pyre.
  • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Who cares? If it gets to the front page and it is spam, then mark it as spam. That's what it's there for.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4Too bad they already get god-knows-how-many clicks before it gets taken off the main page. If it makes front page, their mission is already accomplished.
    • tizz66, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Right, and I get pissed off when the same thing happens with top users too. People digg stuff because they've added a top user as a friend, and that top user may have submitted something or dugg something, so everyone else diggs it. It means rubbish gets to the frontpage, and I've noticed a sharp decrease in rubbish since some of the top users left to get paid.

      It's the same thing, but this 'AOL spam' is actually *less harmful* because there's only a handful of them doing it.

      A system like digg will be abused, however it works. You'll just have to weed out the rubbish yourself like I've been doing since I joined.
    • xswag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@netscapeblows
      So did you accomplish your mission?
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3we'll find out if digg changes its rules
  • NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Nice Netscapeblows,

    people either love or hate this Digg experiment but I applaud you for trying to bring some transparency to the issue of who is doing what, when, where, how or why.

    This is what makes Digg nice.

    The users protecting users from CORPspam that has become a major focus for those companies addicted to their early multi-billion dollar success.

    Keep it comin and I am sure we will all continue to have our 2 cents in the comment section.

    hehehe
  • spanner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Easy to fix, all the digg votes are in a database, all you need is the Digg swarm to show posts and the clusters of members who digg them.

    That would create patterns that could be easily seen visually.
  • psychotron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Wow, currently there are 4 stories about Digg on Digg's main page! Let's keep it up guys! I'm sure we can make Digg 100% free of non-Digg material by summer's end!
  • Highborn, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1God I am sick of AOL, Wal-Mart, and all of these reatrded spammers. It doesnt help them, people see through it and just hate them more.
    • slapshot24, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6> God I am sick of AOL, Wal-Mart, and all of these reatrded spammers

      Which spammers? Oh, the "reatrded" ones.

      Pot, meet kettle.
  • gd007, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5AOL just sucks.
  • NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1And EveryOne Gets Dugg Down

    Fitting

    Just Dugg Everone up
  • benw, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3FOUR digg-related stories on the digg front page right now.

    You're all so far up your own arses it beggars belief.
  • 22pages, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The new netscape is total crap.

    I went over to have a look again today to see what progress they've made and was met by a nasty lamisil banner at the top of the page (nothing like a giant rotted toenail to make me want to hang out on a site).

    In a visual clutter than can only be described as data-vomit they then have ads, images and various clusters of content all over the place. It's like looking at one of those awful spam sites with the popups and crap everywhere.

    I don't know who is in charge of their ui design, but I'd suggest turning the Liberace thing down about 5 notchs. Read some design books and clean yourself netscape.
    • lrod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
      dude...seriously, that was too funny. I was eating a burger the other day when I saw that ad...gross! Netscape is filled with stupid articles and pro-aol articles. If you are gay, a Bush basher, or anti-digg, you automatically get a front page spot. I can see AOL on the brink of bankruptcy telling Netscape to start advertising kiddie porn. They'll stop at nothing to get visitors....truly sad web 2.0. Maybe if AOL stopped sending those dang CD's for their spyware infested internet connection software, they would pull in more profit.
  • totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Come on, its just Digging stories, its not like they are releasing confidential information about their users search habits or anything.
    • nstern2, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Yeah I fail to see the problem here. Are they making money from adds on the sites? Seems to me like this is just a bunch of friends digging each others stories. Someone clue me in please.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8yes they are making money. AOL gives bonuses to its bloggers when they get on the front page of digg or other big traffic sites.
  • jjesusfreak01, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3The difference between this and other spam is simple. Other spam is done by different users, probably only occasionally. They also have no agenda but to get some people to their site every once in a while. They like Digg, and wont post stories unless they think you will like them (even if they are wrong). What JC is doing is purposely spamming Digg, not to give us good content, but to mess up the content of Digg to promote his website and untimately Netscape.
  • orfilms, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12When I posted this months ago:
    http://digg.com/tech_news/AOL_admits_that_they_spam_Digg.com
    AOL got the story burried
  • webhead74, on 10/12/2007, -9/+21Wars are raging... people are unemployed... children are starving...

    And we're having a pissing match over this?!?

    Digg me down, but who ***** cares?
    • titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Evidently ALOT of people do. SO are we only supposed to concentrate one dilemna at a time? Who says we can't stop terrorists and stop AO Hell at the same time?
  • evilpettingzoo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4That running yellow guy really needs a kick in the bawls.
  • NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2@webhead

    So why don't you get off your ass and start a company to employ the unemployed and then go around feeding the starving children

    Ohh ya your on the intratube
  • NapoleonGold, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0Nice, original comment was dugg down below the threshhold faster then I would have hoped.

    33 minutes. hehehehe

    • slapshot24, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Proof that digg users have better things to do than buy into your conspiracy stories. That, or the ENTIRE population of digg is filled with AOL spies. Pick one.
  • canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6can we stop talking about netscape? they get more pub, traffic, etc out of digg talking about them then they do on their own

    and unfortunately, this is just a symptomatic problem on digg. look at any of the far right or left political posts. always dugg by the same exact people and all they digg is the same exact blogs (malkin monkeys, are you there?). it's no different then when you digg your friends article without even looking at it, and they do the same for their friends. ever use the spy? you can watch the same person digg 10-20 articles in a row in no time flat, now that is simply impossible if you're reading them. quit being a lemming and digg will take care of itself.
  • Dayyve, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3jdawg???? I've seen this guy on an episode of TWIT and he calls himself jDAWG???

    Sorry to get off topic here but this guy is as stiff / whitey as they come and that makes me laugh :)

    Resume topic!
  • leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Spam on Dig!? I'm shocked!
  • freakgd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is the stupidest ***** ever, how this might it to the first page someone gawd. By the way if they post there own articles and then get supported by there own spam groups, who the ***** cares if they keep posting ***** no one gives a ***** about. I wasted ***** time looking at this blog piece of *****.
  • dtrinh, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The reality of any user-generated content based site is that spamming can and most likely will happen. Spamming, "gaming", or whatever the heck you want to call it has been going on at Digg for the majority of its existence.

    Heck, stories like these pointing out prolific spamming have come and gone rather repetitively.

    End-point: The guys at Weblogs, Inc. are just doing it to get attention (front page, that is)- as so many before them have. It's likely that they're doing this also to get people like "netscapeblows" all riled up and posting these sort of pointless articles.

    Posting some front page article that gets 1,000+ diggs doesn't help digg. It ends up getting PR / becoming a publicity stunt for Weblogs, Inc.

    We've already established that Netscape is a really poor imitation of Digg. Somehow, Calcanis + gang still views this as a competition : given by his blogging / calling-out of Kevin Rose.

    Don't get overzealous and fall into their games. Enough said.
    • netscapeblows, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2the game will end when Kevin bans their sites from Digg in 14 day increments.
    • dtrinh, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5no, the "game" will end when immature "digg warriors" get a little common sense and ignore them :)

      your name honestly says all I really need to know.
  • mikesimons, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Someone go put this up on netscape, then link it here, so we can get the story to the netscape frontpage.
    • el_jefe, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Something wrong with your computer? You can't navigate to Netscape to put it up yourself?
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