Steve O’Hear, whose blog you should read over at ZDnet on the Social Web, innocently picked up on my post yesterday, and innocently tried to run a poll about whether or not Top Diggers should be paid. Mr. O’Hear catalogued his adventures with interest, because after he set it up, he submitted it (he uses the word “dugg”, but “dugg” is more commonly used to describe “voting” … at least, that’s how I describe it). He goes on to describe what happened next:
Predictably the story quickly gathered momentum (Digg’s users enjoy stories about Digg), and after approximately 90 Diggs and 40 comments it had hit the front page …
(The odd thing is it still shows up in my profile as the only story I’ve submitted that has ever made it to the homepage.)
Now I know I’ve previously described Digg as a broken democracy, but I’ve never thought of it as a dictatorship. So what had just happened?
It turns out that my submission had been buried, but by who?
Based on this, it could simply be that Digg’s algorithm had just kicked into action; though it’s hard to understand why a story that’s been dugg 90 times in a few hours and has over 40 comments, can hit the front page before it gets buried.
Alternatively, did I witness Digg’s moderators in action?
No, Mr. O’Hear, all you saw was the Bury Brigade in action.
The “Bury Brigade” is a pejorative term that describes a group of like minded individuals of varying connections who are bound formally or informally by a desire to NOT see certain stories on Digg.
Some groups hate the thought of blogs appearing as submissions, because they believe all blog posts to be “spam”; others, don’t want to see Apple stuff, and will bury that as “lame”; others yet, will have political agendas, liberterian, republican, or democrat, and will actively start marking down as bury-able any post to the contrary.
The most notorious group of individuals making up the “Bury Brigade” were gents (and possibly ladies) who believed that the top30 diggers were gaming Digg and monopolizing the front page, about 2 months ago. There was an active movement to quickly bury any story submitted by them, without any regard for what the content of the submission was.
Of course, the largest group of people who blindly bury posts are Digg boosters and supporters, who bury everything in site that is not positive about Digg.
In more than one circumstance posts on this blog have been submitted (and not even by me), for them to get a hardy number of votes, only for them to last about 90-120 minutes before getting buried.
Mr. O’Hear says “its hard to understand why a story that’s been dugg 90 times in a few hours and has over 40 comments can hit the front page before it gets buried” — in fact, that’s probably the fastest way to get buried, as that way it will get exposed to the most people (perhaps hundreds every minute during peak hours), and therefore, the most exposure to people who have grudges and agendas.
Here’s a few pages out of my own experience.
If you search for “deepjiveinterests” for the past 7 days, you will see there are no results.
In fact, to find them, you have to switch the “buried stories” radio button “on”.
Both of these stories, in 7 days, were submitted two other diggers, got a significant amount of diggs, reached the front page, and were promptly buried.
Its no surprise that both of them are critical of Digg in some fashion — and my cynical heart was not surprised that they got buried as they did. In fact,
If you would like to see the kind of vitriol that some of Kevin’s supporters have, don’t hesitate to visit this Digg page, where the DiggNation was out in force. The funniest comment was someone calling me a “turd burglar”.
No Steve, what happened to your submission was something that will happen with EVERY submission that is potentially critical of Digg that happens to reach the front page — it will get buried. Itt wasn’t the result of an algorithmic change, and it wasn’t a moderator change either (although I wish they would act as quickly — some notes on how they need to be much sharper can be found over here).
It was the Digg community doing what it does best.
Insulating itself from criticism.
[Of course, the REAL story will be when a bury brigade buries so many of a mainstream blog's stories -- for whatever reason -- that it gets the URL of that mainstream blog or news site banned automatically as "Spam" ... and the blog owner tries to get it re-instated. The adventures of a certain John Chow showed that Digg doesn't check what URL gets banned, and relies on the community, possibly with an agenda, and its algorithms to show the way. The NYTimes.com getting banned? It could happen! Wikiality, indeed.]
December 9th, 2006 at 7:31 pm | Permalink
I take your point about the Bury Brigade not liking negative stories about Digg but the poll wasn’t really negative - the majority voted to keep Digg unpaid. What I began to think is that the Bury Brigade buried the story because of the discussion (over 50 comments) around the subject of the poll. So in a sense, I wasn’t censored but the wider Digg community were.
- Steve
December 9th, 2006 at 7:36 pm | Permalink
Maybe I should stop digging your digg criticism entires. Most of time they get buried anyway.
Shouldn’t you better start a social news critics blog? I bet Reddit and Netscape, just as other communities suffer the same effect, but it isn’t that obvious yet because digg still gathers all the fame and flowers.
December 9th, 2006 at 7:37 pm | Permalink
No question that the poll wasn’t negative in and of itself — but anything smacking of anti-Digg-ness will get buried … and I read some of the comments, and it seems that because, perhaps of the insinuation of corruption +/- the discussion around meta-Digg issues, was the reason why it was buried.
As an aside I think there is a sizable faction which buries any meta-Digg stories, because they commonly think that people should “get a life”, stop worrying about Digg, enjoy it because it is free, and so on and so on … without thinking that Digg is not like “any” web2.0 site, and is an important site in many (a social petri dish), many (posterchild of the web2.0) ways.
December 9th, 2006 at 9:14 pm | Permalink
The problem that arises from the bury feature is that it is anonymous. Besides the ‘inaccurate’ bury, there is no way to know why a submission is buried. Actually, I don’t believe that stories buried as inaccurate are even removed from the homepage.
Lately I have been harping about educating the users at digg. When people are being banned and their submissions buried, it is rather disheartening to even visit digg when there is no intuitive way to know how to properly use the system. And I don’t count the FAQ as adequate.
Still, we are waiting for these new features….I’m thinking they are going to release them as some sort of Christmas present. sigh.
December 9th, 2006 at 11:02 pm | Permalink
Buried with only 32 hits. Too hilarious.
Yes Tony, you ask for. ;-)
Actually I think by now you have already been blacklisted and all submissions from your blog get reported to the moderating crew. Yes, this is very easy to code.
Once one of the moderators reads your story…
burieddugg.December 9th, 2006 at 11:24 pm | Permalink
Stephen — there are alot of things that are wrong with Digg, and the community at large has been waiting for those ‘improvements’ for months. I wouldn’t hold your breath for X-mas (unless you know something I don’t, in which case — email me ;)
December 9th, 2006 at 11:26 pm | Permalink
franky — I don’t have to be blacklisted by the moderators; the Digg community does an excellent job of doing that themselves … c’est la vie en Digg, and I’ve learned to love it. ;)
cheers
t
December 9th, 2006 at 11:34 pm | Permalink
Tony,
of course it is human nature to protest against criticism. Especially if one is part of the criticized sbject, but then again with the underground methods of the moderation at digg I can’t stop myself from wondering if it were the community or the team.
Admitted, due to my reputation (pretty new and so far no promoted story, but several stories I digged when still upcoming got promoted) this entry hit the homepage rss with only 29 diggs… to be buried with only 3 more diggs.
Is it irrational from my part to doubt? Yes, the RSS hit main stream, but also surely one of the hidden moderators has been following the feed or am I wrong? Supposed moderators don’t cover 100% (yet), a lapse of 2 hours could also explain the gap between submission and their intervention. As long as the moderating team doesn’t disclose their policy, we’ll never know if Digg.com is 100% against criticism or if it is the community. ;-)
December 9th, 2006 at 11:38 pm | Permalink
That is entirely true franky — but I’m willing to bet that I’m not *so* important that moderators have me on a blacklist.
The DiggNation, I’m sure, can do it well enough.
Any story that smacks of anti-Digg is buried faster than you can say “Kevin Rose is teh awesome!”
:)
December 10th, 2006 at 1:01 am | Permalink
Tony,
If Digg was serious about improving the value of the “bury” button they would adjust the algorithm to look for and evaluate user trends. To the extent they identify trends of users who disproportionately “bury” submissions like Apple, or critical Digg submissions the “buriers” ranking should take a negative hit. Having a “bury” button with no checks or balances is unchecked power. Unchecked power is and will always be suspect. There should be negative ramifications for wielding the button inappropriately. Make em think before they do!
December 10th, 2006 at 3:34 am | Permalink
Seems like Steve is a new user of digg. Diggers bury anything to everything based on the oddest of reasons.
December 10th, 2006 at 11:05 am | Permalink
Hmm.. that’s the first time I’ve noticed that “all-time” and “buried stories” features in the search tool I just searched for my own, and I only have 4 items in there, each with 1 vote except one with 8. I must change my thinking. I knew I submitted my own site once, but apparently I did it 3 times. But, these 4 appeared in both buried and nonburied. Maybe I should submit more of my stuff to digg? I always hated digg, because I don’t fit in any of their categories.
Off Topic:// What did you use to get that nice blue box and red arrows atop your screen shots? It’s pretty cool and grabs your attention.
December 11th, 2006 at 2:53 pm | Permalink
Agreed with Paul, Digg users will bury for any reason.
I hit the front page over the weekend with a rather lame movie list post I did with a friend (it only hit front page because webtickle submitted).
We included Rotten Tomatoes reviews in the list as an easy reference, and people were burying the post as inaccurate because the review numbers didn’t match IMDB. Yeah guy, that’s why we said we used the “Rotten Tomatoes” review numbers. *shakes head*
December 11th, 2006 at 3:22 pm | Permalink
Hey hart
I will post on the software that does that so everyone can know (it is awesome).
:)
February 16th, 2007 at 2:10 pm | Permalink
[...] Digg Corrupted: Editor’s Playground, not User-Driven Website Suspicious Digging ZDNet Not Immune To The “Bury Brigade” [...]
May 15th, 2007 at 1:03 am | Permalink
[...] the issue of the inequities at Digg, including issues around the mob-like factor around the Digg Brigade, and even the idea of a black list as well. But, as much as I respect Neil and his crew at ProNet, [...]
February 10th, 2008 at 3:56 pm | Permalink
[...] ZDNet Not Immune To The “Bury Brigade” Author: Tony Hung of DeepJiveInterests.com.com An excellent definition of the "Bury Brigade" and what it is. [...]
May 13th, 2008 at 5:43 am | Permalink
[...] ZDNet Not Immune To The “Bury Brigade” Author: Tony Hung of DeepJiveInterests.com.com An excellent definition of the “Bury Brigade” and what it is. [...]