For the same reason that we don’t expose all of our back-end methodologies for the Digg promotional algorithm, we also don’t expose the details of how the burying algorithm works. We spend a lot of time analyzing our data and understanding how people Digg and bury content. We have spent the last 2.5 yrs building systems that ensure a diverse group of users promote or bury stories.
For what it’s worth, and to shift the blame off of the users listed here - quite a bit of this data was gathered inaccurately as the author states in the Digg comments. Please also note, due to the massive number of Diggs/submissions/buries and comments, Digg spy only shows a portion of the activity within Digg at any time.
source -> The Digg Blog
After multiple cries of terror from the community, mixed in with suggestions from unelected viziers, our Wonderful Wizard of Digg has instructed us to put our emerald glasses back on and ignore the men behind the curtain. Even when others are clearly showing that it is very easy to game Digg our fearless leader is unable to tell us anything.
Perhaps it is time to tear down that curtain Mr. Rose and show us who turns the gears behind the great throne room. We suffer through so many things of late while living in your dream world.
First your most trusted advisers were accused of treachery and rather than defend them you chose to place them behind the curtain. One daring soul managed to sneak a peak behind that curtain and he cried out a list of 100 advisers. He was soon attacked by your Grand Vizier and called a spy from a neighboring kingdom.
The citizens of Digg desire an answer to their problems and all you can give is a few lines of techno-babble. What you do not realize, dear wizard, is that many of your subjects are highly literate and able to read between the lines of your speech.
We tried to bury and ignore all the news of this problem but, since you little people are unable to understand what is best for you, I will attempt to amaze you with the magical words of proprietary knowledge and trade secrets. You see, I would love to share this information with you but then I would have to kill you. You don't want that, do you? So, put your emerald glasses back on and enjoy the magic of the Emerald City.
Move along citizens, there is nothing to see here.
Translation of The Digg Blog
We are not asking for you to reveal your "back-end methodologies" or your "promotional algorithm" all we want is some information on how stories get buried.
Let me offer you a solution oh great and terrible Wizard of Digg. We know you have the ability to track who diggs a story as well as who buries a story. We also know you can track timestamps for these events. Would it be so terrible for you to add a new tab for buries alongside the tab you have for who dugg or blogged this story? You would not need to give names just provide the following information:
- Type of bury
- Time of bury
- Source of bury (upcoming, cloud view, story view, etc...)
You could even include this same information on the dugg/blog side of things to check for gaming.
Is anything on this list a trade secret or proprietary information? This information is already available via Digg Spy, why not make it available on the digg page as well?
I also suggest that all buried stories have a marker that tells us it has been buried and why. This is done for stories marked as inaccurate, why not do it for the other buries too?
We know you attempted to design Digg based on the Wisdom of Crowds but the Wisdom of Crowds requires that each member of the crowd be unaware of what other crowd members are doing. Digg is not the Wisdom of Crowds, Digg is a Democracy.
Let me leave you with a quote from a great American, Benjamin Franklin,
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
| It has been buried but who knows, if it gets enough diggs maybe it will be unburied? |