Sometimes all it takes to stay awake is a little stimulation.
Sometimes all it takes to stay awake is a little stimulation.
Home / Digg / Hot Topics / Social Media Marketing / Soshable / Digg as Seen through a Newbie’s Perspective
When it comes to social media sites, most new users have a difficult time learning the ropes. The terms of service are rarely more than legal gibberish and most social media sites do not come with instructions, tips, or relevant FAQs. Basically, it’s join up and sink or swim.
This article from Soshable was written by Kathryn Smith, a newer user who has seen the ups and downs of trying to make it and receive benefits from the site. She went through attacks. She took insults. She tried to contribute and in many ways was shot down for it. In the meantime, her account went through a couple of points where she started doing what was necessary to survive. For this, she was not rewarded. Anyone with an interest in getting into Digg or other social news sites like it should give it a read, as it tells a lot that new and old users can use in their daily Digg grind.
This is an EXCELLENT Guest Post by Kathryn Smith, proudly posted to Soshable
Yes, that’s right—I’m admitting up front that I’m a dreaded “noob”. I have neither a blog nor a website, and I’ll freely confess to being pretty much in the dark about most technology and the thing that is Web 2.0. (Or, to paraphrase a popular ad campaign, I’m a 43-year old female PC.)
…
But, being a newbie, I figured I had to take my lumps before I’d be allowed to join the club. Eventually, I did make friends, and the site became more fun. I realized that a lot of the shouts I was getting were for blog posts, and I quickly caught on to the fact that these folks were just trying to get a little traffic for their sites. So, I’d read the material and give them a digg, but only if I liked the content, some of which was really good, and had been submitted in the proper category and subcategories. (In real life, I’m a poorly-paid ghostwriter/proofreader/editor, so I’m a reasonably fair judge of content quality. Or at least I like to think so.) And with all due respect to Huffington Post fans, it’s still nothing more than a blog. A very good, very profitable blog, but a blog nonetheless. A blog that’s making a fortune off the backs of Digg users, I might add. Who amongst the bloggers out there wouldn’t aspire to that kind of success? So yes, I support a few bloggers, and I’ll continue to do so in my own way. If helping people is a Web 2.0 crime, then virtually arrest me.
Story continues at Soshable under Digg Newcomer.
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Posted on: Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Posted in: Digg, Hot Topics, Social Media Marketing, Soshable
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Comments: 7 Responses
October 12th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
[...] A Newcomer’s Take on Digg [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
How I understand the “try and leave a comment” about insulting and offending other users…
October 13th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
There’s no crime in being a “n00b”, at least from my perspective… after all, we were all “n00bs” with something at one time or another.
I didn’t believe in accepting “n00bs” as friends, when I was on Digg, until they showed me a track record of them utilizing the site to something I called a “reasonable degree”. The “Reasonable Degree” all depended on how long they were on the site versus how much activity their stats showed. Every once in a while I would snatch up a newbie who was ‘fresh out of the gate’ and take a chance on them. I had no real criteria of judging who I would grab as a friend - it was mostly a ‘gut feeling’. Odds are this was because I noticed something about them that really didn’t register with me. I’d simply be looking at a profile and the thought would hit “Hey, this person may be a good Friend”.
In general, celebrities and the famous (including politicians) do not fall under the same rules as ‘normal folk’. I think that in recent years these famous people have been trying to change this. It used to be that if you were a famous person, say an actor or politician, then you were pretty much open game. Occasionally a famous person would sue and win a defamation suit filed in court, but for the most part it was a deal of ‘if you are famous, you have to deal with whatever people say about you’.
Digg is a strange place, it’s sort of schizophrenic at times. An example of what I mean is that you could say the nastiest things about a person (Sarah Palin or George Bush) for example, but if you said a comment just as bad about another (say Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama) then Digg or the bury brigade would get rid of the post. The real twist is that this might be true for a period of time, but a few days or weeks later the opposite would be true. It’s sort of like watching Robin Williams when he is doing his “Split Personality” thing.
“Organized Effort”, on Digg, normally means an effort put forth by more than one person as a group. For example, If you and I had 4 or 5 friends who all decided to only digg certain people (or bury certain people or topics) — then that would be a violation. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that is the basic intent of that rule you quoted. It’s the same rule that I’ve found on other sites, basically. The problem is that Digg seems totally clueless in the field of managing a forum on the net. This might be because more than one person is making the decisions and it depend on who is ‘on duty’ at the time the decision is made. As far as the likes of Kevie Rose and Jaybo Adelson are concerned, I think they are so far out of the Digg loop (normally) that when the dam busts - they have to scramble to justify what is going on. It seems apparent to me that Digg needs one “Forum Master” who runs the forum and makes the decisions within the framework of the TOU, all others who could be classified as “Staff” abide by what the Forum Administrator’s policies are — or they defer to the Administrator for a decision.
Everyone else at Digg who is not directly on the Administration Staff and Management team would be told to keep their noses out of the Digg forum business. I’d really like to know if my observations provided a correct, or close enough, view of how I think the Digg site operates… but I’ve been in and running forums since the mid-90s and from what Digg has shown me - I don’t think I am far wrong. lol It seems too messed up for one management team to be running the forum on the Digg site, and if they do have one team running the show then they need new people in those positions badly.
It all depends on how much time you have on your hands and what your objectives are… as to whether you continue using Digg or another site. You might think over putting most of your effort on another site and use Digg more sparingly.
For example, you may only post a couple of items on Digg, give out maybe 5 to 50 diggs a day on the average, make a few comments to items you like, etc. On the other site(s) you would do your best work for it probably would be better appreciated there.
Hey, it’s a thought.
Good post!
October 13th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Digg’s strategy to populate the site:
Invite hackers to join in
Digg’s to sell the site:
Kill all hackers
It’s all about politics, and banned diggers are merely soldiers that sacrificed themselves for Digg’s founders to make a shitload of money
October 15th, 2008 at 10:54 am
1. to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Digg users;
Okay, this happens all the time. Try leaving a comment, and you’ll see what I mean.
being a banned member for no reason i can understand this post, and the above comment, i posted about that as well, ( article here http://dennisharting.blogspot.com/search?q=digg ) as i too was annoyed with the comments being left for no reason, yet visiting the site, it seems the comments are still there, friends are not really friends they just want you to move their things up the ladder with no regard for what you are posting and finally, it seems digg says you have the right to appeal but they will not answer your emails so how can you appeal ?? i wish you good luck as you try to negotiate the mine field that is digg
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
being a noob in the digital world, and that includes gaming, is seen as a bad thing. Previous noobs who were treated badly and harassed, take it as something they must go through. Then when newer users after them join, they chide and harass these users. It’s seen as an initiation ritual - but in honesty it’s just a lot of trolling and disgruntled individuals unhappy with their life.
Not everyone on Digg is like that, a lot of people are decent. Only a small group of people hide behind their anonymity. The Digg bans are a little weird, but they are warranted for the most part. From my understanding they were reciprocating diggs without having seen the items, by using it they make it so that they add a whole whack of diggers and they exchange diggs, they digg everyone who adds them as a friend and those people in turn feel happy that they’re stuff is getting digged that they return the favor. By doing this automatically it means a lot of spam was getting dugg because the users didn’t read the stuff but just dugg it to get digged back.
Also the digg algorithm isn’t simple, it actually gives weight to top digg users. The top diggers have a lot of value in their diggs. So when they reciprocate diggs all sorts of items get added weight, when top users automate their diggs it means that a lot of bad content gets higher weighting because it has credibility from a top digger. Digg was scared about that.
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