Digg Labs

I must say that the new Digg Labs function that was added to the site yesterday is pretty cool. Let me give you my two cents on the matter.

Swarm

I was beginning to wonder when major websites would start to catch on to visualization structures like this. I've seen history programs that connect history this way and thesaurus programs that connect synonyms and antonyms this way, but I knew that anyone could use the functionality to help people visualize connections. In the abstract world of computers and the internet, any tool that allows people to easily see and interpret connections really helps the human user.

Stack

This here is like a horse race for Digg stories. Line up a bunch of stories and watch them go (kinda like that carnival game where you shoot water into a target to make your thing go). It is a great idea for keeping people on the site because it continually is moving and engaging the attention of the user. I think it would be really funny to set this up with a bunch of friends, take bets on which story will reach a certain point first, and then talk trash like it's the Super Bowl. A fun way to use the feature.

Also funny to me was the fact that Digg managed to crash ITS OWN SERVERS when they released it. I mean honestly, after watching hundreds of sites crash because of the Digg phenomenon wouldn't they have realized that once it hit the front page every stinking Digg user would visit it and start playing around with it? Hello! Anyway, I thought it was hilarious.

Noteworthy

I just read a story that is has an interesting take on the Digg Conspiracy.

Buried on Digg: How & Why?

***Please read the last paragraph before digging (or burying) this story***

As a relatively new user of the Digg system I have been trying to understand how the Digg system works. One of the most perplexing aspects of Digg, however, is the "bury" feature.

Buried!



This was my last post on this blog and it had 30 diggs in 50 minutes until it was "buried".

Front Page?



This story made the front page with just 29 diggs in over 23 hours and only 3 comments?

What Digg Says.

This is the official explanation of how a story is buried, right from the FAQ page:

Stories can also be removed by users with the 'Bury Story' feature within digg. Once a story receives enough 'buries' it is automatically removed from the digg Upcoming or Popular sections. The number of reports required to bury is based on a sliding scale that takes several factors into consideration (such as number of diggs, reports, time of day, topic submitted to, etc.).

So What's the Deal?

I leave it to you experienced Digg users to please help me understand why my story, that people are digging, gets buried while a story that is way less popular gets elevated to the front page.

Digg: How to get banned in less than 30 seconds!

Yes it's true. My Digg account was disabled within 30 seconds of submitting my first story. Here is my sad tale.

Bad Digg Clone Site

First off, I was out in cyberspace and came across a website about celebrity gossip that was totally a Digg knockoff. I really like Digg and decided that I would let the Digg community take matters into their own hands.

Submission

I entered the URL of the page linked in the paragraph above. On the next page I classified the article as Technology with the headline of "Crash this Digg Clone". The description attached to the article was a simple explanation of how I felt that if enough Digg users visited the site, it would crash. Finally, the voice of the people would prevail and justice would be meted out swiftly and fairly.

Immediate Success

The post went up successfully and I added a comment to further explain my motivation. After publishing the comment I saw that my article had been dugg 4 times already (and yes, mine counted as the first one). I then went to the Upcoming Stories tab so I could monitor how many people were digging my article. However, I was unable to find it, even when searching the exact title. I then tried to log in and got the following screen:


Now you know

I don't know why my account was disabled, nor do I know what "misuse" constitutes. However, I hope that this will help other Digg users to understand the system and keep their accounts.

PS I also am hoping that someone can help me get my account back. Leave a comment if you can help.