OK this is censorship. I have submitted it twice and each time it has vanished without trace.

If anyone wants evidence screenshots of delted posts are here http://splasho.com/blog/2006/04/20/suspicious-digging/

Phlipp didn't accuse anybody of anything. He even said he wasn't sure of what was happening. Besides, there is evidence on the ForeverGeek website. One needs to ask questions about this, esp. when Digg is doing everything not to get this known by the public.
Please be kind and rate the second comment here (by manchild): http://digg.com/links/How_Evil_Are_You_

(I removed Alan's comment, as checking his IP shows he's talking to himself in the forum using different nick names.)

My account has now been disabled due to 'misuse' screenshot http://splasho.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/disabled.png

What the...?

Philipp u had to believe me from the first time :D ..

And I'm now blocked by IP because I made another account and linked in a comment on the Machiavelli article to my blog post. "Sorry Bad IP" is what it brings up.

Yea, splasho, same happened to me. Thank God i'm not on a static IP address.

Philipp did you have the chance to email digg about this? Would be interesting to know what they will say..

What will happen if this posting is dugg ??

I got removed too – http://digg.com/technology/Interesting_truth_about_social_websites

Tried to sneak in using xr.com, lasted all of 2 diggs and <5 minutes :)

Ok WT heck is happening on Digg ?? Something really really fishy is happening..

Philipp, should we digg this posting ??

Yeah someone should post this site :)

Look here: http://splasho.com/blog/2006/04/20/suspicious-digging/
People try to post this on digg and they all got banned (including me :( )
lol .. people just digg this comment: http://digg.com/links/How_Evil_Are_You_#c1504410

After an email to digg I'm no longer banned

Splasho did you ask them why they blocked forevergeek?

So Splasho – you can participate as long as you don't point out that Digg is hypocritical? Ugh :(

submitting this to digg isn't the way to go, someone needs to send this in to Slashdot.org. They're all digg-hating snobs, so they'll probably font page this in a matter of minutes...

I don't have an account, and I don't really know how it works either, but someone else should send it...

oh yeah thats an idea Jesse. thanks I send it to cowboyneal

Submitted to Slashdot

cool. now to watch and wait...

While I prefer Digg lately, this goes to show it's good there are at least two huge tech news sites... because either one of them might be biased against certain stories. We still don't know why Digg editors are doing this. The only reason I could see for them to act like this was if there was a full-blown conspiracy going on against them, i.e. people posting false accusations over and over.

But the stories are there Philipp – the two original stories, the Digg sequence, Kevin Rose being one of them. Don't see how this is a conspiracy against them :|

Can someone monitor slashdot.. to see if the story gets posted ?

Well i submitted it to slashdot an hour ago and it was rejected.

Splasho, phillips check this out http://digg.com/technology/Digg_Corrupted

I seriously doubt there is something wrong here...i think they blocked it because of someone spamming them with the same site.

I'm keeping a tab with slashdot in it to see if it gets posted...I'm surprised it got rejected...

I call BS – after the bad publicity suddenly they let it back in.

Aflat:
That may be why it was blocked but it doesn't explain why many posts were deleted (not buried) and people banned. Digg has user-driven ways of moderating stuff like that.

Also the link you posted should be on the front page with that many diggs in a short time but it isn't

Philipp: Thanks for the icon!

Look at all these burried articles (including the one Aflat posted):
http://digg.com/search?search=digg&submit=Search&area=all&type=both&age=60&search-buried=on

So, even though the "Digg Corrupted" story has 63 diggs, it won't make it to the front-page as it's buried now.

Yeh I just replied to Splasho at his blog, like I said I think digg users have a hard time believing it..i didn't digg it nor did i report it...i am curious to see if anyone from digg replies to it...

Updated info: http://forevergeek.com/news/digg_corrupted_editors_playground_not_userdriven_website.php

How does something get "buried" on Digg anyway? Is it when many users flag it as lame/ inaccurate/ old news etc.?

Which makes no sense – almost every single comment is + commented.

Sigh ... another website corrupted.

Couldn't there be a non-conspiracy reason why the diggers for the two stories are very like each other? E.g.:
- Those guys were sitting together at a convention, someone showed the A List Apart articles to them, so everyone dugg at the same time
- Digg doesn't order the diggers by date anymore, but by some authority level (e.g. number of past diggs, or past stories submitted that made it to the front-page)

Assuming there's a sane reason for all of this, naturally the way this story gets treated on Digg is another issue. I don't think it's fair e.g. Splasho's account got cancelled simply for him trying to find out more.

Philipp – I know you are trying to play devil's advocate, but 100% sure that the list of Diggs is sequential. Furthermore, if it was sorted, how did bribera get in there?

I don't think this feels like a conspiracy (how is it even like one?). Just that the Digg founder is doing the exact opposite of what the site claimed, and is using it to promote stories he wants on the front.

"– Those guys were sitting together at a convention, someone showed the A List Apart articles to them, so everyone dugg at the same time"
- I wouldn't care if the same people had voted for the same things (20 out of the hundreds of diggs) So I agree with you thus far.

"– Digg doesn't order the diggers by date anymore, but by some authority level (e.g. number of past diggs, or past stories submitted that made it to the front-page)"
If that was I'd agree with you but I've just checked by digging things and it IS date order, and THAT means its too much of a coincidence

I'll email digg support to ask for their explanation of this.

The issue is on Boing Boing now:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/20/debating_diggs_metho.html

what do you mean here ..

"the Digg founder is doing the exact opposite of what the site claimed, and is
using it to promote stories he wants on the front."

thats a very strong accustion to make.. I respect Kevin and the work he has put in, but without knowing facts, its really not fair to make such comments.. anyway that's just me trying to play fair and sq on all sides

Philipp: I have seen the issue that you decribe as "guys were sitting together at a convention" , yes this a good possiblity.. but then again , the story was actually dugg by Kevin is what I understand ..

oh btw.. I think that its a good idea that comments also have a number along it :)- .. in this way .. we can point directly to comment # x

ahh..good xeni picks up the chatter..!!

And now someone submitted the Boing Boing story to digg! This could go on all day...
http://www.digg.com/links/Boing_Boing_posts_link_questioning_Digg_s_methodologies

Kewl, lets play hardball.. I dugg it!!

20 diggs so far.. mine would be 21st :)-

It is, isn't it? :)

What really clinches that it was editorial driven is this: http://digg.com/security/A_List_Apart:_Community_Creators,_Secure_Your_Code_ – datagod's comment. Combined with how all the diggs were identical alongwith how Kevin Rose dugg both articles after a lot of them (so it wasn't RSS readers). Then throw in how FG got banned.

Editorialized? I don't see any other explanation.

That story too has been buried now and won't appear on the front-page due to that.

And it's on Slashdot now.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/04/20/1538256.shtml

And... http://digg.com/links/Slashdot_chimes_in_on_DIGG_censorship_controvery

Splasho how's your server holding up? :)

Hehe, I pay a web host per GB but with advertisements I'm just about breaking even.

How many people submitted this to slashdot? I know /pd did, and I did, anyone else?

Well one of the Slashdot pointers made it, though it is under review its not buried and its on the front page http://digg.com/technology/Growing_Censorship_Concerns_at_Digg

Kevin Rose response:
http://digg.com/technology/Digg_Censors_Stories_That_Offend_Sponsors#c634036

Its annoying that that keeps being quoted as a response, its not a response to this issue but to an issue a long time ago and different things are at stake. In this case it was not possible to link to FutureGeek at one point and submissions were arbitrarily deleted with no record (not buried), and users were banned.

I think its actually telling that they're not giving a response

yah Kevein responds. But I am not really happy with it...

1) why are they suddenly changing the buried stories into a story bin ?

2) The story bin is accessible for other diggers to promote the story once again if..what he extacly say ..."story bin and vote to have a story reinstated should they believe it was falsely reported." ... so why sudden changes to the movement policy of stories ??

http://digg.com/links/Digg_Corrupted%3A_Editor_s_Playground%2C_not_User-Driven_Website_at_Forever_Gee

Ionut: yeah that freaking PSP add is so annoying!!

yeah the slash article now reads liek 218 with 55 commments / 54 minutes from post..!!

/pd Where has he responded? The only response I see is from mongths ago (slashdot linked to it)

I did some trolling on the digg's front page and neither of the stories have made it to the front page.. I then moved to the indiduvidal links and find that there is a roaring 681 diggs fro the first one in approx 5hrs and the other has 238 within a little over 1hrs..

in the natural world of digg, both articles should have made it to the front pages ..correct ??

I did some analysis on all of the stories submitted by the people that dugg this story that made the front page. Results here – http://www.zippitydoodahonline.com/?p=10

On average each submission recieved 8 diggs from others in this group, within the first 24 diggs a story recieved. Extremely suspicious, and looks like proof to me

Kevin's response (today)
http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/digging-fraud.html

Kevin Rose responded in his blog to forevergeek : http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/digging-fraud.html

Well that doesn't justify how i was banned in 2 mins after posting the article about the website. Besides, the abusedigg.com team didn't tell me "the link was being submitted too much" , they said "u accused Digg users, which is not allowed" ...

how did kevins post "acount fraud" hit the home page of digg , in less then 30 minues, with approx 488 diggs ?? whatever happened to the sumbitted stories that are listed here ??

http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/digging-fraud.html

no wonder slashdot posted.. they are neck to neck with digg on alexa ratings

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=379&h=216&r=6m&z=&y=r&u=slashdot.org/&u=digg.com

The Slashdot story has been buried, thus disappearing from the front-page and the default search from the front-page. Heck, Kevin Rose's own digg story has been buried (even though it received 712 diggs):
http://digg.com/search?search=account+fraud+digg&submit=Search&area=all&type=both&age=60&search-buried=on

I think the Digg team seriously needs to tune the lame vs digg reports ratio that gets a story buried. Also, they need to be more transparent on why a story gets buried... or why users get their accounts disabled. In Kevin's explanation, by the way, I can't find any answer to the original question of why two stories had almost the same diggers and digg order.

Interesting how Kevin hasn't explained why he was the 17th digg in the 19 identical diggs for the articles, or why the some of the so-called fraudsters were on his buddy list.

From Slashdot – Begun, This Nerd War Has

<<It is a dark time for Web 2.0. Although the Beatles_Beatles has been destroyed, Slashbot troops have driven the Digg forces from their Ajax den and pursued them across the Internet.

Evading the dreaded Slashdot Moderator Fleet, a group of Web 2.0 upstarts led by Kevin Rose has established a new Digg site on the remote web servers of Revision3 Corporation.

The evil lord Darth Neal, obsessed with finding young Rose, has dispatched thousands of remote links, DDoSing into the far reaches of webspace....>>
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=183628&cid=15166320

Yesn /. Has some interesting comments happening – it looks like the firts web2.o war is unfolding...

   And may the maths be you!! :)-

Nicely summed up:

Man I am a retard :(

Link: http://forevergeek.com/news/responding_to_kevins_nonresponse_post.php

Just checked the news today. Woa this is a major blow to digg. I'm pretty upset and can't wait to see Digg's official response. (something tells me they will play good guy, which we all know they are not anymore).

Digg's official response is already out (see above)...

So from what I understand now, the official explanation is that the first dozen or so diggers of those original two stories that caused the debate were auto-mass-dugg. Kevin Fox just accidentally happened to be in that list. The accounts of diggers before him have been cancelled now.

No No Philipp, there is still bitter words being spoken.. take a look at this!!

"So really, Kevin's response is more of a non-response. One of those PR-driven "say something but don't really say anything." He doesn't explain how he got in the middle of the automated digging (and no one else did). He claims we were abusing the system, when you can see our accounts were legitimate users of Digg and that other people were submitting FG (and digging it). Lastly, he claimed that stories got legitimately buried – yet somehow every single Digg corruption story got buried almost immediately."

yeah thats a point to contend with.. "somehow every single Digg corruption story got buried almost immediately"!!

And – I believe – couple of first stories didn't get buried. They were simply deleted. Buried stories can be still found be it's URL.

Philipp i'am interested in knowing what is your final judgment about all this..just for the reocrd, after going through all those blogs and reading some of the comments on forevergeek that some of them got *deleted* i stand with digg on this, i believe in what kevin said and i still believe in digg users.

I believe that yes some Digg editors (Kevin Rose?) were annoyed by certain abuse accusations stories and perhaps tried to silence those voices, maybe somewhat too hastily in some cases (like the cancelling of accounts). I do not believe there is any conspiracy, simply because you have to be an idiot to abuse your own site and your good image like that, and I don't believe Kevin Rose is an idiot. If nothing else, Digg's integrity is worth a lot of money to Kevin Rose, much more than pushing any stories on top could ever make. But then again we probably never have proof and must rely on Kevin's word.

I think the whole mess showed several things – it's good to have other tech mob sites, like Slashdot, to escalate cases like these when the Digg crowd and/ or editors would rather bury a topic, and second, Digg needs to fine-tune the way it makes buries transparent (and it needs to increase the treshold for a story to become buried).

I think Kevin should also have a transparent document that outlines the complete process which really happens wheh a story is post=>dugg=>holding bucket=>front page.. kinda thing.. this allows the community to actually validate where Machine based algo's play a part and where human intravention kicks in.. ..

Secondly openin ip the generic machine based algo's in terms of community feedback would elevate the comformt zone for users

If FG was indeed spamming, why did they get unbanned? Why was Kevin's name in the middle of the spammer list? Why would 'SpitF1re' be spamming A List Apart on Digg? It doesn't add up.

What I find interesting is how the story changed over the day.

http://splasho.com/blog/2006/04/21/update-on-digg/ (sorry for self-linking)

The two quotes I have completely contradict each other.

But like Philipp I doubt its a fully blown conspiracy.

> If FG was indeed spamming, why did they get unbanned?

Maybe the ban was too hastily added, or too broad.

> Why was Kevin's name in the middle of the spammer list?

If you assume that the first umpteen diggs were automated, then it doesn't take that much coincidence that Kevin Rose dugg both articles. We can't tell right now how often the Spitfire group (if there was one) mass/ auto-dugg articles. If Kevin like the ALA article, he might have dugg it independent of the group, or because he gets some sort of alert for ultra-fast diggs (which would've been the case for a mass/ auto digg).

> Why would 'SpitF1re' be spamming A List Apart on Digg?

This can actually be done for alibi reasons – you get together a group of people and you mass-digg different stories AND your own site... this way your own site won't stand out as suspiciously.

I'm not saying any of this happened or that I believe this or that... I'm just thinking what could've been logical explanations.

> As we have told other users that have emailed us
> about this subject, there is no abuse involved here,
> we have investigated it and yes it does look
> suspicious to the eye, but they are all legit
> users and therefor [sic] we can not ban them.
> We ask you kindly to email us if you believe a
> story is being abused.

Splasho, do you have the full email context for this Digg reply... who is "they"? Is "they" Spitf1re et al?

Sure, I didn't post the whole thing again because it was here (http://splasho.com/blog/2006/04/20/suspicious-digging/) but
-------------------------
   Dear Sir,

   As you pointed out “to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Digg users”. We have had many problems in the past due to users accusing other users of abuse based on false facts. As we have told other users that have emailed us about this subject, there is no abuse involved here, we have investigated it and yes it does look suspicious to the eye, but they are all legit users and therefor we can not ban them. We ask you kindly to email us if you believe a story is being abused. We would have done the same to any other user that might have been accusing you. You can post negative comments and negative stories about digg, but please restrain from accusing or intimidating other users. Your account has been unblocked. If you have any other questions, please email us and we’ll do our best to help you.

   Thank you,

   -The Digg Watch Team.

I recently replied to them asking for an explanation and will post it if I get it.

"who is "they"? Is "they" Spitf1re et al?"

Yeah, since they banned me for posting my post on Digg linking to my blog's post on it I would strongly assume that was what they were referring to.

No response to my email asking for clarification yet. I'm not too hopeful I ever will.

They simply ignore my email too. Oh well, I guess they got swamped by mails with that controversy.

Well I was wrong. I have received a reply: http://splasho.com/blog/2006/04/24/reply-from-digg/ I guess the answers are fairly satisfactory and have not pushed it further.

"Such things are bound to happen, it’s just the reality of giving thousands upon thousands of users 100% moderation control of a website and what makes digg inherently different."
Is not entirely true.

Not to be mean to Slashdot.. but digg traffic spiked to a point higher and surpassed slash-dot.

here go dig it -if you will :)-

http://digg.com/links/Digg_Has_Finally_Surpassed_Slashdot

But if you think about it, that came when Slashdot linked to Digg, so Digg had the combined traffic of Slashdot and Digg.

I don't think Slashdot's quite dead yet.

digg editor , and yes i call them editors, are becoming really interesting .. not only did they do when i described here: http://diggabused.googlepages.com/ but when i submitted that into digg yesterday and it got 20 diggs in 40 mins, suddenly it got burried .. I wonder what else they do.

But you don't know who buried it... I mean it could've been buried by users.

This is the second time i've submitted a story about this. I was literally experimenting, so i watched Digg Spy the whole time until it got burried. I remember one report that i could see, not enough for a story which got 22 diggs. Besides, the comments section didn't exactly show people were that excited to burry it. http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Digg_Staff_Edited_my_Post_2

Hmm. It would suck if editors decide to bury anti-Digg stories.

yea, that beside editing my story in the first place .. with the issue of forevergeek , the stories got burried really quickly and my account got banned 5 seconds after i submitted one story to FG .. they restored it afterwards.. Digg is certainly no democracy

I am not very fond of digg. Somewhere, somehow the "wisdoms of crowds" does not prevail there. .. is it because of the editors or the algo's --I really dont know.. but given the fact that certainpages hit hompy within 40 diggs and others with over 30 diggs dont make it.. makes me wonder..

not only are the people there stupid , it's really not a democracy when lookin at how the system works, in my opinion..
if digg users are voters and links are candidates (sorry for thinking to literally here) then :
- [anonymity] submitters and diggers should b anonymus (that's one rule of democracy) .. u dun want ur grandmother to vote for Bush just because she heard her hairdresser votes for him. And if we want to build a website based on the opinion of the public, then we should not show that Kevin Rose submitted/dugg the story and so they all vote for it like crazy. Of course that's quite much to wish for, since everybody likes the "friends" features in digg.
- [freedom] "ok, this is lame" is an undemocratic, too. If you don't like a candidate , just don't vote for him (in old times ppl used to say "No Digg!" and that was it) but u shouldn't eliminate his campaign (or burry the story) .. u should leave it for others mayb they're gonna like it and if not, then it's off after 24 hours anyways. People abuse the "lame" reporting technique and burry stories they hate, instead of just ignoring them. I think this option should just be removed. "Dupe" and "Inaccurate" are fine.
- [equality] digg has a karma system and a story gets sooner on frontpage if "higher" users rated it. mayb that's gd in one way, because the website would obviously trust the top users more than new ones. But if you want to show what the public thinks, u have to respect everybody. (even the analphabatic)
- [direct voting] well here's the issure everybody actually cared about. If the digg staff gets invovled or not. Personally, i think they do edit stories.

I'm quite a fan of digg and its system does get very interesting stories on the frontpage. I just hate how ppl think it's democratic and fair. It's just successfull while it's all actually a Lying Slashdot. -> http://enfact.com/blog/?p=76

All we need to do is a revolution then :D .. man i'm getting sick of this..

But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, as we we say in Germany... just because it's not 100% democratic voting doesn't mean it's not driven by smart mobs. I think it is, even though obviously there are failures that need to be addressed. If editors change something, then they ought to mark their change... e.g. when a site goes down they may want to link to a mirror, or they may want to convert an all-caps headline to a normal caps headline. What they never should do tho, obviously, is to hide Digg-critical stories.