The Digg Mob Claims Another Victim

Yahoo revealed yesterday that they were going to start using a Digg-style voting system in the suggestion section for their numerous services. Problem is, the mob at Digg didn't take too kindly to the idea.

Yahoo outlined the reason for implementing the new voting system, and even gave Digg credit for it.

When you find something broken on the Web, product folks at small web sites are usually easy to connect with. But visitors to sites with significant traffic usually have a tougher time...
We call it a Suggestion Board - you can browse suggestions from other site visitors or post your own. Digg - style voting means we can quickly discover what's most important to users.

It is definitely a great idea for Yahoo to implement this suggestion feature, and they are correct in concluding that it is the most efficient way to ascertain what is most pressing to their various communities. The Digg community, though, in its usual sensationalist fashion pounced on this as a chance to harass another entity for ripping off Digg.

I think my friend Steve put it most eloquently when he said,

It's one thing to disagree and rant about it, but... Vandalizing Yahoo's site does nothing but point out how immature the Digg audience can be...

First of all, the entire Digg community should note that Yahoo credited Digg for the concept. Secondly, there is a very important distinction in how the two sites are using the voting mechanism. If you take 5 seconds to understand what Yahoo is doing, you will note that their system isn't a rip-off of Digg at all. The site has absolutely nothing to do with finding and promoting latest news and media, rather it's more for internal improvement. They are using the voting system on their suggestion boards to gauge what their communities' most pressing concerns are with respect to Yahoo's various product offerings so that Team Yahoo can address them in that order of importance.

While it is incredibly shameful to see the Digg community act like this, it is good to see that some sense is prevailing. The rest of the Diggers should learn from these few community 'leaders'. A special thanks to the following users for using reason rather than blatant and ignorant fanboyism when composing their comments.

digg comments

**Disclosure: Just so everyone knows I am a top digger (actively ranked 16) as well as a Netscape Navigator.

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Reader Comments (12)

Andre, February 15, 2007

Digg's userbase is becoming more and more nothing but little immature kids.

Chris Hemphill, February 15, 2007

This just goes to show that much of the Digg community only reads the description of a story, and this can really make or break your article. The title of the article "Yahoo Shamelessly Rips Off Digg and Brags About It" is as far as most people got. I am glad to see that you found some good comments I never made it past the all caps kill Yahoo comments.

Muhammad Saleem, February 15, 2007

The Digg submission is representative of many of the problems that exist on Digg.

  1. Sensationalist and inaccurate headlines.
  2. Narcissism, Fanboyism, Mob Mentality.
  3. Digging and commenting without reading.
Stephen, February 15, 2007

Even though this is terrible, I'll stick with Digg. I still like the Digg system better than any other I've seen, although...a few more of these incidents might change my mind.

Chris Hemphill, February 15, 2007

Any ideas on ways to control the mob? I'm curious how you fix a problem like this, or if it can even be fixed. One problem with the mob is that they often drive away good users.
Here is a quote from a comment in the Yahoo blog "Boycotting DIGG! (Because clearly their users (or the ones posting on here at least) have SERIOUS issues)"

Terry, February 15, 2007

The mob is indeed horrible. Yahoo's purpose is entirely different.

Wendy Piersall :: eMom, February 15, 2007

Thanks for the common-sense response to the crap that was flying around. Talk about immature - I felt more like an "eMom" than ever around that mob.

Then again, I'll probably get buried for saying this... if I could even get more than 10 Diggs in the first place. I'm an old fart to these kids. ;)

Alex Rudloff, February 15, 2007

One of the great things about the web is that ideas quickly evolve and mutate at incredible speeds. Digg didn't invent social bookmarking, they didn't invent voting on user submitted content -- they were(are) just really really successful at it. People are going to (and should) bite off ideas that work. It's really cool of yahoo to give credit, as they surely didn't have to (and it was cool when Calacanis gave credit with Netscape)

I have 30,000+ emails archived on GMail from when we relaunched Netscape.com -- just to serve as a reminder of how awful the digg fanboy syndrome can be. It's far, far worse than anything that ever existed on Slashdot.

Anyway, great implementation by the Yahoo team, and a great post Muhammad!

sickofthediggmob, February 15, 2007

The anonymous Digg mob who gang up and bury stories for the stupidest reasons needs to be exposed. Those cowards would think twice about burying stories if Digg would list the people who buried the story below the people who dugg the stories. (That's right you trolls, I'm giving you a taste of your own medicine by not letting you know who I am in this post.)

Michael Chui, February 16, 2007

Gotta disagree with merrebom on that "good community" bit, now, eh?

John, February 16, 2007

Yo Muhammad,

Thanks for the post. The bigger digg gets, the more tribal and lowest-common-denominator it's become. More often than not, reading their user comments is an IQ-lowering experience.

JS, February 17, 2007

Hey muhammad, how would you react if someone copied the style of your site, and general ideas from you? I don't think you'd be very happy about the situation at all.