Why The Same Content Again and Again?

I recently came across a submission on Digg that got over 6,000 Diggs and was one of the most voted on stories of the week. And this is exactly what happened the last time the same story was submitted to Digg from the same url and by the same submitter. Is this a problem?

While there is no arguing that the Digg does a pretty decent job, the site is also imperfect in both its algorithm as well as the human element. Take for example the following:

Though the second submission appears to be different from the first, both stories link to the same game and the second submission uses a different url for the submission (to bypass duplicate submission detectors) but ultimately redirects to the same url as the first. Both submissions successfully fool the system and for some reason Diggers Digg up both submissions to the front page within hours of each other.

The second instance is even more interesting but also has a more logical explanation and teaches us a thing or two about the lifetime of good content on Digg. The same user submits the exact same story twice, with the same url, title, and summary, and gets 6648 Diggs the first time, and 7328 Diggs the second time.

Can you blame the user for submitting a duplicate story? I certainly don't, and neither to over 7300 other active Digg users. And in case you were wondering, this is not a commentary on how Diggers have no memory, rather this shows us that as Digg continues to grow, the site's audience is rapidly changing and content that was once successful can be submitted again for the consumption of this new audience and has the chance of being successful again.

While same or similar stories being promoted multiple times are a minor nuisance for long time users, they give new users a chance to appreciate older content.

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john, June 22, 2007

Because digg is run by a bunch of fools and most diggers have a grade school level education.

LOL, June 22, 2007

Wrong!!!!!!... John..... It is just as the writer of this posting said... New Visitors to Digg, or those who didnt' see it previously find it new and interesting.

Mark B, June 22, 2007

Seems like a nice and easy way to do dome Digg spamming. Find an article that did very well, if the article still is topcial then modify it and submit it. Let the links flow in and then do a 301 on it. What's to stop this from happening?

Apreche, June 22, 2007

The worst is when things get dugg up very highly that were very popular on the Internet a very long time ago. Every day I fear that I am going to see "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" with 5000+ Diggs. It's from 2001 people!

Getting rid of the bury for old news is the worst change to ever happen to Digg. It's not news if it's old!

tunequest, June 22, 2007

I would think that the relative size of digg's user base compared to the relatively small number of diggs required to promote a story is a significant factor.

Think about it. digg claims to have more than a million registered users, but it often only takes around 100 diggs to become popular. Even if you assume only a 5% participation rate among all registered users, that's still 50,000 active users.

It's entirely possible that the example in the post is made up of completely mutually exclusive subsets of the general digg population.

Content is a bona fide hit when it resonated that much with the audience.

dumit, June 22, 2007

easy, just insert new bury reason. OLD NEWS with undigg > 1 point. If someone found it's and old content, bury and minus 5 or more point.

Matt, June 22, 2007

I hope to see this dugg again in 100 days.

Fast Stumble Exchange, June 22, 2007

i am glad you can realize that old stories can legitametly (sp) become new again.

Pseudowhis, June 22, 2007

Also don't forget some titles will interest users, and others wont, so content might be descovered in one instant but not in the other.

Yasaruwan, June 22, 2007

People usually forget what they read after some time but their interests don't change. That's why the same thing appear again and again...

Alex Ion, June 22, 2007

Nice discovery.

I was sure of something like that, but forgot to make some screenshots.

I think the top users are still there, and they influence the way the news come on the front page. They have it ;)

Tadpole, June 22, 2007

Whereas I understand all the reasons given here and they all seem well thought out, I have just one question... Doesn't Digg's system prevent entering duplicate URLs?

Borislav Borissov, June 22, 2007

Great post! Digg needs new option: "Old News". And may be a new content filtering system, using fast, but full database search before publishing new story.

vinny, June 22, 2007

The writer dugg the story both times, lol.

runbmd, June 22, 2007

The wi-fi story has been posted at least one other time that I know of, because I submitted it (first, I might add) and it got something like 4000 diggs.

Dave, June 22, 2007

Being the 'social democracy' that digg is, I don't see a problem with people submitting the same story. If it is worthy, it will get dugg, if it's not it will die. I've never understood why people will go to a comment section just to post "Great story - 4 months 3 weeks 2 days and 6 hours when I first read it!" Perhaps digg can have a setting you can check whereas if you dugg a story from a certain url then any stories from then on with that same url will not show up in the listing. Although I would never check that box.

Bill Lambert, June 22, 2007

The problem with DIGG is that it's inhabited by magpies. Oooh shiny... Click!

The problem with people complaining about DIGG, is they looking in the wrong place. If you want quality over quantity, you'll have to look somewhere else, somewhere moderated. The fact that the DIGG process is fully automated just makes it ridiculously easy for garbage to trickle up. Let's face it: these are the same people who buy rap albums.

Deaf Musician, June 23, 2007

There's people out there who are definitely tricking the digg system... and I am sure they are getting paid for doing it. Remember the buffalo buffalo story couple days ago? I mean... come on!!! It even points to the SAME URL!!!!!!!!

http://digg.com/software/Buffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalobuffalo http://digg.com/offbeatnews/BuffalobuffaloBuffalobuffalobuffalobuffaloBuffalobuffalo_2

Free Nature Photography Wallpaper, June 24, 2007

The sad part is that a select few really decided what gets attention, and they can do whatever..

Susan Murray, June 30, 2007

"While same or similar stories being promoted multiple times are a minor nuisance for long time users, they give new users a chance to appreciate older content."

I agree. As long as people are digging I don't seem the harm in this. But what about a place where you could link to an old version of the story so people could also read the comments there. When you see a dupe, you'd put in the old URL and then those stories would be linked as "releted"

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