This is a blow by blow account of what happened to Digg. There are many people on the 'net who have no idea what Digg was and what it contributed to the Internet (upvotes and downvotes anyone?)...
This is a blow by blow account of what happened to Digg. There are many people on the 'net who have no idea what Digg was and what it contributed to the Internet (upvotes and downvotes anyone?)
Also there are parallels to something else that is occurring that I can't quite put my finger on...
Fascinating article. I only heard of Digg after I was on The Site That Shan't Be Named and then only in passing. Had no idea it had grown that big or as popular as it was before imploding. Guess...
Fascinating article. I only heard of Digg after I was on The Site That Shan't Be Named and then only in passing. Had no idea it had grown that big or as popular as it was before imploding. Guess they should have sold it when it was valued at 200 million and before they ticked off most of their users. Wonder if there are any other CEO's out there wondering the same thing?
Digg was awesome. I spent a lot of time on there. I even refused to use reddit for several years. Eventually ended up there in 2014 after I had almost fully automated my job and my bosses weren't...
Digg was awesome. I spent a lot of time on there. I even refused to use reddit for several years. Eventually ended up there in 2014 after I had almost fully automated my job and my bosses weren't giving me anymore work.
It felt like getting hit by a truck. It made no sense and felt like sabotage. Everything attractive about Digg was thrown out the window in one swift move.
disastrous launch of v4
It felt like getting hit by a truck. It made no sense and felt like sabotage. Everything attractive about Digg was thrown out the window in one swift move.
Super interesting read - thanks for sharing. You can definitely see some similarities in the later reasons why Digg failed. One interesting thing was the way the article seemed to be...
Super interesting read - thanks for sharing. You can definitely see some similarities in the later reasons why Digg failed.
One interesting thing was the way the article seemed to be pro-downvoting, which is obviously something we don’t do here. I can kind of see the need, though, in a giant, more anonymous community.
You might find this section of the docs interesting: And speaking of comment labels, you can read about them and their effects here:...
One interesting thing was the way the article seemed to be pro-downvoting, which is obviously something we don’t do here. I can kind of see the need, though, in a giant, more anonymous community.
Tildes does not have negative votes for either topics or comments. The reason for this is that I believe we can implement different mechanics that replace the "proper" use of downvotes without also enabling all the misuses of them.
The ideal usage of a downvote is a generic way to express "this doesn't contribute", but in practice they tend to be used more as "I disagree" or "I don't like this". High-quality posts will often get downvoted because other users disagree with the opinion, and in taste-based communities (such as ones related to music), entire categories of valid posts might not be viable because they'll just be downvoted by users with different tastes.
On Tildes, I want to find ways to accomplish those valuable uses through other mechanics. For example, the comment labels can be used to communicate why you don't think a comment contributes. Topic tags will allow users to simply filter out certain types of posts that they're not interested in, instead of downvoting them and hurting them for other users that do want to see them.
Had not read about the content labels yet, and yeah, I can see how beneficial these are in place of downvoting. Probably anything that makes people think about how they specifically rate or value...
Had not read about the content labels yet, and yeah, I can see how beneficial these are in place of downvoting. Probably anything that makes people think about how they specifically rate or value a comment is the right direction, and those 5 branches seem like a pretty solid design. I think I just got the ability to use them, so it makes more sense now.
I believe the two most positive points to downvote systems is an easier time suppressing bad content and auto moderation, basically, of things that fall below a default threshold. Sadly, I also...
I believe the two most positive points to downvote systems is an easier time suppressing bad content and auto moderation, basically, of things that fall below a default threshold. Sadly, I also think those two things are also the biggest downsides to it as well. Suppression of ideas that are unpopular or counter to whomever is leading the charge to promote/demote a particular topic, idea, or discussion.
I get the need for it on a site like Reddit, but we've pretty much saw how it plays out when it happens at scale: tons of people segregated into their own echo chambers where only ideas people like, no matter how wrong, are pushed up and dissenting ideas are quashed.
Of course, I suppose Twitter is the other side. Everyone is, technically (before Blue, anyway), equal in voice and it's up to everyone else to simply magnify that view. Not that I think Twitter is great for discussion, but it does highlight the downsides of no ability to downvote and its ability help squash extremely dumb/harmful/etc views to counteract those pushing it.
Definitely feels like a challenge to get right. I appreciate @cfabbro posting the docs bit (I had read that before, for real!), and I think trying to find an elegant method that filters bad...
Definitely feels like a challenge to get right. I appreciate @cfabbro posting the docs bit (I had read that before, for real!), and I think trying to find an elegant method that filters bad content without too much personal opinion weighing in would be a golden ticket.
The way I see it is that downvoting ability is almost necessary at scale for the reasons you state but if you fail to control automation then you're not going to succeed. Reddit's bot problem is...
The way I see it is that downvoting ability is almost necessary at scale for the reasons you state but if you fail to control automation then you're not going to succeed.
Reddit's bot problem is rarely talked about but has existed forever and appears to be worse every single year. They don't like to talk about it for obvious reasons but as the site has grown users can't fail to have noticed and the state of the site today is a direct result of it being far too easy to game at the same time as it becoming increasingly important (for some) to manipulate.
I know what this sentence means, but I'll be damned if I can't stop giggling at how it reads at a glance. 2 kool 4 Skool. Interesting read! I remember coming across Digg a few times by chance when...
4chan, for instance, became the place for anyone that was simply too radical for Digg.
I know what this sentence means, but I'll be damned if I can't stop giggling at how it reads at a glance. 2 kool 4 Skool.
Interesting read! I remember coming across Digg a few times by chance when I was much younger, though I didn't really know or understand what it was at the time. I just sorta forgot about it after a while, didn't really think about what happened after that - I probably wouldn't have even remembered it if not for seeing it mentioned on That Other Site a few times lately. I was strictly a forum kid during Digg's reign. :P
This is a blow by blow account of what happened to Digg. There are many people on the 'net who have no idea what Digg was and what it contributed to the Internet (upvotes and downvotes anyone?)
Also there are parallels to something else that is occurring that I can't quite put my finger on...
Article is from 2022
Fascinating article. I only heard of Digg after I was on The Site That Shan't Be Named and then only in passing. Had no idea it had grown that big or as popular as it was before imploding. Guess they should have sold it when it was valued at 200 million and before they ticked off most of their users. Wonder if there are any other CEO's out there wondering the same thing?
Digg was awesome. I spent a lot of time on there. I even refused to use reddit for several years. Eventually ended up there in 2014 after I had almost fully automated my job and my bosses weren't giving me anymore work.
It felt like getting hit by a truck. It made no sense and felt like sabotage. Everything attractive about Digg was thrown out the window in one swift move.
Super interesting read - thanks for sharing. You can definitely see some similarities in the later reasons why Digg failed.
One interesting thing was the way the article seemed to be pro-downvoting, which is obviously something we don’t do here. I can kind of see the need, though, in a giant, more anonymous community.
You might find this section of the docs interesting:
And speaking of comment labels, you can read about them and their effects here:
https://docs.tildes.net/instructions/commenting-on-tildes#labelling-comments
Had not read about the content labels yet, and yeah, I can see how beneficial these are in place of downvoting. Probably anything that makes people think about how they specifically rate or value a comment is the right direction, and those 5 branches seem like a pretty solid design. I think I just got the ability to use them, so it makes more sense now.
I believe the two most positive points to downvote systems is an easier time suppressing bad content and auto moderation, basically, of things that fall below a default threshold. Sadly, I also think those two things are also the biggest downsides to it as well. Suppression of ideas that are unpopular or counter to whomever is leading the charge to promote/demote a particular topic, idea, or discussion.
I get the need for it on a site like Reddit, but we've pretty much saw how it plays out when it happens at scale: tons of people segregated into their own echo chambers where only ideas people like, no matter how wrong, are pushed up and dissenting ideas are quashed.
Of course, I suppose Twitter is the other side. Everyone is, technically (before Blue, anyway), equal in voice and it's up to everyone else to simply magnify that view. Not that I think Twitter is great for discussion, but it does highlight the downsides of no ability to downvote and its ability help squash extremely dumb/harmful/etc views to counteract those pushing it.
Definitely feels like a challenge to get right. I appreciate @cfabbro posting the docs bit (I had read that before, for real!), and I think trying to find an elegant method that filters bad content without too much personal opinion weighing in would be a golden ticket.
The way I see it is that downvoting ability is almost necessary at scale for the reasons you state but if you fail to control automation then you're not going to succeed.
Reddit's bot problem is rarely talked about but has existed forever and appears to be worse every single year. They don't like to talk about it for obvious reasons but as the site has grown users can't fail to have noticed and the state of the site today is a direct result of it being far too easy to game at the same time as it becoming increasingly important (for some) to manipulate.
I know what this sentence means, but I'll be damned if I can't stop giggling at how it reads at a glance. 2 kool 4 Skool.
Interesting read! I remember coming across Digg a few times by chance when I was much younger, though I didn't really know or understand what it was at the time. I just sorta forgot about it after a while, didn't really think about what happened after that - I probably wouldn't have even remembered it if not for seeing it mentioned on That Other Site a few times lately. I was strictly a forum kid during Digg's reign. :P