Comments on: Digg Getting Faceted Search? http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/ Mon, 21 May 2012 05:21:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/comment-page-1/#comment-2775 Daniel Tunkelang Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:43:03 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1841#comment-2775 Those would be good heuristics to implement. Though, if Digg mattered enough, it would make sense to create a bunch of accounts and maintain them over time. Looking at Digg right now, the top stories have between 66 and 333 diggs. Getting a hundred people or fake accounts to act in concert doesn't strike me as that hard. It's a similar problem to the one faced by review sites--it's not hard to astroturf enough reviews to promote a product in a moderately popular category. Or to manipulate relevance ranking / recommendations, as may have happened in Amazon's <a href="http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/03/30/a-blooper-from-the-worlds-best-retailer/" rel="nofollow">girl-scout-cookie-gate</a>. In my view, such sites would be much better if the user-generated content were not anonymous--assuming the reviewers didn't face the prospect of <a href="http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=102073" rel="nofollow">retribution</a>. Those would be good heuristics to implement. Though, if Digg mattered enough, it would make sense to create a bunch of accounts and maintain them over time.

Looking at Digg right now, the top stories have between 66 and 333 diggs. Getting a hundred people or fake accounts to act in concert doesn’t strike me as that hard. It’s a similar problem to the one faced by review sites–it’s not hard to astroturf enough reviews to promote a product in a moderately popular category. Or to manipulate relevance ranking / recommendations, as may have happened in Amazon’s girl-scout-cookie-gate.

In my view, such sites would be much better if the user-generated content were not anonymous–assuming the reviewers didn’t face the prospect of retribution.

]]> By: Jason Adams http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/comment-page-1/#comment-2774 Jason Adams Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:31:15 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1841#comment-2774 I've read anecdotal stories claiming that a bunch of votes from new users or users from the same IP will trip the red flag on Digg, but no idea if that is actually the case or what the threshold might be. The lack of value of the visitors also means Digg is next to useless except to its users, who don't pay a thing for it.. Do they even have a monetization model? I see a few ads, but that can't generate much. I’ve read anecdotal stories claiming that a bunch of votes from new users or users from the same IP will trip the red flag on Digg, but no idea if that is actually the case or what the threshold might be.

The lack of value of the visitors also means Digg is next to useless except to its users, who don’t pay a thing for it.. Do they even have a monetization model? I see a few ads, but that can’t generate much.

]]> By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/comment-page-1/#comment-2773 Daniel Tunkelang Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:31:51 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1841#comment-2773 Well, organizing a group of employees / activists to pump up a story sympathetic to their company / cause doesn't sound so hard, especially if you can keep creating new web mail accounts and using those to create new users. The more interesting question is whether the traffic has any value. If there's no way to game your way to useful traffic, then I suppose that as good as preventing gaming. Well, organizing a group of employees / activists to pump up a story sympathetic to their company / cause doesn’t sound so hard, especially if you can keep creating new web mail accounts and using those to create new users. The more interesting question is whether the traffic has any value. If there’s no way to game your way to useful traffic, then I suppose that as good as preventing gaming.

]]> By: Jason Adams http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/comment-page-1/#comment-2765 Jason Adams Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:49:20 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1841#comment-2765 Gaming Digg is not as easy as you might think. You can drive a little traffic to a site, but in order to get the kind of results that make it worthwhile, you have to invest serious effort into it -- probably more than it's worth. If you really want to game it, and not be banned, you have to organize a group of people to vote up a story to a critical mass. Though if you can organize a bunch of people to vote for it, then really you have only reinforced Digg's model. A social group found it worthwhile enough to help you, so presumably the Digg audience will find it useful too. And if you don't have the content to support a good digg, the visitors you get will be useless anyway. Stumbleupon can drive insane traffic your way, but they are the non-clickingest visitors you'll find. Same goes for Digg on a dud story. Didn't mean to turn this into a defense of Digg's model -- I have barely touched the site in the past six months. And I've only looked at gaming Digg briefly as a research challenge, not to actually drive traffic to my blog... :) Gaming Digg is not as easy as you might think. You can drive a little traffic to a site, but in order to get the kind of results that make it worthwhile, you have to invest serious effort into it — probably more than it’s worth. If you really want to game it, and not be banned, you have to organize a group of people to vote up a story to a critical mass. Though if you can organize a bunch of people to vote for it, then really you have only reinforced Digg’s model. A social group found it worthwhile enough to help you, so presumably the Digg audience will find it useful too.

And if you don’t have the content to support a good digg, the visitors you get will be useless anyway. Stumbleupon can drive insane traffic your way, but they are the non-clickingest visitors you’ll find. Same goes for Digg on a dud story.

Didn’t mean to turn this into a defense of Digg’s model — I have barely touched the site in the past six months. And I’ve only looked at gaming Digg briefly as a research challenge, not to actually drive traffic to my blog… :)

]]> By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/comment-page-1/#comment-2757 Daniel Tunkelang Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:54:54 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1841#comment-2757 Looking forward to playing with it. Isn't Digg already using Solr for its current search? Looking forward to playing with it. Isn’t Digg already using Solr for its current search?

]]> By: Otis Gospodnetic http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/03/digg-getting-faceted-search/comment-page-1/#comment-2756 Otis Gospodnetic Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:44:39 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1841#comment-2756 I believe that's Solr under the hood, by the way. :) I believe that’s Solr under the hood, by the way. :)

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