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People keep portraying 'the wisdom of crowds' as though it were some sort of democracy - people vote, and whomever has the most votes wins. That's how Digg operated.
But the failure of Digg is analagous to the failure of democracy. The 'wisdom of crowds' is not obtained by mere voting. What is required - as the new Digg algorithm explicitly recognizes - is diversity.
The ol' middle ground conclusion...yawn.
But I do think there was a lesson in there for reporters
""My question is - where were the tech reporters from the larger news organizations? They found out about this from ValleyWag, VentureBeat and Mashable the next morning. Those were the beat bloggers - those are the reporters who got the scoop."
Middle ground may not be sexy, but does have the virtue, I think based on much empirical evidence, of being right.
Dave,
Indeed, there's a big lesson for reporters -- as sources move to online network, slamming phones isn't going to get the scoop anymore.
All networks - including Digg - are constructed. All networks are therefore regulated, that is, the manner of their construction impacts their conduct.
Perhaps we should say that to 'regulate' is to manage transactions in a network on a case by case basis, as opposed to 'design', which is the creation (or one-time adjustment) of network parameters.
As for what constitutes 'completely open' in a network that has been designed, I am at a bit of a loss.
Strictly speaking, 'completely open' would entail no design whatsoever, but that would also entail no network at all.
We could say that 'completely open' means that any person may participate as fuly as anyone else. But if so, then the recent change by Digg does not change its status as 'completely open'.
I don't have any faith in the press to actually comprehend any of these subtleties. But I think it would be nice were the press to move beyond empty slogans.
What is odd to me is that we are still seeing the predominance of the MEGA-AGGREGATORS like Digg and Google.
I worry that Google has a strangle hold on content because it does serve as the primary aggregation of information for so many people around the world. It's sort of given us Googley eyes through which we see the world according to Google's logarithms.....which makes me uncomfortable.
What Digg has done makes sense to me and I hope they stick with it. I also hope that people that are disaffected are able to find another aggregation that evolves to fill their niche. I what I really want is to see a greater diversity of aggregations. Where is the long-tail of aggregation channels?
The reason there were no reporters is because there was no story. The vast majority of the community did not care about your so-called "revolt". The digg about you guys whining getting close to 2000 diggs while your "digg is a game, let's play" post getting buried is proof of that. Reporters look for news, not manufactured publicity stunts propagated by crybabies.
Here's something we all know that you guys might have not figured out yet: you need digg more than digg needs you.
1) A person who Diggs everything is not providing any information about the quality of the content: it's just like grade inflation.
2) A large group with perfectly coordinated behavior does not provide any more information that a single individual from that group.
If a website has as much traffic as Digg's - then there is a story there.
Anybody who thinks this was just about the algorithm change didn't actually read any of the complaints.
Banned accounts for no reason.
Secret editors, auto-burries, etc. It's about transparency. Can you imagine if Flickr or Del.icio.us had rumors of banned accounts with no explanation? People would be up in arms.
I'm not saying these rumors are true: But they are very prominent rumors - and that was the cause of things.