Digg Cheaters Get Caught
Scammers, schemers, and cheaters watch out! Over 700 of you just got caught.
Recently, some “entrepreneurial” folks have built systems designed to exploit - or cheat - social networking sites like Digg, Reddit, and Delicious. These exploit-the-social-network-sites have even received attention from the likes of TechCrunch and CNet.
SpikeTheVote.com has been at the forefront of the corrupt movement, and interest was amplified when the owner of the site decided to sell it.
When we learned that it was available on Ebay, we immediately jumped at the opportunity to shut down a scheme that attempts to undermine the legitimacy of Digg’s voting system. We thought, “Hey, we’ll buy it and turn it over to Digg. That way future cheaters might think twice before starting or joining such networks.”
We like Digg and don’t want anyone else to mess it up. We hope our actions will help deter future efforts to exploit the integrity of our favorite online social network.
And just to be true to typical Digger fashion, here are the…
Top 4 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Scam Digg
- The site might have been started by Digg to gain a list of those intending to scam their network.
- The site may actually be set up by a friend of Digg to capture the offenders.
- The site might get bought by a friend of Digg in an attempt to maintain a pure, scam-free network.
- It’s just not cool.
-Jim & Andrea Messenger, Friends of Digg
So digg is also gaming it’s users and “clients”. Since people laughed at the “digg is behind this” conspiracy, and you know outright say they started some, are they keeping the money?
I find this pathetic that they did this. How much money did they game of people submitting stories? How many users did they ban, all while making money?
Digg went to crap when they went outside the technology area…and Kevin is such a tool.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:12 ammore will come, digg will go down
December 7th, 2006 at 10:13 amI can understand the enormous pressure to cheat digg. I’m a professional blogger for NetQoS; and my performance is measured in traffic numbers. Getting a front-page digg, by hook or by crook, can be awfully tempting.
I can understand it, but I don’t condone it. Digg’s value is in it’s ability to filter the interesting content from the non-interesting, and this actively destroys the point - eating away at the roots instead of plucking the fruit from the tree. I post my own stories to Digg; but we don’t cheat the system. That engenders more ill-will than otherwise and people WILL get caught eventually.
I’d like to hear more about this story, including the scale of the offenders and what’s being done about it.
– Brian Boyko
December 7th, 2006 at 10:24 am– Editor, http://www.networkperformancedaily.com
Those are weak reasons
December 7th, 2006 at 10:26 amThis sounds virtuous, but I am sure what is really happening is that non-spammers are being censored who don’t deserve to be. Security crackdowns are rarely about cracking down on the guilty.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:36 amso, you rewarded someone who cheated the system by giving him money?
December 7th, 2006 at 10:40 amHey Jim,
This has got to be the best $1,275 you have ever spend. It was a guaranteed Digg home page story and will get you hundreds of other links. Good job
December 7th, 2006 at 10:54 amYour header is very deceiving, which definitely deterred me after I read this post. I’m all for kicking the “cheaters” out, but at least use a more accurate title.
December 7th, 2006 at 10:58 amI signed up for ‘Spike the Vote’ and even wrote about it on my website. Just because you have a list of user names from STV doesn’t mean that you’ve got a list of people seeking to rig Digg. It failed because no one wanted to exploit Digg. The majority of the people who signed up for STV were Digg users wanting to see what the fuss was about. No one followed the missions and eventually STV realized it was a failure and sold out.
-spaztech
December 7th, 2006 at 11:04 amBuying the site was just stupid. Do you really believe that giving someone money for doing something will discourage others from doing the same thing? Obviously not. You apparently did it for the publicity, which is fine, but lying about why you did it is not. Dishonesty is dishonesty, whether you’re gaming Digg or giving money to scammers “to deter others”.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:13 amDigg is already being gamed on a regular basis. The Digg founders insist on relying on the wisdom of the majority, but it has turned into the tyranny of the majority.
Only a small group of people submit stories and go through the effort of digging though the queue to digg stories.
and it’s also a small minority that bury stories.
And even when large groups of people get involved, they are like a herd of cattle following each other.
December 7th, 2006 at 11:41 amYeah.
I agree.
http://www.thoughtquotient.com
December 7th, 2006 at 1:24 pmI tried it out for fun, it wasn’t fun at all. Read my story.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:42 pmBut that’s the beauty of Digg–the big stories do really involve large groups of people, so there’s a consensus of sorts.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:59 pmYeah, well we still have http://www.usersubmitter.com/ to worry about, which has been much more successful than spikethevote.
And… from http://www.spikethevote.com/ … “Now owned by digg.com thanks to Jim Messenger” What’s up with that, Jim?
December 7th, 2006 at 2:14 pmThis is the best Game digg entry I have read lately.
December 7th, 2006 at 2:26 pmDigg should have locked new memberships about a year ago.
Once anyone under 25 is let in, it goes to crap.
All digg is now is a bunch of top ten lists and youtube videos.
what a waste
December 7th, 2006 at 2:59 pm[...] The site made some big headlines when it was featured on Tech Crunch and even CNet. However, for whatever reasons, the ower(s) decided to sell it on eBay before the site became full operational. This is where Jim Messenger at FamousAgents.com comes in. [...]
December 7th, 2006 at 5:12 pmDigg is not all it’s cracked up to be… Their 10 bury system is poor at best.
December 7th, 2006 at 8:12 pmThe fact is, people have individual thought processes and values, and all users will necessarily use the system in their own individual way. Some will be more altruistic, while others will be more selfish, and those are only TWO of the possible characteristics users may exhibit.
To expect that this very heterogeneous group will use the system in the same way, with the same motivations is totally unrealistic. ‘Fair’ is not an option in this type of system.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:42 amThis has been going on for such a long time, I barely care. Between the Digg scammers and the Technorati index spammers, I rarely use either to search for content. It may be a little too late for me with Digg. That being said, I am glad they trying to finally cleanup their act. Now, let’s see what Technorati does about their problem!
December 8th, 2006 at 6:44 am[...] Posted: Friday, December 08, 2006 8:10 PM by Will Femia Robert Scoble offers advice on how to interact better with your blog readers. It’s mostly the kind of basic “how to blog” advice we used to see a lot of when the blogging wave was really cresting. His item 10 is about writing good headlines. Though I have fun trying to think of clever headlines for this blog, I often wonder if I’m hurting my own traffic. When people come to the front of MSNBC.com and see my headline way down at the bottom, do they click it out of interest or ignore it because it has no clear meaning? Looking at my Google referral stats this week, I’d do well to title every post “pantiless Britney.” Speaking of advice on engaging people online, Diggers Are Getting Paid — But Not By Kevin Rose - I hadn’t thought of this, but I guess it makes sense. Rather than learn how to participate in online social sites, some companies are reportedly paying active social site participants to advocate on their behalf. But don’t think Digg is taking that lying down.[...]
December 8th, 2006 at 9:40 pm[...] For some strange reason, the owner of the site decide to sell it on eBay. Jim Messenger of FamousAgents.com bought it for $1,275.00 and turned it over to Digg. [...]
December 9th, 2006 at 6:11 am[...] Jim Messenger of FamousAgents.com bought the site and then donated it to Digg. Digg, in turn, almost immediately banned 700 Digg accounts using the data it received with the site files. [...]
December 9th, 2006 at 10:09 pmWow you made it to Wired magazine Jim. Congratulations for your honesty in Digg.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:08 pmhttp://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/herding.html
Mert,
Unfortunately, the writer for Wired wrote a poor article and totally disregarded the facts I gave to her regarding the Spike purchase.
She showed her ignorance by saying that I did it to promote my SEO business. Anyone who understands Digg knows these two important facts:
1. Diggers hate SEOs
2. Diggers hate REALTORS
It had zero benefit for our web development business.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:26 pm[...] 9. Messenger, J. (2006). Digg Cheaters Get Caught. Retrieved Feb 03, 2007 from http://www.famousagents.com/2006/12/07/digg-cheaters-get-caught/ [...]
March 7th, 2007 at 12:29 amI guess it is no surprise at all. Every site out there seems to have gamers that don’t want to play by the rules. It sucks for the rest of us.
November 30th, 2007 at 11:05 am