Digg.com users rebel. Will Newsvine users follow?

I'm not sure I would call that a rebellion. The two articles mentioned are things we have all heard before. I doubt any real changes will come of this except for maybe some diggers leaving the site. At Newsvine we have seen similar posts about Newsvine losing its edge or not paying the money writers feel they are owed but for the most part it is just talk and few have actually left over those issues.

No doubt, Digg is having problems. I gave up on submitting stories to Digg because my submissions are ignored and someone else's submission of the same thing is always dugg to the front page. Yes, people are gaming the system and they are not dealing with it quickly enough.

Also, they still haven't addressed a lot of functionality aspects of the system. There are no user tags, just categories. The comment system is just plain awful. There is no notification of replies to your comments making an ongoing discussion nearly impossible.

Newsvine has all the functionality that Digg promises and a lot fewer 14 year olds. I doubt it's going anywhere soon.

I accidentally hit 'yes' in the poll and now I cant change it. I might rebel about that.

Im also tempted to rebel about the inability to edit comments.

The thing with Digg is, I find, the community is way too bias. You say something in favour of the PS3 for say, and straight away, 50 users will slap you down.

Say something against Firefox, WACK, you've been undugged.

I'm slowly moving away from Digg as I just don't like any of the people on it.

I've only recently started to look on here, and I found it really friendly, you felt welcome and even those who sound like an ass are kindly put straight.

This is more like political parties. Just like in real democracy, groups of people are constantly promoting their own people, and it seems like there is a party promoting eachother's. Right now it is a one party system, but when digg users realize what's being created and what it is similar to, I'm sure more "parties" will be formed.

Vote of Confidence for Newsvine. I vote AYE for they;re not gaming the system. Nay is for they are.

Sure I have noticed things about Newsvine I thought could be improved. I made suggestions. Sure I notice cliques which seemed hog a lot of space. Now I guess I am part of a giant clique called Newsvine. The minor instances of people running in gangs has not persisted and maybe never did.

Newsvine is still developing, growing and becoming more sophisticated. There will be growing pains but we will all be smarter for growing through them. I haven't tried the others although I have looked. Nothing there for me I can't have right here. And by concentrating my efforts here I make myself as well as Newsvine better. Sound like a cheer for Newsvine? IT IS!

I keep hearing about comments which can be edited. I hope it doesn't happen and here is why. If comments can be edited, someone can be on one side of an argument one day and the other the next. As a reader, who's responsibility is it to keep up with coming and going of thousands of comments a day? Just today I had to take back a comment. I wrote a completely new one to make the correction. Had I been able to just edit, my comment might have been taken earlier as meaning I was a Socialist. I am not. My later correcting comment would be out of context. Then how does ones changed comment expose those who commented on the original comment. Fuddy Duddy DAh. Leave comments alone.

Slashdot has had this problem as well, as I'm sure has Fark. At Slashdot a small group of users also contributed the mass of the articles. But I agree with Slashdot's assertion that it's the numbers rule. If people submit a lot, they will appear a lot, and the site can't exactly tell users NOT to submit or that they have a submission cap. Submissions are voluntary, after all.

Digg just takes it a step further. Still a small group doing the bulk of the subs, but a user vote system regulates it more. It's essentially a group editorship. Granted, the voting might be swayed, but at a vote per user it's hard to abuse. To maintain a highly voted sub you need a lot of votes, which suggests a group a bit larger than a select few at the top. One user might have a lot of stories features, but he or she probably submits a lot of stuff. That Firefox is adored and PS3 hated speaks of the site's demographic. The votes are still tied to the readership. Nothing has every prevent ed me from upping or downing a sub on Digg. The variation of its content should speak volumes alone for Digg's system. It's just experiencing the same growing pains all social sub sites get.

I think the real issue concerns the value of these "social media." Do they really add anything positive to the lives of the participants? Or do they simply give satisfaction to a minority of posters who find themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, the center of attention - no matter how small the audience?

I don't follow Digg, but I frankly find very little value in the comments on Newsvine. Well, a few that correct the blunders of AP have value, but the rest are just noise.

I've never used Digg and right now I don't see any reason for me to use it when I've become so accustomed to using Newsvine.

Socially communities always have their cliques, there isn't much you can do to solve that other than making everyone anonymous.

If you post an anti-American article to Digg, it will make the front page.

So yes, a small group of leftist-extremists control Digg.

I'd say Newsvine really doesn't have this problem. Sometimes it may seem that there is a group of "top authors" that tend to get the most publicity... but those writers/seeders also tend to be of some of the highest quality (or at least most controversial). All in all, though, I say most people have good enough exposure here to be seen and become popular, so long as they're good at writing (or flaming).

*warm squishy feelings toward Newsvine*

Given the response to several of my articles and the highly unscientific results of my in-article surveys I'd assume that my column generates somewhat more traffic than the average 'Viner. I know that I have a modest following of readers and they do pretty reliably vote my articles up to a certain threshold.

That said - there is a big difference for me between a successful article and an unsuccessful one. Today's most recent publication, for example (and I'm not linking here because it's not really apropos... just a good example) is, in my opinion, one of my best written pieces to date. I really slaved over the language and I'm very happy with it.

Votes and comments, however, are to the contrary.

Other pieces I've written, while far less polished, elicited much better reactions - sometimes in excess of 100 votes. I'd love to give Newsvine more stories like that, but I'm just not sure what makes a story successful.

I've certainly tried to figure it out.

I can say this though -- some stories I write go very well. Some fail. No matter how many people watchlist me and no matter how many people see my posts on the front page -- a bad story is still a bad story. Sometimes a good story is a bad story too. It's really very hard to tell.

FYI; I've just written an article on here titled "Digg: Censorship"

It's my first one so don't be too harsh!

I really believe these communities (like digg)are 50 50. 50 % PR companies and others with an agenda.. , 50% real users. Nice post BTW!

Ya know you can't edit a digg. That's all web 2.0 for ya. You can digg, undigg, but not edit the digg itself. With newsvine and web eleventy, I can edit my vines all day long, if I like wanted to.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things here, thank you all.

This is a 100% user driven site. That means the users of Digg can get together and if they don't like a story, they will use the bury to bury the story. What type of topics tend to get buried the most? Are the conservative topics? If so, then we may be looking at a site that is leaning left. The loony left are typically the undemocratic people out there as they want to bring about socialism in this country.