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Extremist group tries to game Digg

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Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#31

Post by ellyagg »

stuaxo wrote: post #24
potatofish wrote: post #9

That's nothing, you should see what Google does to conservative news. Google is a pretty big shill for the Democratic party, has a former exec in the West Wing, and has been caught repeatedly spiking stories in their news site that are critical of the left. Also not sure I'd call this an extremist group. Ideological group perhaps, but extremist? Sure some of the members cited were bad apples (stalking, etc.), but yea…

The bit about American media shilling for the left is quite a funny troll. Admittedly I might be wrong as I don't live in that country, but American media and politics seems to consist of the right and the further right.

When people in the US talk about liberal media bias, the frame of reference is the average US voter's leanings. By that standard, dominant news sources (the incumbents, the ones considered most credible) are inarguably left biased. Some ridiculously high percentage of newspaper reporters, like 90%, vote for the Democrat (or other third party left leaning candidate) in every election. While this particular point isn't proof of bias necessarily, if we were to establish that Fox News' reporting staff voted 90% for the Republican, I feel confident it would be shouted from the rooftops in the online circles I run in.

Neither a Democrat nor Republican, but find the ongoing pretense by many otherwise brilliant people that the dominant US media isn't left biased to be an incredibly silly rationalization.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#32

Post by culled »

anthonyb wrote: post #29
potatofish wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, that kind of specific behavior is really not cool. I think though the idea of trying to uplift or bury a story through organized voting is fine.

Vote up? Sure. Bury? No, since burying it in "record time" denies other people the opportunity to vote on it.

It's been a few years since I've really used Digg but how does burying something prevent other people from voting on it? My impression was that once something is submitted it goes on the upcoming page where all the stories are presented chronologically and buries only affect whether it gets on the front page or not. Do things get removed from the upcoming page after a certain number of down-votes?

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#34

Post by spamizbad »

ellyagg wrote: post #31
stuaxo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bit about American media shilling for the left is quite a funny troll. Admittedly I might be wrong as I don't live in that country, but American media and politics seems to consist of the right and the further right.

When people in the US talk about liberal media bias, the frame of reference is the average US voter's leanings. By that standard, dominant news sources (the incumbents, the ones considered most credible) are inarguably left biased. Some ridiculously high percentage of newspaper reporters, like 90%, vote for the Democrat (or other third party left leaning candidate) in every election. While this particular point isn't…

How are dominant news sources liberal when they were notoriously non-critical of the Bush administration's war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan up until Iraq was in the midst of a civil war (Which the "liberal" media was so kind as to refer to it as "sectarian violence"). The New York Times and NPR even refused to use the word torture to describe water boarding - despite the fact that if you dug into their archives they certainly called it torture when it was done to Americans by the Japanese during WWII.

The only issues where I'd say the news media is genuinely more liberal than the average American is gun control, and I'd say that has more to do with the fact that just about every person in the news media lives and/or works in a major City where gun violence is a problem. Considering gun control hasn't been a major platform issue of the Democratic party since the mid 90's, and is of little interest to the modern progressive/liberal movement (they are far more concerned with social and economic matters), it's hardly fair to classify them as across-the-board liberals.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#35

Post by astine »

elbrodeur wrote: post #10
gscott wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certain a left leaning group is doing the same thing. Think moveon.org (in a different medium). They just negate each others extreme views.

You may be certain, but so far a year long undercover investigation has yet to prove there is an elite cabal of liberals desperately manipulating information in an attempt to skew towards their viewpoint. Or, perhaps, the feeling that conservative content is underrepresented is because of something more benign -- maybe more liberals visit Digg than conservatives?

"but so far a year long undercover investigation has yet to prove there is an elite cabal of liberals desperately manipulating information in an attempt to skew towards their viewpoint."

That's just because their better at it than the Cons. Cue music from the Twilight Zone....

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#36

Post by [deleted] »

Alex3917 wrote: post #16
gscott wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am certain a left leaning group is doing the same thing. Think moveon.org (in a different medium). They just negate each others extreme views.

I don't think they cancel each other out. Digg has an extremely conservative bias. Half the stories on the front page are basically "Global Warming Is A Hoax Because Jesus Wouldn't Let That Happen"

[deleted]

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#37

Post by SHOwnsYou »

It doesn't take an extremist group to game digg.

Before Digg went to their new format, I made a bot that upvoted or downvoted stories in C# in just a couple hours. I haven't dug around their new format yet, but I imagine it is equally easy to game too...

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#39

Post by __david__ »

ellyagg wrote: post #31
stuaxo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bit about American media shilling for the left is quite a funny troll. Admittedly I might be wrong as I don't live in that country, but American media and politics seems to consist of the right and the further right.

When people in the US talk about liberal media bias, the frame of reference is the average US voter's leanings. By that standard, dominant news sources (the incumbents, the ones considered most credible) are inarguably left biased. Some ridiculously high percentage of newspaper reporters, like 90%, vote for the Democrat (or other third party left leaning candidate) in every election. While this particular point isn't…

I think Stephen Colbert said it best: reality has a liberal bias.

Re: Extremist group tries to game Digg

#40

Post by anthonyb »

culled wrote: post #32
anthonyb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote up? Sure. Bury? No, since burying it in "record time" denies other people the opportunity to vote on it.

It's been a few years since I've really used Digg but how does burying something prevent other people from voting on it? My impression was that once something is submitted it goes on the upcoming page where all the stories are presented chronologically and buries only affect whether it gets on the front page or not. Do things get removed from the upcoming page after a certain number of down-votes?

I haven't used it for a while either, but I'm pretty sure that "bury" kills stories off completely. From their FAQ (http://about.digg.com/how):

    Bury. If you find stories with bad links, off-topic content, 
    or duplicate entries, click “Bury.” That’s how we get the
    spam out of the system and let the good stuff rise to the top.
Other than that, they're pretty sketchy on what exactly it does.
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