I love Digg, I work for Netscape, but I still love Digg. Although there’s a lot of information overlap, and I see stuff on Digg that I’ve already found elsewhere, I always seem to find that random little nugget there that I don’t find anywhere else. That said, my use of Digg is very passive. I read the links, but that’s it. I’ve long since given up on commenting, and today I stumbled across a perfect example of why.
This submission appeared on Digg’s front page earlier today: Gorgeous close-up wasp in flight picture [pic]. I’m a sucker for nature pictures and programs, and Digg’s userbase as been drumming up more and more great pictures recently, so, like a sucker, I clicked on it. I was pleasantly surprised for a split second when I saw that the page loading up was a Flickr page, but just for a split second. This is the picture I was greeted with:
I can’t say for sure, but I can probably give you a play by play on what happened here: The story was submitted to Digg. The story became popular on Digg and made it to the front page, thus exponentially increasing the Digg users visiting the photo. Someone noticed that they could post a note on the picture, and posted a note. Others noticed this too. There were probably a few interesting notes on the photos (This is the thorax), a huge amount of moronic ones (This is the sky) and a ton of redundant ones that could have gone in the comments (Great photo! or Have you noticed all the notes on this photo? L0Lcatz!!11!!! ). The reason I can’t say for sure on how to do this? Well some jackass took it one step further and made the entire picture a note so that even the other notes can’t be read:
Digg long ago turned into a mob mentality who’s costs are now starting to tip and not be worth the benefit you would get from their traffic. This latest piece of web graffiti is just the most recent poignant example. Imagine going to here a professor speak on a subject you’re earnestly interested in at a college campus. Now imagine that since their were flyers handed out everywhere, more people start showing up, again, this would probably be a good thing since more discussions would be provoked. Finally, imagine that there happen to be about 10 frats walking around that night, they all got handed flyers as well, and guess where they’re going?
Trying to read or participate in comments at Digg, or anywhere the pack travels, is an absolute mess, and I’m not talking about the mess with the threaded comments either (much love Jay). It’s like standing in a lecture hall with 200 frat boys screaming “I WANNA HEAR MY VOICE!” It’s a matter of being respectful, and that’s something that the large majority of Digg users don’t seem to, and may not ever, grasp.
Oh, and here’s the original photo for reference, it really is an amazing shot:
