Bury as 'Rumor'

Is anybody else sick of unsubstantiated rumor being dugg to the frontpage? It is really starting to get out of hand. Here are a couple recent examples:

iPhone on monday (december, 18)!!! [gizmodo knows it]

Wii For $200? More Colors?

UPDATE!!! I just heard from an inside source close to digg that there will be a 'bury as rumor' option, and possibly a 'bury as rumour' option for our UK friends.

Here is an interesting article that examines the inner working of a good rumor. Check it out. In other news, I challenge someone to submit this with the title "Digg to add 'bury as rumor' option???" for a good dose of irony.

Also, I made up this idea so it is completely untrue, but seriously people, hold blogs accountable to the same scrutiny you would a major newspaper or news channel. I think I will do some research to see how many rumors on digg are actually true. Be back later.

Digg hits 1 Million Submissions!

Just a few days after Digg turned 2 years old, Digg has reached another huge Milestone. One Million stories have now been submitted to digg. A big thank you goes out to Digg, but a BIGGER thanks goes out to all of the submitters submitting awesome stories day after day. For those wondering what the 1,000,000th story might be, click below to check it out!:


Reasons I am sure this is factual:

1. Here is the http://services.digg.com/story/1 for the first story, the second line lists the story id as '1'. Naturally, the One Millionth story would be at: http://services.digg.com/story/1000000

2. When you hover over the digg it button of a story, the story is is listed at the bottom of the browser, like so:

Community?

It’s occurred to be today that there may be something missing in the rush to conquer the hot new social side of the internet. When I think of community, I think of a group of people all working together, unified in a common goal or purpose. One of the major features of a successful community is that people tend to contribute in a variety of ways. For instance, there would be a blacksmith, baker, teacher, trash collector, general store owner, etc… Not everyone is a blacksmith, not everyone is a teacher.

Similarly, in the case of the social content sites I generally cover here, Digg and Netscape, there is little of this going on. Here is the breakdown of each site:

Digg
At Digg, the fragmenting of the community into different jobs probably exists, though on a small scale. Basically, you can choose whatever job you want and try your best at it. In my estimations, not everyone does what is best for the community. Some people submit spam stories, some people bury things inappropriately, some people trash up the comments area, and the majority of people just pass on through Digg just to look.

Netscape
For Netscape, the story is a bit different. As with Digg, you can choose whatever job you want, though there are a smaller number of duties carried out by the general population. Any user can submit, but there are specific users designated to keep the place tidy. The Navigators and Anchors keep the place clean from spam, duplicate stories, and trashy comments.

Given the ~2 year history of the social news arena, it seems as if Netscape has moved toward the traditional community model. This is not to say that Netscape is superior to Digg or anything, because I enjoy both sites, and they obviously appeal to different types of people. What I am saying is that social news seems to be progressing toward a more traditional idea of community.

However, the majority of the population seems to be rather apathetic to helping the common good. When this happens it is necessary to give the individual increased control and more powerful tools for personal use. Hopefully the next generation of sites will give this to us.