Comments on: Spike the Vote: Another Cancer Aimed at Digg

By: Ban Asbestos

Ban Asbestos — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:06:55 +0000

There are many methods of cheating, but in the end they all loose.

By: perde

perde — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:41:24 +0000

great topic

By: Want On The Digg Home Page? That’ll Be $1,300.

Want On The Digg Home Page? That’ll Be $1,300. — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:04:53 +0000

[...] a never-ending battle to try to keep spamming to a minimum. It seems to have worked in keeping organized spamming schemes from making any real progress. But on an individual level there isn’t much Digg can do to [...]

By: adult internet station tv

adult internet station tv — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 03:48:18 +0000

adult internet station tv…

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Spike the Vote: Another Cancer Aimed…

By: Next Target for Subvert and Profit: StumbleUpon

Next Target for Subvert and Profit: StumbleUpon — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:17:46 +0000

[...] side of the service and the bane of many of its users. Subvert and Profit, like User/Submitter and Spike the Vote, pays users for digging stories in the hope that they’ll make the front page. For the [...]

By: Next Service To Try Gaming Digg: Subvert and Profit

Next Service To Try Gaming Digg: Subvert and Profit — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 01:06:09 +0000

[...] and Profit is the newest service to try to sell home page placement on Digg. Like User/Submitter and Spike the Vote before it (both now offline), the idea is to charge people for a digg vote (in this case, $1 per [...]

By: Next Service To Try Gaming Digg: Subvert and Profit

Next Service To Try Gaming Digg: Subvert and Profit — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 01:06:09 +0000

By: Toward a Better Digg

Toward a Better Digg — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 01:45:37 +0000

[...] importance: the raw number of clones and Digg gaming schemes out there. We’ve seen rigging, vote buying, profile sales, and accusations of thug rule. The dozens of clones include a not-bad [...]

By: The Software Abstractions Blog

The Software Abstractions Blog — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:45:22 +0000

Search and the Dumbness of Crowds…

The Dumbness of Crowds Kathy Sierra recently had a fascinating post in the Creating Passionate Users blog: The Dumbness of Crowds , in which she carefully analyzes the popular notion of The Wisdom of Crowds . Given the technology community’s…

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By: mrelevi

mrelevi — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:04:16 +0000

I submitted my site to Digg: http://digg.com...ople_find_loans
and I think it’s a great site to post links and news…I don’t like the fact that people Digg based on cheating. I created my site to provide a service…like any webmaster I hope for links to my site so a site like Digg can help me get more promotion. But if people are cheating…that is disappointing.

By: Multimedias.mobi » Digg Breaks Away From All News Focus

Multimedias.mobi » Digg Breaks Away From All News Focus — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:57:55 +0000

[...] I recorded a podcast with the Digg team to discuss the new features. We also discuss current user stats, the SpikeTheVote story (Digg now owns the domain name), and updates on financings and acquisition (”no comment”). Listen to the podcast over on TalkCrunch. [...]

By: Jim Messenger

Jim Messenger — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 16:59:58 +0000

Hey Michael,

Here is an update on SpikeTheVote.com

http://www.famo...ers-get-caught/

By: Spike The Vote Gets Spiked « John Chow dot Com

Spike The Vote Gets Spiked « John Chow dot Com — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:13:52 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: Search Marketing Gurus | Search Marketing Tips, Advice, Strategies

Search Marketing Gurus | Search Marketing Tips, Advice, Strategies — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 03:36:51 +0000

Digg – Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em?…

These days I can’t go through any news aggregating sites without seeing at least 1 or 2 stories about Digg. The social news site has been stirring up a lot of controversy lately, check out this list: algorithm updates admission of moderators stories r…

By: Do you want to buy a system to game Digg?| 300km North of Moscow

Do you want to buy a system to game Digg?| 300km North of Moscow — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:18:24 +0000

[...] From a review at Tech Crunch: A link on the front page of Digg means tens of thousands of visitors to your site, so it’s no surprise that people are setting up systems to game it. The newest attempt is called Spike the Vote. It’s easy to wag your finger at them and say “shame on you,” but Digg is going to have to deal with threats like this if the content on its front page is going to mean anything. [...]

By: John McKay

John McKay — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:37:28 +0000

Karen, I second you on this. I actually like the http://www.friendlyvote.com system because it is free and it is user friendly. Seems like they really have restricted any new users.

So if any of you want to join, you may want to send an email from the front page so they can consider you.

By: engtech

engtech — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:12:53 +0000

It’s up for sale on Ebay now: http://engtech....r-sale-on-ebay/

By: spikethevote.com (the anti-digg) goes for sale on ebay « //engtech

spikethevote.com (the anti-digg) goes for sale on ebay « //engtech — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:09:06 +0000

[...] Techcrunch’s original article on Spike the Vote [...]

By: Freakitude Technology Blog / SpikeTheVote for Sale

Freakitude Technology Blog / SpikeTheVote for Sale — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 11:17:14 +0000

[...] This auction is for the domain, PHP code, MySQL database, all images – everything. In the description backlink from Techcrunch has been mentioned. [...]

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:13:46 +0000

Wouldn’t a good way to find out if everything is rigged down there at DIGG, is to create like 50 user names from the same IP then use them all to vote on a top story, by a top submitter, and see if they actually end up banning the to Digg user, or just the 50 Digg names you created.

By: screenwalker

screenwalker — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 02:46:10 +0000

Seemingly this is as a few commenter have pointed out going on quite some time but now its becoming completely obvious and you can watch it live (see below).

We have today pointed to a situation at Digg that a story nobody can access is “spammed” to the front page. If things like that happen this means that actual “users” have long been marginalized and have no influence at Digg anymore.

And the issue is less with those who advertise their services like “Spike the Vote” that IMHO riding out a wave as it looks. Maybe we are already closer to the end of “recommendation” services or like basic democracy they follow special rules if the country gets bigger then let’s say Switzerland. – Or more euphemistically maybe we are already at a point with web sites as big as Digg doing recommendation services they can hardly stay up with their weaponry to fight the spammers.

Besides this 2 questions:
1. How can you recommend a story that you have never seen?
2. What does Digg do about it?

No 1: Well if you follow the model that Digg is passing around as their current “selling point” you can’t

No 2: Digg acted swiftly. It has removed our story showing that (currently) 600 Digg users have dugg a story they have never seen.

The story nobody has seen is still going strong…

The web site as well as cache or mirrors still show nothing when trying to access it.

The info is at: http://www.duve...2006/11/06/126/
The story in question is:
http://digg.com...in_Screen_shots

P.S.: Digg informed us they removed our post because it was buried from different IP addresses – well is that not part of all the gamers approach and not only the one from “Spike the Vote”.

Digg did not explain why our story was the only one on gaming Digg so far ever been buried. It was going very strong and was digged by others immediately. Seemingly we must have hit a very weak spot of them here.

By: Yossi Goldlust

Yossi Goldlust — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 22:54:04 +0000

Spike the Vote. Hmmm… Isn’t this just another kind of link farm?

What’s interesting to see here is how people recycle the same techniques over and over (email spam -> affiliate fraud -> click fraud and now search spam -> digg spam) while the people running these systems never seem to anticipate them.

But then again we don’t know that Digg’s management didn’t already anticipate this problem and with a limited amount of engineers, chose to work on other priorities first…

By: NitinK

NitinK — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:25:19 +0000

I think @engtech got it right – unless you can get an initial number of votes, not enough people even see the story to give it a chance to get to the front page. If you just watch the Digg Spy, you will see stories scrolling by and if they don’t quickly get a few votes, they disappear into the void. At the same time, I’ve seen some stories on the Digg home page that make me wonder how they could’ve got even a few votes, let alone so many [SEOMoz had an article about this recently.]

Perhaps sites like SpikeTheVote may actually be GOOD for Digg, if they force changes for the better? I’ve expanded on this theme in my blog post.

By: GuiM Weblog

GuiM Weblog — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 10:44:51 +0000

Digg-like-cheaters : Digg a encore le cancer…

Un nouveau cancer infecte Digg : Spike the Vote vient s’ajouter à la liste des sites et services que l’on peut désormaisappeler des digg-like-cheaters. Explications (en anglais) sur TechCrunch Technorati tags: digg-like, cheaters, digg, spike the v…