Top Digg Users Page is Back

I have to say, this is really quite a shameful display.

I get the point Fink is making, which is basically that the change doesn’t many anything since there are easy workarounds. But how does this make Netscape look when they’re the ones (directly or indirectly through Fink) creating those workarounds?

Personally, I find it to appear petty, childish, all together unprofessional.

How soon before Digg drops the user ranking information from member profiles or otherwise changes their API so this information becomes unavailable?

Netscape are have really shown their corporate values. You can imagine what the culture in Netscape is now - they must be full of hate and jealousy for digg.

What I find strange, is if you read Christopher Finks blog, every page has a link to Digg this.

Scraping is illegal without the company permission.You can link to sites, but can not filter content as you like for your own display purposes.Digg should be able to sue.

Diggers are powerful and they know technology very well. If those guys want to pull together and make a new Digg then Digg will die soon. Digg pretty much took away the only incentive they had, top user list. Digg should find a way to respect these guys, maybe through revenue sharing.

-Guna

that’s a pretty jerk thing to do.

Im sure hes thinking that he can get these guys to switch. I dont use netscape and dont know if they have user lists and rankings but if so I could see a few people who submit stories to Digg going the netscape route to get the same type of credit they now longer receive from Digg.

BTW Digg was working fine before the rankings and should work fine without them. A good step though I do feel that top submitters should get something for their efforts, maybe a year end or monthly prize?

@Startup Booster - I doubt Digg will be dying anytime soon. Don’t think I’ve ever heard of a site that is as popular as Digg that just dies off instantly.

Could Netscape be any dirtier? I echo the comments about about Netscape just looking petty and envious with this. They’ve been gunning for Digg ever since they opened up their new version of their site, but the reason people won’t go there is because it’s crap! There is a certain value to doing something better than the original innovator, but doesn’t mean that everyone who creates a new version of “something” has a birthright to be the next-best-thing. Digg did it first, Digg is still doing it the best. Word to the wise, Netscape: you’re just “digging” your own grave. You look like desperate fools.

And how stupid will netscape look when digg blocks netscape’s ip’s/scraper/whatever?

I bet it is disabled by Monday.

As I’ve said here before, Digg has simply grown faster than it’s creators ability to administer it. They are encountering unforseen problems at a faster rate than expected because of their sheer movement speed over the ground. This isn’t the first speed bump they’ll hit, and it won’t be the last. You’ve just got to wonder when they’ll hit a bump and discover it was really a brick wall.

datter
http://www.datter.com

No TOS violation?

If this would have come from someone NOT at a competitor (in this case Netscape), I would have thought “cool!” The fact that this comes from someone at Netscape makes me think “lame!”. Digg will now block this type of “scraping” and we’ll all lose out. Thanks Netscape.

The first link in this post links to http://www.techcrunch.com/ , which I assume has to be an error. If if you don’t want to link directly to Kevin Rose’s (which would be the most informative way to link) and you feel compelled to link to your own coverage of the story, at least link to the correct story, not to your root domain.

Judging by how fast Digg users are flocking to this, it’s obvious that they want the top user page back. Kevin Rose made a mistake in removing it.

#14: It is impossible to block scraping. The best Digg can do is send a C&D and hope it doesn’t go to court.

I have been fascinated by the series of events and have tried to reason out why/why not this was a right step by Kevin on my blog post here: http://www.technacular.com/200.....-it-right/

Would appreciate your thoughts on the same.

Scraping violates Digg’s TOS-> http://digg.com/tos
“Services are available only to individuals who are at least 13 years old, whether acting on their own behalf or as an authorized employee or representative of a corporation or other business entity. If you do not so qualify, do not attempt to register for or use the Services.”

This doesn’t demand a technical solution like banning IP’s (which can be circumvented by proxying through Tor anyways)- a cease and desist to Netscape is the answer if they’re trying to stop Netscape from aggregating and displaying the top user info. As Ilya pointed out though, Digg may want to reconsider the move to obfuscate the info. If it pisses off their user base then it’s counter productive even though it makes it harder for other companies to cherry-pick top member’s. Those solicitations may be an important motivator for the participation of those top contributors…

Typical Netscape - ruin it for others, Digg might have kept the ranks and statistics on member pages, but now they’ll probably be removed as a result of this scraping tool.

I’m going to bet that the Top Users page will be taken out “for a limited time only”. Any takers? I can think of other ways to deal with those “problems” people think Digg is having.

The thing is, whatever move you make to correct those “problems” - other than havnig better spam and dupe filters - would take away part of what makes Digg what it is. Removing the Top Users list is one clear example of what I’m saying.

Netscape is a bunch of idiots. Why are they so obsessed with digg? My guess is because their site blows….

This is just another reason why digg is way better than Netscape. I don’t think removing the list is a big deal, oh course the blogsphere has to make a big deal out of everything…

Digg will continue to grow and innovate. Netscape will continue to blow.

“with the exception of accessing RSS feeds, you will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission. Additionally, you agree that you will not: (i) take any action that imposes, or may impose in our sole discretion an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure; (ii) interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Site or any activities conducted on the Site; or (iii) bypass any measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Site;”

“Why are they so obsessed with digg?”

Because they’re emulating their methodology yet aren’t getting the results they expected?

PS: I’m an ex-Netscapee (I left shortly after AOL acquired it) but regardless, today’s Netscape is not what it used to be, and I still don’t understant what were they thinking when they tried to copy Digg’s model. That’s not what you do with a page visited mainly by “mainstream users”. It’s ok to experiment what happens when you throw the Digg model to mainstream users, but IMHO, rather than “using” a well-known brand/site, what they did was “abusing” it, and so despite being a very popular destination, it’s simply not taking off. I’d love to know what was going on Calacanis’s head when he decided to go for it.

Good on Finke for providing the service. Question still is though, why in the world is Kevin Rose so intent on slamming his top users? I’m tempted to start playing the anthem of the Soviet Union, the red streak amongst the owners of Digg runs deep, and any comrade stepping out of line must be squashed, all comrade workers are equal in Kevin Rose’s play book.

hmmmm…tricky one! Digg forgot to close that door. Wake up digg!

I’ve tried to comment several times now, but none of my comments are showing up.

My thoughts on the matter:

This project of mine is in no way connected to Netscape. People who claim that it is are doing so in order to build up their pre-existing bias against the company. Tell me - what would Netscape have to gain from this?

Also, I am not simply scraping user ranking data from the profiles. I use Digg’s RSS feed in accordance with their TOS to actually track the data.

It seems that the people whom the page was created for (the top Diggers) all seem to appreciate the effort. The nay-sayers either had a pre-existing prejudice against Netscape (and apparently me, by association) or the top Diggers. Given that the project achieved its main purpose of recognizing the top Diggers, I’ll count myself successful.

I thought that what you were trying to prove is that removing the list in question was a futile attempt with regards to the “problem” it was supposed to “solve”.

It’s not whether you’re doing it to “recognize the top Diggers”, it’s that removing the list itself does nothing against those people who’ve been using the list for their “evil” reasons as long as the data can be retrieved in other ways.

As for doing it via RSS or scrapping the pages, does anyone think that the people who’d use the data for such “dark” purposes is going to give a damn about the TOS?

So then… what is Digg going to do? Start to cripple functionality and features whenever they see a hole? I stand by what I said in comment #20.

The top users section is a social ranking mechanism that is not only for the “top 100″ people. Every single user has a “rank” if you will. I am certain that there are plenty of users say from 101-10,000 who followed their rank and looked at it as a measure of their progress in the community. This is the “fat belly” or “middle class” of the community.

I once read something that said essentially out of 100 people, 1 will submit or create content, 10 will read and/or interact with it, and 90 will only glance at it or not interact with it at all.

The people who regularly submit and really interact with that content are the ones who cared about that list. It was a measure of credibility and accountibility for the Digg community.

Quit slamming Netscape - this has nothing to do with them - the fact that that information included it in the article is pretty low - no offense, but it has nothing to do with this guys employer. I think it’s funny how people just rap on Netscape, yet if they had read all the way through, and checked out the guys blog, they would have seen that it has nothing to do with Netscape. If you don’t like what this guy has done, and want to attack him - by all means “do so under reasonable levels”, but don’t attack a company simply because one employee does something you don’t approve of.