Comments on: The Digg Revolt - An Important Event for Web 2.0 http://www.blonde2dot0.com/blog/2007/05/02/the-digg-revolt-an-important-event-for-web-20/ Web 2.0. It's all about what YOU want! Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:56:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Blonde 2.0 http://www.blonde2dot0.com/blog/2007/05/02/the-digg-revolt-an-important-event-for-web-20/#comment-342 Blonde 2.0 Fri, 04 May 2007 06:13:01 +0000 http://www.blonde2dot0.com/blog/2007/05/02/the-digg-revolt-an-important-event-for-web-20/#comment-342 Dear Adra,<br/>First of all, if you read my post carefully, you'll see that I clearly state that I understand Rose's fear of getting sued, and given that, I think he handled the whole situation very badly. There were other ways to solve this situation and banning all those users who dugg the stories, on top of deleting the stories, was just too much. We are not talking about an attack here of users trying to destroy a site - we are talking about active users who built this site and enjoy it, and want to keep using it and reading the news they choose to. If you look at the comments here:<br/>http://www.cjmillisock.com/2007/05/how-i-got-banned-from-digg.html<br/>you'll see how many people got banned for digging the submitted stories.<br/>Thor sums it up nicely in his blog:<br/>Whatever the "right" decision was for Digg regarding whether or not to delete the offending post, Digg knows it is nothing without its passionate and participating members. The enlightened path should have been obvious to them: be completely transparent with users from the beginning. Before it took any action that stripped power from users, Digg should have shared its dilemma with the community, explained the conundrum and the legal advice it had been given, and then solicited candid feedback via its forum. Debate would have ensued, but everyone would have felt like they were part of Digg's ultimate decision, even if that was deletion of the code. More than anything, passionate users want to be heard.<br/><br/>These are simple steps that would have turned "us vs. them" into "us and only us" without having to relinquish control to a "tyranny of the majority."<br/>http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/05/03/how-digg-could-have-avoided-a-community-revolt/ Dear Adra,
First of all, if you read my post carefully, you’ll see that I clearly state that I understand Rose’s fear of getting sued, and given that, I think he handled the whole situation very badly. There were other ways to solve this situation and banning all those users who dugg the stories, on top of deleting the stories, was just too much. We are not talking about an attack here of users trying to destroy a site - we are talking about active users who built this site and enjoy it, and want to keep using it and reading the news they choose to. If you look at the comments here:
http://www.cjmillisock.com/2007/05/how-i-got-banned-from-digg.html
you’ll see how many people got banned for digging the submitted stories.
Thor sums it up nicely in his blog:
Whatever the “right” decision was for Digg regarding whether or not to delete the offending post, Digg knows it is nothing without its passionate and participating members. The enlightened path should have been obvious to them: be completely transparent with users from the beginning. Before it took any action that stripped power from users, Digg should have shared its dilemma with the community, explained the conundrum and the legal advice it had been given, and then solicited candid feedback via its forum. Debate would have ensued, but everyone would have felt like they were part of Digg’s ultimate decision, even if that was deletion of the code. More than anything, passionate users want to be heard.

These are simple steps that would have turned “us vs. them” into “us and only us” without having to relinquish control to a “tyranny of the majority.”
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2007/05/03/how-digg-could-have-avoided-a-community-revolt/

]]> By: adra http://www.blonde2dot0.com/blog/2007/05/02/the-digg-revolt-an-important-event-for-web-20/#comment-341 adra Fri, 04 May 2007 01:03:39 +0000 http://www.blonde2dot0.com/blog/2007/05/02/the-digg-revolt-an-important-event-for-web-20/#comment-341 It's very easy to throw a tantrum when someone takes away something that you desire, but what if in giving it to you they risk losing the very means that enabled them to give you anything in the first place? That is the situation the Digg team found themselves in when they removed the initial post. It was probably sort of a begrudging compliance to the law.<br/><br/>In my case, I have had to manage sites defaced, deleted and D.O.S. attacked by other internet users wishing to stop an entire website, let alone a number string being distributed. Similarly, the experience of owner of the origial Napster who was sued and eventually sold out to labels as a result of running his centralised file-sharing system became the precursory experience to more widespread development of decentralised files sharing systems for seriously weakening such legal onslaughts. So in betweeen pressure from malicious crackers and malicious lawyers, (or rather destructive - malicious being a subjective judgement) information systems have already and will continue to evolve to take into account their enemies and the enemies of their users.<br/><br/>Digg could do with some decentralisation. So could my site currently experiencing a DOS attack. Websites in general today being centralised are exposed to both technical and legal threats. A mob website such as Digg should be reasonably easy to decentralise in most of its aspects, but the task of managing such a system could be risky for identifiable people. Just like the internet itself, decentralisation would be the key to solving the Digg problem whereby the notion of 'kill one and there'll only be another more resistant one to replace it' becomes a reality, which might be met by the notion of 'so why kill at all, better to partner.' It’s very easy to throw a tantrum when someone takes away something that you desire, but what if in giving it to you they risk losing the very means that enabled them to give you anything in the first place? That is the situation the Digg team found themselves in when they removed the initial post. It was probably sort of a begrudging compliance to the law.

In my case, I have had to manage sites defaced, deleted and D.O.S. attacked by other internet users wishing to stop an entire website, let alone a number string being distributed. Similarly, the experience of owner of the origial Napster who was sued and eventually sold out to labels as a result of running his centralised file-sharing system became the precursory experience to more widespread development of decentralised files sharing systems for seriously weakening such legal onslaughts. So in betweeen pressure from malicious crackers and malicious lawyers, (or rather destructive - malicious being a subjective judgement) information systems have already and will continue to evolve to take into account their enemies and the enemies of their users.

Digg could do with some decentralisation. So could my site currently experiencing a DOS attack. Websites in general today being centralised are exposed to both technical and legal threats. A mob website such as Digg should be reasonably easy to decentralise in most of its aspects, but the task of managing such a system could be risky for identifiable people. Just like the internet itself, decentralisation would be the key to solving the Digg problem whereby the notion of ‘kill one and there’ll only be another more resistant one to replace it’ becomes a reality, which might be met by the notion of ’so why kill at all, better to partner.’

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