I’m Frustrated With Digg
Jan 30, 2008 Internet, Thoughts
I love going to Digg. It is what I do at work all day at work, and it is becoming where I get my news. I love how those in charge are responsive to the cries of the community and actually implement changes we want to see. You don’t get that anywhere else. But in being a user for over 2 years now, I have become frustrated at a few things.
1. Using Firefox in Windows (at work), opening even one page of comments crashes the browser. I don’t mean multiple tabs, but one tab of the comment section of a story crashes the browser 90% of the time. Since I use Firefox at home on my mac, and I sync my bookmarks, I want to be able to use FF to bookmark certain stories I cannot access from work (proxy). IE doesn’t crash, but it also doesn’t remember my login info, so that is pretty much useless if I want to actually digg stories. So I use Safari to browse Digg, which is such an unnecessary step for browsing the freaking web. As far as syncing the bookmarks, I am out of luck. Why does the supposed most-stable browser crash with ONE PAGE OPEN? Digg is the only site that crashes it.
2. I have submitted 103 stories as of this typing, and only 4 have seen the front page. I know that I have submitted some real crap, but the majority of it is 10x better than some of the crap I see that hits the front page. Maybe it is the algorithm, maybe it is my timing in submitting stories, or maybe my taste in what is good is skewed. But when you can have 10 stories about the same ting hit the front page on the same day, it just feels like something is wrong. And yes, I do submit my own content. It is perfectly acceptable according to Digg’s TOS (as long as it is something worth sharing). And I certainly do not submit everything I post, just what I feel others might like.
3. When someone submits a video, they submit the link to their own page with the video embedded. Now let’s be honest. Do you really want to share the video with everyone, or do you want us to come click your AdSense links. Submit the dang Youtube page, capiche?
4. What used to be a site about technology and related things has become what seems like a harbor for hate. What I mean by that is that in any given day, you are bound to find stories about the following:
- Apple fanboys bashing microsoft
- Microsoft fanboys bashing apple
- Atheists bashing Religion
- The Left bashing the Right
You get the idea. No matter what side you are on, it seems like someone posts something that adds fuel to the fire, and the superficial argument goes on. It just seems so unnecessary. No one will ever say something to change someone’s mind in what the believe about whatever. So maybe that stuff is popular because it makes us feel better. I really don’t know.
There was a front page story a few days ago that was on backing a car out of a moving airplane. I saw that headline, and I just smiled. That is the kind of stuff that I would not even think of looking up, but the fact that it was presented to me was great. That is what Digg needs more of!
Yeah, I know I am whining about this stuff. Anyone else experience these frustrations?
