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It also happens to be a community that chooses content that repels 99% of the population, so it was an understandable objective to try to sidestep them, if grow

It also happens to be a community that chooses content that repels 99% of the population, so it was an understandable objective to try to sidestep them, if growth is the objective. Requested elaboration: "Digg was never able to diversify content (read: expand, scale, grow) because it was never worth it for minority voices--and here I'm referring to non-liberal, non-young, non-male, non-athiest users--to attempt to carve out space and participate." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831431 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1831431. Looks like we've had this debate already, Michael! I think the particular niche that Digg has chosen (rather, has chosen Digg) is common knowledge. It's hard to escape the conclusion that minority voices were actively suppressed there and that Digg had two routes: niche sub-diggs or a personalized Twitter-like experience that didn't function like old-Digg. The revolt was predicted, but the technical problems that would make it easy for new users to play with it were not.

navyrain 16y ago
I think this flippant comment requires some proof to be taken seriously. Its hard to believe digg got to where it was by being repellant to 99% of the population.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  It's the standard conservative/libertarian line on what was wrong with Digg. As if 99% of the population is conservative/libertarian.
  - siglesias 16y ago
    Political affiliation is only one of many ideological and demographic dividing lines that the Digg power users carved out.
  - ataggart 16y ago
    >conservative/libertarian 1. That's an ignorant conjoining 2. Libertarians are well aware they're members of a vanishingly small minority
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  That probably works out, actually. Given that the US population is ~300M, Digg getting 1% of that would give them 3M, which is somewhere around their userbase, plus or minus a few million (I don't know their numbers, but Reddit by comparison recently hit something like 8M uniques/month). Of course, not all 300M US citizens are online, so adjust as necessary. Digg probably got something like 1%-5% of the US online population, which was enough to get it to where it was.
michaelchisari 16y ago
I agree with @navyrain, this has [citation needed] written all over it, but I'd like to ask this question: What would a community driven site that wasn't repellant to the majority of the population look like? Humans are so non-homogenous and diverse, that the greatness of the internet is found in it's ability to be a collection of niche communities, not a place where catering to the lowest common denominator is the only route to success.

navyrain 16y ago

I think this flippant comment requires some proof to be taken seriously. Its hard to believe digg got to where it was by being repellant to 99% of the population.

ojbyrne 16y ago
It's the standard conservative/libertarian line on what was wrong with Digg. As if 99% of the population is conservative/libertarian.
- siglesias 16y ago
  Political affiliation is only one of many ideological and demographic dividing lines that the Digg power users carved out.
- ataggart 16y ago
  >conservative/libertarian 1. That's an ignorant conjoining 2. Libertarians are well aware they're members of a vanishingly small minority
SkyMarshal 16y ago
That probably works out, actually. Given that the US population is ~300M, Digg getting 1% of that would give them 3M, which is somewhere around their userbase, plus or minus a few million (I don't know their numbers, but Reddit by comparison recently hit something like 8M uniques/month). Of course, not all 300M US citizens are online, so adjust as necessary. Digg probably got something like 1%-5% of the US online population, which was enough to get it to where it was.

michaelchisari 16y ago

I agree with @navyrain, this has [citation needed] written all over it, but I'd like to ask this question: What would a community driven site that wasn't repellant to the majority of the population look like? Humans are so non-homogenous and diverse, that the greatness of the internet is found in it's ability to be a collection of niche communities, not a place where catering to the lowest common denominator is the only route to success.