I’m sure some of you have noticed a big story today of how David LeMieux uncovered the name of Digg users executing buries through a Digg flaw thanks to Muhammad Saleem’s report. The flaw was patched shortly giving David access to 1700+ buries including the user name and stories buried. Unfortunately, it’s a raw massive list.
I’ve calculated (and unfortunately I’m weak in this area so correct me if wrong) that 207 users executed 1665 buries (around 8 per user) after weeding out users recorded for two stories.
However, don’t take this list as the truth, as David notes elsewhere:
Yeah, the real to false ratio was about 1:4 so one out of every 4 burries was actually committed by the user. They have apparently fixed the hole, and quite quickly too.Take it with a grain of salt. Yet even with all the false data, some people are as diligent with their burying as the top submitters.
So, without further ado here are the users with most buries showing the number of buries in parentheses and a link to their profile followed by some of the most unpopular stories.
What does this tell us? Who knows. I’m not even going to comment but you’ll find some interesting discussions in the references at the very bottom.
The Top Buriers
- glenjammin(275)
- ahsen74(94)
- adm58(94)
- miketrin(93)
- raistlinmajere(59)
- hhp2k(38)
- bigbill62629(30)
- txcinc(28)
- goatomatic(27)
- saintdogbert(26)
- phinnfort(26)
- edgeoforever(24)
- sentone(23)
- lotus22(22)
- undefined(21)
- disposablerob(20)
- tsunamisteve(20)
- bglodde(19)
- kingofthegreens(17)
- naio21(17)
- tracon(16)
- saikhan(16)
- framitz(14)
- canewediggit(14)
- dilesmavis(14)
- bradisbest(14)
- arkanok(14)
- waysa(13)
- bluesbyrd(13)
- registration11(12)
- offcamber(12)
- willis77(11)
- burmask(11)
- mushoo(11)
- whiskeymb(11)
- kylesellers(10)
- novusopiate(10)
- evil-doer(10)
- harumph(10)
- tu13erhead(9)
- shiftt(9)
- otto(9)
- chaseb(9)
- emmsee(9)
- batfink(8)
- jlunski(8)
- cameron074(8)
- schezar(8)
- carpeaqua(7)
- mariod505(7)
The Most Buried Stories
- Coca-Cola redesigns cans(26)
- PICTURE: Geeky Girlfriend Makes A World Of Warcraft Themed B-Day Cake(26)
- How About a Mouse and Keyboard to Go With That Vista?(22)
- Heroes Company Man Recap(17)
- Top 50 Things To Do To Stop Global Warming(17)
- BBC Reported Building 7 Had Collapsed 20 Minutes Before It Fell(17)
- Killer Mac Setup – Floating 24-inch iMac(16)
- New Leopard Screenshot Gallery at Think Secret (Build 9A343)(14)
- Top 500 images on the Internet!!(12)
- U.S. forces in Iraq say found more Iran-made weapons(12)
- Tranparent Screen Trick + Tutorial(11)
- Pictures of Mario and other Nintendo 8-bit Artwork – AMAZING(9)
- How to be a Terrible Network Admin: 25 Fail-safe Tips(9)
- Top 10 Google Myths(9)
- WTC 7 collapse announced on the news before the event(9)
- 9/11 Anomaly: Insider Trading(8)
- Never Again? Jewish Kindergarten Hit by Smoke Bomb, Swastikas(8)
- Carpenter Marlene Cruz Proves Pre-planted Explosives in WTC Basement(7)
- Transform Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center(7)
- Hillary’s inconvenient oversight(7)
- Obama closing in on Hillary(7)
- Gmail for everyone !(7)
- IS WTC7 THE SMOKING GUN OF 9/11?(7)
- The Pope speaks out against designer babies(7)
- Keepin’ it real fake, part XLVII: Offline Google store(7)
- Microsoft Donates to Katrina Rebuilding(7)
- Lowes Steals Money From Old Lady’s House, Threaten To Sue Her For Slander(7)
- What it’s really like to switch to a Mac(7)
- Ask for Linux(6)
References
The Bury Brigade Exists, and Here’s My Proof
Deep Jive Interests » Digg’s Dark Future And The Battle For Online Censorship
Digg’s Bury Feature Needs a Funeral at Reeverb
Files
For those of you that want to see the whole list and play with the data, I’ve made the CSV file and some of the raw processed stuff. I’d throw in the amateur scripts I used too but it would be too embarrassing to publish.
Thanks for sharing the list with us.
When is it dated?
The fact that most of the data is probably false doesn’t prove nor disprove the “bury brigade”, but the data that is true actually raises some questions to the effectiveness of a feature that is being misused by so many.
Baron
Great recap. Thank you. Interesting stuff. I don’t know if there is any proof of a real bury brigade. But it does show that the ability to bury anonymously leads people to overuse it (the top bury guy almost has 300).
Ajay,
I have no idea but obviously the same time frame as the stories being buried. I just reformatted it.
Jeremiah ,
I agree. We’re not looking for proof per se because that’s sitting right on Digg’s own database but to point out a problem. There are obviously people who for one reason or another decide to go around burying stories rather than making a positive contribution.
Digidave,
Thanks. I don’t think there is a real “bury brigade” as in haXX0rs using IRCs to coordinate their next nefarious move but individuals clued in on the fact that burying a story can wield great impact with little consequences.
Charbarred,
Seems like they hit a new low with every move.
I’m not surprised by this.
Why was he unable to get more information before they fixed the hole?
I thought the exact same thing. Well, it could be that the heavy polling on their servers triggered a response from Digg. There should be another followup soon on PronetAdvertising with more data.
I wonder if Digg will show the same care in cleaning up null Diggs (sock puppets, etc.) with buries. Seems like they can apply a lot of lessons that way.
Does this mean Digg’s new policy is “kill the messenger”???
I think they closed the hole because Dave originally posted his link on the Jason Calacanis’s site http://www.calacanis.com/2007/02/26/social-bookmarking-101-you-gotta-own-your-bury-sink/ comment number 14. Seems the people at digg watch the Calacnis site pretty closely because it looks like Dave was able to grab data all night long and then shortly after he posted his comment they shut him down.
Wow, I’d never thought I’d ever show up in the Top 100 of anything Digg related let alone the top 20. Anyway, as apparently part of the “brigade” I must be a lone soldier as I’ve never schemed or consulted or even talked to anyone else on that list. Anyway, as I Digg I do one of three things, 1) if I like the story, I Digg the story, 2) if I’m apathetic towards the story, I ignore the story (which is why I know I didn’t bury “Coca-Cola redesigns cans” and most of the other buries attributed to me) 3) if I find the story to be distasteful (spam, racist, etc) or tired and pointless (most navel-gazing self-referential Digg threads pointing out there is a conspiracy of gamers or buriers or some other nonsense based upon spurious evidence), I bury it.
Considering that Digg keeps all threads open that don’t violate the TOS, I don’t consider it censoring. I think of it as keeping the front pages clean of trash.
Whatever, it’s just a website.
“There are obviously people who for one reason or another decide to go around burying stories rather than making a positive contribution.”
Baron, burying is a positive contribution. Sure some people abuse it, but that doesn’t mean that the bury feature doesn’t save digg’s users from hundreds of stories that are lame, spam…etc.
I agree with disposable Rob.
HMTKSteve,
Right now I’m not sure what’s going on. Looks like some of us are getting a “rep” and submissions are getting tougher and tougher to gain momentum.
Jared,
Too bad he didn’t collect more data before they closed the hole.
Disposable Rob,
Of course it’s each to their own but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think the reason Digg gained momentum back in the day is because it was only positive voting (digg). Now we all see stories that are lame but if everybody buries something stories get stalled and less people submit. At least that’s the way I see it. I think it leads to a vicious cycle but only time will tell.
Stephen,
It’s not so much the bury itself but that it doesn’t properly function because it’s anonymous and there’s no count. I’d be more happy if it functioned like a down vote so the Diggs would go up and down. At least then we’d see where a story’s going. If it’s going to be completely anonymous I think it should function as a flagging system with Digg admins making the final call. That’s just my opinion of course.
The system you described is netscape. If you want to use it, the web address is http://www.netscape.com
I’m actually on netscape. The articles are pretty good but it still doesn’t have that “something”. Don’t know if it’s a design thing but it’s still getting there to me.
Hey if you want TRUE honest community judgement, people must be free to yea or NAY anything. For those with thier knickers in a twist, get over it.
I never thought there was anything wrong with burying per se. a problem would be if people got together and launched a coordinated burying campaign in the name of a specific agenda. but from the buried stories that you have listed, there doesn’t seem to be any ideological slant, does there? it just seems to be stories that people thought were lame, which is the point of the bury button in the first place. that is not to say that ideological “bury brigades” don’t exist, but you haven’t proven it here.
renfru,
I agree with you but in that case “buries” should be made into regular “down votes” right now it’s mixed up with spam reporting and such.
boomboxer,
I’m really not trying to prove anything. However, some people bury stories with the label “spam” when it should be “lame” and so on. I’m really just calling for some kind of improvement.
I’m on that list “emmsee”—haha, I buried 9 stories in 2 hours? Is that a lot? I don’t think so.
I’ll openly admit I bury all Supernova17 stories since it’s been confirmed he has taken money to submit stuff. Why support him?!
I dont know if your evidence really proves anything. I bury articles all the time, especially if I’ve seen them on Digg before which is quite frequent being a user for nearly 1.5 years. If an article is lame I bury it as well. If I disagree with it but it’s accurate I just ignore it. I’m sure 100s of others out there follow the same method I do.
P.S. I also bury whiny articles that have no point but to create conflict.
Amazing! Some of those articles aren’t controversial…don’t know why they’d be buried.
THIS IS BULLSH*T!
1. You are presuming to know why a story was buried and use that presumption to launch an unwarranted attack.
2. Quantity of buried stories does not indicate a conspiracy. It can simply mean the person has bothered to analyze the stories carefully.
3. If the numbers in the parenthesis represent number of buried stories, then most of the top list have a handful. THEY SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY BE REMOVED.
4. The bury feature is used to bury stories. WORKING AS INTENDED.
Seriously though—this story is proof enough to me that digg is bullshit. I don’t know what people see in it frankly…. del.icio.us is a better bookmarking site, and metafilter is better for content – plus when something gets buried, it’s clear why.
Why would a story need to be buried anyway? It’s one thing to be removed for a violation of policy (breaking posting guidelines, inflating hit counts, etc.)—but on a site based on being what’s the most popular, why would they allow people to hit a link with a negative?
It just invites minorities like this so-called bury brigade to come in and try to dictate to other people what they shouldn’t like. Why not build it as a separate site called “I’m scared of this” or something?
Hi. I am number one on the ‘Top 50’ buriers on digg. One morning, I started burying all Sony PS3 and Wii related articles because I was absolutely sick of hearing the fanboyism. Simply put: the fact that the Wii is selling better than the PS3, or that it has a new game on their Virtual Console is not front page news. The ‘Bury Brigade’ does not exist because we do not bury the same stories in coordination. In order for a true Bury Brigade to exist, the same stories must be buried in unison within a short amount of time to avoid the popularity that comes with being on the front page. All of the buries on the list are isolated except for the ones we found to be ‘universally lame’. Also, the list of 1700 buries is only of a 2 hour window, which is not representative of the overall digg story submission process. Each one of these stories could still reach the front page. However, I have resolved to stop burying stories without merit immediately. Thanks for your time.
glenjammin
If you dont find an article interesting, then ignore it and move on, period, don’t bury it. If its not cool, then no one will vote for it anyways and it will disappear.
If it really is lame then it logically shouldnt have gained enough votes to make it to the front page, theres no need to use buries for lameness. Just ignore what you don’t like and vote for what you do like. But when you bury stuff simply because you don’t like it you are affecting 1,000’s of other people who may be interested.
Save the buries for the real garbage (spam/viruses/broken links etc.) that is of no use to ANYONE, not just what you don’t like, or what is controversial.
Im really sick of important stuff getting buried to all hell simply because a large number of people find it offensive or don’t agree with it. If you wish to have your freedom of speech respected, then you must respect others. If you don’t agree with something write the reasons why in the comments section, thats what its there for, and if people would quit burying/flaming people with opposing view points it may actually be a useful tool for discussing articles.
This is so stupid.
Half of those articles were buried because they were dupes, and the rest were buried because they’re just plain stupid. On another note, I’m almost dissapointed that I wasn’t named in your list. Happy Hunting!!
Surely if you don’t agree with the point of view in a story you should use the comment function rather than the bury function.
If the story made it to the popular section then someone out there thinks it’s pretty good.
Yeah – I’m not sure how accurate this is. What’s the timeframe of these buries? All time? Past 30? Past week?
Because I can guarantee you that I’ve buried hundreds of stories, if not close to 1000 and I don’t see my name here.
Maybe I’m not clear on the criteria, but …
And, just to be clear, I don’t bury stories because I disagree with them. Debate is a great vehicle for progress. I only bury those that are poorly written, spam (real spam), lame one-line blog posts when the poster should have just submitted the actual story (I guess that amounts to “real spam”), and stories that are provably innacurate.
Thank you all for commenting. As some of you have noted, the data is not only from a limited time window but noted for its inaccuracy by the person who collected it. Having said that I merely ran a script on the raw data to reformat it. It’s not for any conclusive evidence but more for a discussion which didn’t happen. I suppose the subject of burying will continue to be a hot topic for some time to come.
What I will say is that this whole debate is a product of the percieved decline in the quality of interactions on Digg. At least that’s my take. I appreciate the comments though it was quite a heated and interesting read.
I show up as a frequent burier, but I am certainly not trying to game the system.
I bury people who submit post after post to 1 and only 1 site, almost always their own blog. It is easy to verify by looking at their profile and seeing that they only submit or digg articles on 1 and only 1 site. I consider this spam and bury accordingly. This is especially annoying when 1 user submits 10-20 posts to their own site in a matter of as many minutes – I think you’ll agree that this happens quite often, and I don’t think there’s any other name for it but spam. Burying is an important function, it is not always “censorship” of views one disagrees with. There’s inhibition as well as excitation among neurons. Sure it can be abused, but burying on digg is probably mostly legitimate.
Well, I agree with how some people feel about it. I think it’s always a matter of micro versus macro where individuals do something they feel is right but it has different consequences when taken as an aggregate.
Sorry your name happened to come up on the list.
I’m also on the above list, and I have to say I’m a little offended. If you’re going to publish my profile name and accuse me of something, at least let me know. Send me an email, pm, or something, don’t just go publishing my account name for me to only find accidentally three years later. You realize that people can probably find personal info on me by googling my username and so you’re just setting me up for god knows what.
Luckily I think most of your readers see this “analysis” as totally flawed. Like some of the other commenters, I’m just a normal guy burying stories I think are inaccurate or misleading – exactly as you are supposed to on Digg, and have no idea who the others in “the brigade” are.