A lot of new people starting out on Digg.com have some of the same preconceived notions coming into the site – as those of us who have been on the site for a while did when we started. While there is an inevitable learning curve with any social media site while one learns the ropes, if you are new to Digg specifically here are common pitfalls frequently experienced by newer users.
1) Digg is a democracy: in point of fact there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes on with regards to upcoming stories making the front page of Digg. The algorithms of Digg are designed to enable newer users and new sites to frontpage more easily. However, the flipside is: new users on and sites submitted to Digg are watched more closely as possible spam. Further, there are even “secret editors” (Digg employees) that make final decisions on some content and who might choose to promote something (or not) for unknown reasons.
2) Digg is completely corrupt: while some users come in with rose-colored glasses others come in with huge skepticism about the Digg voting and promoting systems. Anything as extreme as “completely corrupt” is, as you might have guessed, going to far. Sure there is corruption but there are also checks and balances in the form of Digg’s algorithm, manual bury features (including a “bury as spam” option) and Digg’s secret editors.
3) Digg is all about who you know: there is definitely an element of trust when it comes to veteran Diggers submitting content. However, a completely new user could frontpage their first story if it were completely exciting, extremely original or breaking news. Another way to break in as a new user without many “Digg friends” is to watch the RSS feeds of top sites like Ars Technica that have a huge following – you can then “piggy-back” off the popularity of the site.
These are just a few, really, and my final advice would be: seek out someone who knows the ropes on Digg and ask them what’s what. Honestly, at first (at least for me) the idea of approaching a veteran user was a wee bit frightening, but looking back on it any one of a number of top users would have been happy to answer questions related to Digg.