

Digg responds to "test accounts" controversy - radicaldreamer
http://about.digg.com/blog/info-site-changes-and-test-accounts

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michaelhart
Imo, their algorithms can be tested in developer environments
(testing/development servers). And even if they absolutely HAD to do it on the
live servers, then they could have easily removed their diggs after testing.

Their's just making an excuse for a mistake. Their way of handling this is
understandable, but probably not the best way to handle that situation.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Very true. If it was really testing, why would they stop exactly and
immediately when informed by the blogger that their behavior was 'caught'?
They would've continued the so called experiment if it was really one.

I think they did it to inflate the number of diggs on the front page stories
so that it looked like more people were frequenting the site. That's the
reason that there's no apparent bias in the selection of media outlets whose
articles the accounts digged up.

~~~
M1573RMU74710N
>If it was really testing, why would they stop exactly and immediately when
informed by the blogger

That's absolutely not evidence that it is not testing.

It's a good point, but it is in no way inconsistent with their explanation. It
makes perfect sense because it was (theoretically) supposed to be a small test
that nobody noticed. Once somebody noticed it, of course they're going to stop
it.

It's consistent with other theories being floated around, but it's important
to note that it in no way contradicts their statement; exactly the opposite in
fact.

If your theory is correct, why not just do it more directly? Why not do it in
a less obvious way? Why upvote random spam sites as well (some of which were
created at the same time as the accounts in question...almost as if someone
were testing submitting spam on Digg...)

I don't doubt it's possible, but it seems to me people are letting their bias
against Digg get the better of their reasoning ability.

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boyter
I don't really get all of the Digg hate recently. It seems that Digg has a
perception problem similar to Windows Vista.

Sure they made some technical/communication/process mistakes, but they seem to
have fixed most of the ones that are easily fixable.

I personally find Digg more useful these days because of the changes.

~~~
unohoo
This is not a small technical mistake as you put it -- especially since trust
plays a crucial role in user's perception when they are using Digg. If digg is
using such shady practices and cloak them as 'testing', its basically a slap
in the face of the digg devout users.

~~~
confuzatron
Digg users appear to be a thin-skinned, shrill bunch to be honest. Perhaps
it's just a vocal minority.

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radicaldreamer
Relevant story from yesterday: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1832767>

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fletchowns
I still have yet to find an explanation for what looked like them lying about
the # of comments an article has:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741574>

