A member in one of my discussion lists just got his account banned by Digg.

What was the reason you say ?

Your account was banned for the rate of Digging activity you’ve engaged in. We’ve determined that the time in which your Diggs happen, it isn’t possible to actually read the stories. Please read each and every story before you Digg or bury a story. Once you agree that you will Digg/bury more responsibly and read the stories, we will unban your account.

Recently, the Digg staff, trough their automated algorithms, is watching if a user is reading a story, by counting the time the user stays on that particular page, and the time it takes him to press the Digg button.

As another member in the discussion list said :

That’s funny. I have a feeling this is going to bite them in the ass.

I agree … This algorithm tweaking and fear of SPAM is going way to far … I mean, come on guys, banning users for voting stories too often ?

I would really love a response from someone at Digg.

PS: Noupsell has a really good personal explanation and clarification for this situation, at the Digg page.

PS2: Apparently, the Digg community catalogues this post of mine, as SPAM :)

“dig_count”:”31″,”area”:”Upcoming”}, {”type”:”report”,”itemid”:”2071615″,”date”:”2007-05-23 13:41:42″,”timestamp”:”1179927702″,”reason”:”Spam”,

I’ve got something to suggest to some of the online services I use, features that could really make the day for a lot of their users.

I don’t expect representatives (except Unicredit’s) from these services to jump right ahead and take action on what I suggest, but at least take note of them.

Continue reading 10 new or improved features I want, from 10 online services

A few days ago, Digg changed their ranking algorithm (I noticed this immediately since I am an active Digg member, but I didn’t wanted to blog about it), in such a way that now upcoming stories need even 100+ diggs to make it to the frontpage. And since Digg doesn’t offer an official FAQ (the reasons are the same why Google doesn’t offer an official algorithm FAQ - so people can’t abuse), I decided to write a few of my findings along the way. These are unofficial, unsupported points and are purely my personal ramblings. So if someone has any objections, please do comment.

Continue reading The Digg Algorithm - Unofficial FAQ

Social Media seems to be a trend these days. Netscape just announced that they removed the whole sex channel from their website. That makes me feel a lot better actually and it’s at least a step towards a more cleaner frontpage.

Continue reading Social Round-up

I get a lot of e-mails from users that always have this problem when installing or configuring a new blog from scratch. They don’t know what plugins to use.

I do want to mention that these are just a few of the plugins I like and use and they do not form a definitive list of what a new blog should have installed.

Continue reading My favourite 10 Wordpress plugins