Blog-a-torium

“Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion!!”

2009-06-04T09:52:00.002-07:00

Experts

In an article on CNN.com entitled “Facebook urged to remove Holocaust-denial groups” Lisa Respers France makes the statement:

“Part of the power of social networking is the ability to form communities with like-minded individuals. But what happens when those communities are offensive to others?”

Whether Lisa is quoting Dallas Attorney Brian Cuban or not, she states in her article:

“The Holocaust Denial movement seeks to deny or minimize the Holocaust, in which Nazis killed about six million European Jews during World War II.”

The Holocaust

Rush, a Canadian rock group, had a song called “Red Sector A” on their 1984 “Grace Under Pressure” album. The song gives a first-person account of a nameless person living in an unspecified prison camp setting during the holocaust, which is based upon Geddy Lee’s own mother’s accounts of the Holocaust. One of the videos for the song used the backdrop of scenes from the TV Miniseries “Band of Brothers”. I personally think this emphasizes the horror of “The Holocaust”, perhaps you will too. In the song Geddy sings:

“All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive
All that we can do is just survive
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive

Ragged lines of ragged grey
Skeletons, they shuffle away
Shouting guards and smoking guns
Will cut down the unlucky ones”

~ Red Sector A - Rush

(Warning: You can click on the link to see the Video, but be forewarned that there may be images and language offensive to you.)

“The Scholars” argue whether the term “Holocaust” should apply to all victims of genocide by the Nazis or be used only for only the genocide of the Jews. Personally I think since “Shoah” and “(the) Final Solution” are already used exclusively for those of Jewish descent, the word “Holocaust” should be a general term for all of the victims of genocide by the Nazis. In addition the term should not just be limited to those dying in the Concentration and Death Camps.

As a side note, there are a lot of people descended from the Irish that still deplore and mourn the Irish Diaspora. They still feel an ill will towards the English for the deaths and treatment of the Irish during that period. Those of Jewish descent seem to have a similar feeling about “The Holocaust”, as do others descended from different groups that were singled out and murdered by the Nazis.

The Facebook Debate

Facebook repreprentative Barry Schnitt stated that “his company is in agreement with Cuban that the Holocaust-denial pages are offensive and objectionable”, but this is where Facebook and Cuban part ways. Mr. Schnitt went on to say:

“It’s a difficult decision to make. We have a lot of internal debate and we bring in experts to talk about it,” Schnitt said. “Just being offensive or objectionable doesn’t get it taken off Facebook. We want it [the site] to be a place where people can discuss all kinds of ideas, including controversial ones.”

Furthermore, in an email to Chris Matyszczyk on the CNET blog “Technically Correct”, Mr. Schnitt stated:

“The experts we’ve talked to have generally been Internet law experts, free speech people, and experts on radicalism and technology. They haven’t been specifically related to the Holocaust but that is a good idea.”

On the Cuban Revolution Blog, Brian Cuban states in his article “Professor Alan Desshowitz Addresses Facebook And Holocaust-denial”:

“Despite requests to Facebook as to the names of the experts that were consulted on the above issues and on the issue of whether Holocaust Denial constitutes hate speech, there has been no response. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has shown no transparency on this issue. I therefore decided to consult an expert of my own.”

“So who are these “Experts” that Facebook conulted?”

This query may not be ‘important” or ‘appreciated” to many who supports the perceived rights known as the “Freedom of Speech” and the “Freedom of Expression” for these Holocaust-deniers, but never-the-less the question is a very important one to be answered -- if Facebook wishes their stance to be considered as “Valid”. Anyone can claim they ‘consulted’ experts, additionally anyone can claim to be an “expert”, but without knowledge of who these supposed “Experts” are and their qualifications to be classified as an ‘expert’ in the field of which they are speaking with alleged authority… any citation of what these people say has no more merit that the words of the common person.

In other words... for Facebook to cite unnamed experts, as if the act has some merit and validity, is a rather “Trollish” thing and somewhat insulting to any Facebook member who uses their head for anything more than a hat rack. The members of Facebook should expect more from those who are responsible for making policies and enforcing the rules of Facebook than some feeble attempt to justify their position by the use of such methods.

“So What Is An Expert?”

According to Answers.com, my bible, an Expert is:

A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject

However there are other ideas on what constitutes “an Expert”, for example… Malcolm S. Forbes stated once:

“What's an expert? I read somewhere, that the more a man knows, the more he knows, he doesn't know. So I suppose one definition of an expert would be someone who doesn't admit out loud that he knows enough about a subject to know he doesn't really know how much.”

On the other hand Dr. Laurence J. Peters, an American “Hierarchiologist”, stated:

“Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively.”

Gregory Nunn has been quoted as saying:

“Expert: Someone who brings confusion to simplicity”

Whereas the economist Thomas Sowell, Jr. has stated:

“For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert; but for every fact there is not necessarily an equal and opposite fact”

… and Peter McWilliams said:

“The media tends to report rumors, speculations, and projections as facts... How does the media do this? By quoting some "expert"... you can always find some expert who will say something hopelessly hopeless about anything.”

But I personally like the comment of “An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing.”

The fact is that in almost any situation you can find experts that know their subject well, yet disagrees with others who know the same subject equally well. We won’t get into the idea of ‘False Experts” out there, or the idea of people who are expert in one field as not being experts in other fields.

Overview of “Experts”

In Robert A. Heinlein’s 1973 Novel “Time Enough For Love”, the character Lazarus Long is attributed with the sage bit of advice:

“Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it!”

The point of the saying is basically putting forth the idea that people should not simply follow what an “expert” might tell you, think for yourself and take their advice ‘into consideration when making your decisions. Just because someone is, claims to be, or is cited as "being an expert" doesn’t make them infallible.

What’s Wrong with our Society today?

An article on The Cuban Revolution blog site, called “What’s Wrong With Our Jewish Youth?”, asks the question of “What is wrong with our Jewish Youth?”

In this article Brian Cuban responded to a reply he received to his article “Open Letter To Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg”. The email was written by a person known only as “Timothy”, a person who saw it as fitting to choose the name of “King Poopy Poop” for his MSN email account. In his reply Timothy accused Brian of “overplaying” and “exaggerating” “the issue”. In addition Tim felt it necessary to make a personal attacks against Mr. Cuban and give him unsolicited advise on how to better spend his time. Finally Timothy asked the question of:

“How were you and I effected by any of this, or how might we be in the future?“

Mr. Cuban admitted his viewing of this reply to be the “most disturbing” reply he received concerning this subject. It may be the ‘most disturbing’ reply that Brian has received concerning this subject, however I found Timothy’s reply to be of a variety commonly seen on the Internet.

Timothy’s Comment

Timothy’s comment is the type of comment that usually comes from one of two types of Net Users. Those two types of people are:

“The Internet Troll”: An “Internet Troll” or “Troll” is an individual who regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. A major recognizable fact about the Troll is that they have no real interest in discussing or debating an issue; instead their goal is to disrupt and create discord in order to interrupt the conversation.

“The Immature Net User”: The Immature Net User is a person who isn’t mature about the way they make replies on the net. This type of Net User could be a Troll, but he or she can also simply be an Internet User who has an interest in the topic – but little or no interest in a thing called Net-etiquette. This type of person is usually unskilled in the ways of “Discussion and Debate” and doesn’t care how they say things. It should be known that not all ‘immature Net Users” are Trolls. Some people may ‘appear’ to be trolls on the surface, but upon a second look it can be found that the person ion as the troll, but their primary reason for entering the conversation was not for pure disruption or discord.

Concerning Timothy!

The first thing that I found interesting about Tim was his choice to use the name “King Poopy Poop” as a part of his email address. The use of such names normally a thing that an immature “Netizen” or the “Troll” would opt to do. The majority of mature “Netizens” shy away from such monikers, because of their wish to be taken seriously. Most, if not all, Internet Trolls are “immature Net Users”… but

My intentions are not to “label” Timothy as a Troll for the simple reason of his using some ‘cutesy Juvenile moniker” for his email address, however we should be aware of the fact that normally the use of such names lessens the credibility of the person and is an indicator that the intent of the person is simply to disrupt or cause discord within the forum.

The Issue

Another item that Timothy brought up in his comments is something he refers to as “The Issue”. Upon reading Tim’s response, my initial thought was “Exactly what ‘issue’ is that, Timbo, you don’t say?”

Tim stated, in his reply, that Brian should “… move on and quit over-playing and exaggerating this issue.” He doesn’t provide us with any clues as to what the “Issue” is and he definitely fails to show how he figures that Brian is ‘over-playing’ and “exaggerating” this ‘issue”.

We can assume that Tim means Brian is overplaying and exaggerating the issue of “Holocaust-denier groups on Facebook”, but he could mean that Brian is overplaying and exaggerating the whole “Holocaust” issue. He also can be saying that Brian is “overplaying” and “exaggerating” the issue of “Holocaust-deniers” in general. Any guess we make on determining what this elusive “Issue” is would still be a guess upon our part and Tim could easily respond by saying “You idiot, I didn’t say that” to any assumption made by us. In short, Tim is vague on this comment, despite his air of presenting himself as some type of expert about this. One of the marks of a Troll is making it a practice of being “vague” in order to cause the most disruption and chaos without them looking like a fool (in their mind). Amazingly this is how Tim comes across.

“As a fellow Jew…”

Another thing Timothy attempt in showing his ‘expertise’ is by the use of a bit of false logic and faulty reasoning by telling Brian “As a fellow Jew, I know of many needy organizations who would appreciate your POSITIVE efforts.”

It surprises me that Mr. Cuban didn’t pick up on the fact that Timothy felt so compelled to insert the “idea” of his “Jewish-ness” into the conversation that the use of the “As a fellow Jew…” comment had nothing to do with the proposition of “knowing of many needy organizations”. On the other hand maybe Brian simply tossed out the comment as ‘irrelevant’ and never considered it as a part of showing that Tim’s whole idea behind his comments was simply for the purpose of “Trolling”.

Personal Attacks

Personal attacks are another tool of the Troll. When Tim makes his unwarranted personal attacks upon Brian, he is giving more cause for the deduction that he is nothing but ‘another troll on the net’. There is no doubt that by Tim’s telling Brian to “Get a life or career or family or hobby or anything positive” is a personal insult aimed at Brian… and stating that Brian was “a real downer and time waster” is another attempt at personally attacking the person – instead of attacking the idea. Additionally Tim's method of replying to Mr. Cuban shows Tim's lack of 'expertise' on the subject, if Tim had a clue he would already know Brian has a life and career. He isn't some kid getting on Mommy's and Daddy's computer after school to play, instead of doing something useful like studying.

Is Timothy a Troll?

The fact is that we cannot honestly say whether Timothy is a troll or simply an immature Internet user that is unable to support his arguments by just one reply. The bottom line of this is to show that there is just cause to believe that Tim is simply some type of “Immature Net User” and if he didn’t want to be known as one then perhaps he should take more care in his replies. Trolls are common enough on the net and in my opinion if Tim is a troll… he isn’t very experienced in the ways of trolldom.

How does any of this affect us?

I originally began this portion of the article with the idea in mind of addressing Tim’s comment of:

“How were you and I effected by any of this, or how might we be in the future?“

The first thing I would like to do is clarify his word usage. In his email Tim used the word “Effected”. Now the word “Effected” means “brought into existence, brought about, or produced as a result”. If Tim’s choice of words is correct then he is asking “How were you and I produced as a result by any of this?” This question simply makes no sense at all, unless he wants to know how we came into existence because of the holocaust. This makes me think that Tim must have meant to use the word “Affected”, which means “influenced on or effected a change in, Acted on the emotions of, or attacked or infected as a disease”. This makes more sense and would make the question as meaning something along the lines of “How did any of this personally influence or effect a change in us)?”

The best answer to this question is that we don’t know, and most probably will never know, exactly how much the Holocaust changed the world. Years ago I remember talking to my Dad one evening, while we overlooked the City of Pittsburgh skyline. Due to whatever the topic of the conversation was, I remember Dad telling me that if he never married my Mother and they didn’t have children together… I probably would not exist. He did say that maybe I would exist, but I would be different in some ways… but he would leave such philosophical answers to those questions to the scholars to debate.

The Holocaust was responsible for the taking of millions of lives and if those lives were not extinguished there is a possibility some of our ancestors may have married different people. If they did then some of us would probably have never been born, in short this means that today’s world could have been a completely different place from the place we now know.

The second part of Tim’s question asked:

“How might we be (affected by this) in the future?“

The answer to this should be obvious, however I’ve learned over the years that the obvious isn’t always obvious to everyone. I would like to repeat the poem that Brian already posted on his site… one of the names it is known by is “First They Came”.

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then... they came for me...
And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

According to various sources that I have read over the years, this version of the poem is the one which the author, Pastor Martin Niemöller, preferred. There is also a 1976 version that goes:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not protest;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

The poem speaks of the act of burying one’s head in the sand (or turning the blind eye toward a situation) to the bad things going on around us for the sake of personal safety. We often look away in order to not bring any trouble down upon us, but in the end the person finds that his or her turning the blind eye towards some gross miscarriage of justice resulted in the fact of when his or her group received the same type of attention – no one was willing to stand up for them.

If we shirk our duties by allowing these hate groups to grow and flourish, if we support them and their atrocities. Additionally we run the risk of a group of people gaining the power to do things they want without opposition, like the Nazis did in the 30s and 40s.. We can try to fool ourselves that things like that can’t happen here, in this place and/or time, however take a look at the world with open eyes. It not only can happen in today’s world, but it has been happening.

What’s Wrong With Our Jewish Youth?

It seems that it’s not only our “Jewish Youth” who have something “Wrong” with them, Brian, but out “Youth” in general. In fact we may go as far as to say that “People”, in general, that have something “Wrong” with them.

Please understand that I am not claiming that something must be wrong with a person simply because they may disagree with my opinion on an issue, for the record I enjoy reading and hearing the opinions of others for often those opinions give me another perspective to view an issue. I am, however, talking about the opinions expressed by “People” that are so "Anti-whatever" (for example: “Anti-social”, “Anti-government”, “Anti-Religion”) to the point of entering the realm of ‘extremism” and perhaps even "surrealism".

The Jewish Youth of today suffer from the same problems as any other youth of the past 30 or 40 years. I’m not going to get into a long-winded discourse over things like adolescence and the transition of childish thought into mature thinking, but the youth of today still suffer from the same growing pains of rebellion, idealism and naivety that we had to work ourselves through. The young tend to be idealistic and do not realize that philosophical ideas concerning how to right wrongs are great for the classroom debates and discussion with their friends, but they don’t always work in practice. They view the world with a naivety that is sometimes refreshing, but often unrealistic when applied to real world situations. They haven’t really learned that knowledge one acquires from classroom training or from books are most often only the building blocks for dealing with problems in the real world. Most of all the young haven’t really learned the arts of ‘persuasion and propaganda’, in other words how facts and figures can be warped to fit a person’s agenda. All of this and more makes ‘Our Youth’ highly susceptible to idealistic notions that seem ‘fair’ and ‘true’ to their developing minds and makes these young people prized targets for ‘agenda-oriented adults’ with ulterior motives.

“But what of “Our Rights and Freedoms”

I believe “Our” Founding Fathers would be the first ones to tell us that our Rights and Freedoms are not a type of death pact -- nor are they to be used as a protection for the criminal.

There is an article over at Ashmadai’s Blog called “The Neutral Zone of Free Expression” that discusses the Freedom of Expression. The article also shows where there are legal exceptions to the Freedom of Speech and ‘not all speech is free”. I suggest that people give it the once over and then go research the topic themselves before they start preaching about the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression.

The Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Expression are very important things, however neither freedom is a part of some death pact concocted by our founding fathers. Along with any rights or freedom comes responsibility and we must understand that we are not the only ones these rights affect. The very rights we want to cry and moan about being so dear to us also are the same rights that others have who may not agree with our opinions. We must balance our rights and freedoms with the rights and freedoms of others.

The Night Before Diggmas

2008-11-30T20:16:00.000-07:00

THE NIGHT BEFORE DIGGMAS
by Anonymous

'Twas the night before Diggmas, when all through the site,
Not a Digger was stirring, not even MediaSight.
The submittals were posted on Digg with great care,
In hopes that Kevin Rose soon would be there;

The newbies were nestled, all snug in their beds,
While visions of front page danced in their heads;
As I logged onto Digg, before going to bed,
In hopes of relaxing, to help ease my head.

From out of my speakers arose such a loud din,
I jumped so hard, nearly out of my skin.
On the screen I looked to see what varied,
Madly I searched to see who was buried,

The site was lit as moon on new fallen snow,
Bright as mid-day on the page it did show,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature beer wagon, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, half drunk and so spry,
Holding up a beer, who was this guy?
Swifter than eagles his coursers they came,
He whistled, then shouted and called them by name;

"Now, Aaron! now, Anton! now, Beth and Jen!
On, Eric! on Erica! on, Jay and `Gren!
To the top of the page, take care not to fall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the top, the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Diggs, and Kevin Rose too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard in my ears,
A sound of a few people opening some beers,
As I drew back my hand from the keyboard so fast,
Down the page went Mr. Rose with toot and a blast.

He was dressed as a beach bum, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
But a bundle of diggs he had flung on his back,
As a peddler he appeared, with a huge sack.

His eyes -- how they glowed! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were all rosey, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was too scarce to show;

The logo for Digg was seen clearly on his chest,
And the smell of beer came from his breath;
He had a broad face and filled with great cheer,
When he bent over, an ad for Budweiser was there.

He was chubby and quick, like a jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his works,
Giving Diggs to all, while burying the jerks,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up page he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like a shot from a pistol.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he went from the site,
"Happy Diggmas to all, have a hell of a night."

2008 US Elections: The Final Day (Whew)

2008-11-03T08:40:00.004-07:00

I don't know about everyone else, but I am one person who is glad that the final day of the 2008 US Elections are here... I'll be even more glad when on Wednesday when they are over! This election seemed to be less about the issues and more about attacking Bush and the other candidate(s) than ever in the past 30 or so years. In past elections I could at least get some idea of what the candidates actually planned to do - if they were elected. This year I've seen where the candidates really never gave one solution to resolve these issues, except in the most vague sense. They were too busy attacking each other than addressing the issues, I guess.

The fault isn't really only the media's fault either. I would love to sit here and say "It's that damn Media, they always want to manipulate us!" but that wasn't really the case. It was the candidates themselves, they have done more things like Talk Around and Side-stepping the issues than ever before in history. I've come to the decision, through research, that if McCain, Hillary and Obama actually addressed the issues properly then they would mostly be arguing over the crossing of T's and the Dotting of I's than their differences in opinion about the subject.

I've also seen so much misinformation and disinformation out there, much more than I've noted in past elections. The biggest idea pushed was "McCain Voted with Bush 90% of the time" or "This congressman voted with Bush 98% of the time". The other side of the coin was never pushed... and that is the voting records of the candidates these ads were for. The Washington Post, for example, claims Obama voted with his party 96% of the time. Other sources claim Barack voted with his party 98% of the time, while some sources showed that when Obama was not voting the party line-- he was not voting. The best article about voting records seems to be "Obama, McCain similar voting records"

The misinformation and disinformation is out there flowing like a river who's dam broke and millions of Americans are falling for what is said because they either hat Bush, love the candidate or are Party Sheeple who believes whatever their party says (especially when talking about those of the other party). Those who are especially the ones to fall prey to these Election Shenanigans are the first time voters who are wide eyed and willing to vote, but not much on the "Voting for the person" idea... but even some older folk who know better fall victim to the misinformation and disinformation out there because they never bother to check the facts for themselves. Instead they might go to some site that claims to check the facts, but usually they only facts they accept are from places that basically agree with them. Talking about Blind Digging, this is Blind Digging to the max. LoL

There are two articles that I read this morning and thought were fairly good, they were:

The 2008 Elections: Are there any Battleground States?

and

Election Day in the US - 4 November, 2008

The first one is pretty good, the second one is more of a notice for the election. Take a read.

Digg Wars

2008-10-21T12:32:00.003-07:00

Not so long of a time ago,

in a world removed from reality,

far from reality...

        War drums are heard rumbling through the heavens as a plush

        green field fades into view, the drums echo low at first and

        as they grow louder as a dozen gophers pop their heads out of

        their holes and look to the skies as they chatter excitedly

        amongst themselves. One lone gopher pops out of his hole in

        the middle of the others and looks to the skies while he drains

        a beer bottle. A rollup begins to slowly crawls into infinity

        across the scene. The words displayed are as follows:

It is a period of civil war on Digg Rebels,
striking from a hidden ISP, have won their first
victory against the evil Digg Mafia Bury Brigade.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal the secret

plans for the Digg Mafia's ultimate weapon - the Golden Bury

Button.  This is a hack proof web button, designed to replace the

regular Digg Bury Button and it has the ability to destroy entire day’s

worth of submittals to Digg in a single click.

Pursued by the Bury Brigade’s sinister agents, Princess DiggYa races across the

vastness of Infospace, custodian of the stolen plans that can save Diggers everywhere

and restore freedom to Digg...

Join Princess Diggya, Digg Shoutmaster, Sub Solo, Diggbot and Scripts on their epic adventure to save Diggers everywhere against the evil forces of Digg Vader and the Digg Mafia.

Coming soon to a computer or cell phone near you!

Digg Uproar: The Future of Digg?

2008-09-22T08:57:00.002-07:00

I ran across an article on TarMac101 about the future of Digg and I as I was going through the names of the fallen comrades and reflecting upon the articles the blog linked to, I asked myself "What is the future of Digg?"

I noticed on Ashmadai's site that one person who replied called for the banning of Digg, now I have read the things this man has uploaded to the net for weeks now and he does have a sense of humor... but what if he is serious. Let's pull a Pinky and the Brain on this one and ponder this issue seriously.

To start out our little scenario.... let's say MrBabyman, Zaibatsu, MSaleem and MakiMaki have grown wearisome of Digg. They get together and decide to open their own social content site, but they also want to do it smart and use a front man to do most of the mundane work and run interference. So they form a coalition of silent partners and choose a person willing to act as 'the big cheese"... let's say they pick someone like Ashmadai who has no real affiliations and has a really big mouth at times. :) The five get together and work out a plan for the daily running of the site. A moderately small set of rules and guidelines are set up and the policies for running the forum are laid out. So Ash gets to work on putting this all in action.

The next thing they want is promotion, maybe they will talk to another guy with a big mouth, who has his finger on the pulse of the net. They choose someone like Chris Lang to set up the promoting of this new site.

The third thing they do is set up a team of technical people to insure everything runs smoothly on the site, maybe they ask Diggboss and a few other people who know coding to do this.

The Top 4 (MrBabyman, Zaibatsu, MSaleem and MakiMaki) can work as much or as little on this as they wish, but after they set up things the way they want - they can simply allow their "People" to do their magic and then come back and approve what they see before opening the forum up to the general public. In the meantime, the top 4 can basically choose other names for themselves and list those names as the owners and such. This frees up their normal handles to simply post, vote, comment and in general be 'just another user" of the forum.

We should realize that the set-up isn't this simple, but let's just move on through all of the minor details and get to the point that the forum is now open for business. The Top 4 has plenty of followers on Digg, and elsewhere, it can be made known that these 4 people found this 'forum' and fell in love with it because it's brand new and wide open. Instantly the forum ought to bring in thousands of users, and by instantly I mean within the first couple of weeks. The posting of items to this new forum might be slow at first, but it can build if the Top 4 and many of their followers would take the time to be active there. Additionally the site can be promoted, sort of on the quiet side, as an alternative to Digg. The attempt to draw in everyone banned from Digg could bring in thousands more. Around the time the first month rolls around, the site could rank high in the search engine rankings, which will bring in more people. The place could grow like wildfire.

Many Diggers don't have broadband, so the serious attempt could be made to set the site up so that those on dial-up have an easier time in using the site. The advertising on the site would be basic ads, for the most part, and the selling gimmick to the advertisers lies in approximately half the net is using dial-up, despite what some articles lead one to believe. Our aim is to show their products in such a way that it doesn't slow down these low speed users much. This could be a big hit if done right, especially in these times when people are finding it hard to find the money to put gas in their cars or keep their homes.

Alright, that lays out the idea... now how many people do you think this site could pull? Let's say the Top 4 can bring in 1,000 members combined by the end of the first week. Some of those thousand users will promote the site for free, simply because they like the Top 4 or because they want to suck up to them. Never underestimate the power of the suck-up. :) If 250 of the 1,000 brings in 2 people, that means that by the end of the second week there will be 1,500 people on the new site. The site could easily have 3000 people by the end of the month, but I think that is a low figure. Once the people on Digg find out about the site, those disgruntled with Digg would try the new site. That could be 5,000 to 10,000 people easy, if Digg has between 5 and 25 million individual members.

I'll let you toy with this idea further, perhaps some of you can come up with better figures.

Google Bucket Test Reveals Digg Mafia Buries

2008-07-17T16:20:00.005-07:00

On July 17, 2008 City Social Marketing posted an excellent blog about a series of articles from TechCrunch titled Google Bucket Testing New Digg-like Interface. After reading the blog post I felt the writer left a few things out, while not emphasizing upon the problems well enough. Well folks, that is what Random Logic does best! Here goes.

I've researched the Google Bucket Test and scrutinized the screen shots fairly well. I've reviewed numerous Anti-Google comments, as well as the Pro-Google commentary, and all of the others in between. I've reached the conclusion that Google is on the right track, providing they do not allow the features on their new interface to interfere with the Google Rankings or listings. I, like many of you, want the ability to see the results from my Google searches and decide for myself if the items appearing on my screen are what I want. I don't want someone else making that choice for me. Google already allows me to filter my searches by language and also provides a way of filtering out porn sites. I don't need some bozo with a `tude censoring my results all because they didn't get lucky at the bar last night ~ like a person can on Digg.

Rumors are flying over how Digg is going to be bought by Google, I am not sure about that, however if this new interface is "Digg-like" it just may be one more piece of the puzzle to show that the Digg/Google connection is a done deal or it's to show the Rose/Adelson Gang at Digg that they are simply asking for too much money for their program. This new Google Interface might be something to show Digg that they are not needed, nor will their program be worth a

once Google works out the bugs and implements their new interface. The possibilities can go to either extreme at this point, but it does seem likely that this new interface is showing us that the Digg deal is done and Google is trying to implement some of Digg's ideas into the Google search engines.

Social Bookmarking can be a very useful tool, but not as long as people wish to use it for garbage posts which are actually better suited for message forums. Google can put Social Bookmarking's feet back on the road it was intended to take, instead of creating hundreds of little kaffee klatsches where people group together in tight little units and bury or spam the posts of those not inside their wee clique. There is no doubt that Digg has no intention on ridding their system of such characters. It does, however, seem that Google has every intention of not giving power to such meglomaniacs.

It was mentioned that there is an article on Digg called Digg Steal Interface From Digg For Testing, which is reported to have 3 buries. You can read about this on the CSM Blog, I won't restate the story here. I've also seen Ashmadai's Blog "Stop the Madness!" Digg Buries Out Of Hand and I concur with both parties. Digg needs to step up and take action with this "Bury Brigade" antics which has been going on for years now. Go check out Google sometime and see all the posts concerning the Bury Brigada and Digg Mafia, this abuse of the system has been around for a long time. This type of anti-social behavior is what is destroying Digg, far too many people are realizing that the odds of their articles ever making it to the main page are slim to none ~ if they don't have the blessings and support of a Digg Top User. People are not idiots, Digg, many can see that between 50% and 60% of the stories on the front page are by the Top 100. They also can figure out that a smaller percentage of those making it to the front page are the same ones promoting the Top Users' stories. This isn't rocket science it, it's simple math and a little bit of patience and time to research who is who. A good first step is by making the bury button a simple notification to the Digg moderators for them to check for inaccurate or illegal content. That is what a moderator does, moderate.

I don't expect any big changes from Digg, at least not until someone buys it and decides to change the whole set up. More than likely I see Digg being devalued and turning into another wasted group for sooner or later people will start leaving Digg for other sites. Digg might hide the fact by not allowing members to remove their accounts from Digg, thereby only showing increases in membership ~ like another big system on the net has done for over 10 years now, but it still won't hide the fact that people will simply move on and allow those content with being abused or abusing others to remain.

How To Get more Diggs

2008-06-12T09:40:00.002-07:00

There is a rage today which concerns many on the net asking about How To Get More Diggs. Malathy Badri posted this article called Think Again Before Posting to Social Bookmarks. It's an interesting read, check it out.

Paris to marry Benji

2008-05-15T10:49:00.003-07:00

A parody of a news item concerning Paris Hilton being engaged to Benji Madden has made it on the scene and seems to be delighting Paris Hilton Fans and anti-Paris followers alike. The article is known as Paris Hilton to wed Benji. I find the article amusing, but not overly so.

I followed this article across the net from Jack Humphrey's Friday Morning Traffic Report (article: If You Don't Think Social Marketing Tactics Works, Look At This) to Searchles (Paris Hilton to wed Benji) to Digg (Paris Hilton And Benji Overjoyed With Upcoming Wedding). It seems to be appearing everywhere! I have to admit, the picture of Paris and Benji is cute!

Gopher Digg

2008-05-15T01:14:00.002-07:00

Your Might Be A Digger if....

2008-05-07T07:20:00.003-07:00

You might be a Digger if you ….

10) …submit stories to Digg and then compulsively check how many Diggs every 30 seconds.

9) …chronicly complain, or bury, articles requiring the use of more than 3 brain cells to understand.

8) …think Celebrity Gossip and submissions like “The World’s Biggest Wad Of Spit” are actually newsworthy articles.

7) …bookmarked Digg on your cell phone, so you can check it when away from your computer for more than 30 seconds.

6) …made Kevin Rose a friend thinking he is actually going to friend you back.

5) ...think a conversation consists of 3 lines: One mentioning the topic, one of praising Digg and one praising Kevin Rose.

4) …think the news items from Digg actually reached Digg before it hit the mainstream media.

3) …think digging posts that you never read, and may not understand, is the way to be "informed".

2) …Digg more often than you check your E-mail.

… and the number 1 answer:

You might be a Digger if you think it is better to post 20 shouts containing 5 urls each, than one shout containing 50 URLs.