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Final Paper:

Digg.com: An online public sphere?

Andrew Hilts

CCT400H5

Dr. Zaheer Baber

Submitted: 10 December 2008

Engaging with difference of opinion, coming to logical conclusions for the good of all, and

mutually respecting one another are but some of the goals espoused by proponents of the ‘public

sphere’. This study seeks to determine whether the website ‘Digg.com’ qualifies as an online

public sphere, as well as how this web community fits within the larger academic debate

regarding what entails a public sphere and how one should function.

The public sphere exists largely as a theoretical framework that details a communicative

space which prioritizes the “reasoned argument over key issues of mutual interest and concern,”

in “a space in which both new ideas and the practice and discipline of rational public debate” are

cultivated (Roberts and Crossely 2). This idea, brought into prominence by the German

philosopher Jürgen Habermas in his work The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

(1989), is argued to have been a cornerstone of participatory democracy; ideally, rational public

arguments led to “the consensus about what was practically necessary in the interest of all”

(Habermas 83). In this manner, the most logical stances on issues came to prominence and were

labelled ‘public opinion’. Ideally, this was then acted upon in government, so that the will of the

people was heard, and democracy upheld.

That being said, for the public sphere to be completely democratic, Hindman argues

“everyone whose vital interests are at stake in a public decision should participate in making it

and that true participation requires citizens themselves to engage in discussions with their fellow

citizens” (271). From this, we may infer that such a situation would by necessity be accessible to

all people, regardless of opinion, so that all voices can be democratically heard and considered.

Such an idyllic conception has come under criticism by various scholars. One such

criticism is that the ‘ideal speech situation’ of the public sphere never actually existed – “the

bourgeois public sphere only served to enhance the interests of the already powerful white, male,

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bourgeois class (Roberts and Crossely 11). Thus, a large section of society was excluded:

women, the working-class, ethnic minorities, to name a few. As such, the public sphere’s

democratic nature is cast into doubt; this supports an argument espoused by Sparks (2001), that

the public sphere is a utopian conception (77) – an idealistic framework.

In addition to exclusion based on social status, some have argued the public sphere favours

certain kinds of decision-making while discounting others. Specifically, Garnham (1992) points

out that “Habermas’ vision of the public sphere outlined a tragic and stoic pursuit of an almost

impossible rationality, recognizing the impossibility of an ideal public sphere and the limits of

human civilization, but still stoically striving toward it” (266). This stoicism seems to neglect

those opinions and beliefs that cannot be ‘effectively’ expressed in rational terms. Therefore, the

preference of rationality has come under scrutiny, because “all framing of meaning, including

what it means to be rational, necessarily involves exclusion” (Dahlberg 835). The question that

arises is ‘who determines what is rational?’ Such a classification has embedded within it a power

to set the limits of acceptable discourse in the public sphere, and thus certain opinions may be

excluded. Dahlberg summarizes:

This form of understanding of deliberative democracy fails to adequately consider the asymmetries of power through which deliberation and consensus are achieved, the inter-subjective basis of meaning, the centrality of respect for difference in democracy, and the democratic role of ‘like-minded’ deliberative groups. (Dahlberg 827)

With these issues seemingly in mind, Fraser “contended that co-existing public spheres of

counterpublics form in response to their exclusion from the dominant sphere of debate.

Therefore, multiple public spheres that are not equally powerful, articulate or privileged exist,

and give voice to collective identities and interests” (in Pappacharissi 266). Seemingly, for any

sort of large public deliberation, ground rules of what constitutes as acceptable dialogue must be

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established, and if those rules are not agreed upon, the dissenters may form their own

deliberative sphere with its own discursive style.

In academic discussions of the public sphere, the terms ‘democratic, deliberative discourse’

are often mentioned when describing the workings of the public sphere’s discussions (Janssen

and Kies; Zhou, Chan and Peng; Albrecht). In their article “Online Forums and Deliberative

Democracy” (2005), Janssen and Kies summarize Dahlberg’s criteria for an effective public

sphere that is conducive to the goal of democratic deliberation. ‘Reciprocity’ is the first criterion

outlined: it requires that a conversation is an actual dialogue – where participants pay attention

and respond to each other’s points (326). ‘Justification’ is important because deliberation

requires that individuals understand what has been said and why it is important; discussants must

provide evidence to support their claims (327). ‘Reflexivity’ requires that people scrutinize their

own morals, beliefs and interests, in addition to the wider interests of society (328). ‘Ideal role

taking’ requires considering others’ opinions with continuing respect (328). Participants must

also exhibit ‘sincerity’, in that they genuinely attempt to provide the forum with all necessary

context regarding their statements, so that individuals will feel as though they are being asked to

intelligently respond (329). Additionally, there must be ‘inclusion and discursive equality’,

whereby “all who are affected by the issues under discussion, or more generally all who are

interested, should be able to participate” (329). This criterion is twofold – in online discussions,

participants need access to a connected computer, and must also be able to freely express their

opinion and question others (330). The final requirement is ‘autonomy from state and economic

power’; the government nor economic powers may not intrude nor influence the shape of the

debate (330).

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These rules of discourse have come under scrutiny by Pappacharissi (2004), who – from a

similar perspective as Dahlberg (2007) – argues that the public sphere’s democratic function has

been subverted by excessive politeness, which is a tendency he labels as “often overvalued”

(262). This limits the deliberative function of discourse, as “adherence to positive politeness

standards led to the seeking of agreement, through the pursuit of safe topics” and “the avoidance

of disagreement, through token agreement” (262). He contrasts the allegedly stifling and rigid

politeness that is often recommended with Lyotard’s (1984) argument “that anarchy,

individuality, and disagreement, rather than rational accord, lead to true democratic

emancipation” (in Pappacharissi 266). In this manner, more constructive argumentation, instead

of enforced politeness, can theoretically prosper.

Digg.com Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online. […] We’re committed to giving every piece of content on the web an equal shot at being the next big thing. (Digg A)

This study seeks to examine Digg.com, ‘Digg’, a “social news” website with an active

community of “over 30 million unique monthly users” (Adelson) who, if registered, are able to

submit news stories for fellow users to read and comment on. These stories and comments shall

be studied and analyzed according to the framework of the public sphere, taking into

consideration the positions of a variety of “e-scholars”.

‘Digging’ is the term used on the website for the process of voting in favour of any given

piece of content (hereafter referred to as a “story”), while “burying” is a negative vote. The

above quoted concept of the “next big thing” on Digg is presumably a user-submitted story that

is displayed on the lauded “front page”, which is the page visible when an individual first

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reaches the URL http://www.digg.com. This location – by nature of its location – gets much

more traffic than any of the subcategory pages on Digg; thus, the measure of a story’s success is

often its making the front page. These stories reach the front page based on an algorithm that

considers several factors “such as number of Diggs, reports, time of day, topic submitted to,

Digging/burying diversity, etc.” (Digg B). The front page itself is a constantly shifting entity;

newly ‘big’ stories appear at the top, while older news drifts back in the archival hierarchy of the

popular.

Each submitted story receives its own unique URL within digg.com; the page at this URL

displays meta information that identifies the submitter based on his/her pseudonym, the number

of diggs received, and the length of time that the story has been popular. Further down on the

page, an entire discussion board is devoted (in theory) to that particular story. The comments that

form the “discussion” are by default arranged chronologically – with the earliest at the top and

the latest at the bottom – according to standard discussion board practice. Another level of voting

occurs on these boards: if they are so inclined, users may ‘digg’ the comments that they feel

should be rated highly, and ‘bury’ those determined to be of lesser quality. After a certain

amount of ‘buries’ a comment is hidden from immediate public view; an inquisitive user must

consciously divulge the buried content. It is this arena that shall be most directly compared to the

public sphere concept (though the front page also plays a large role that will be explored).

There has been a large amount of optimism regarding the Internet’s potential as the

medium to realize the ideal public sphere. In one optimistic view, computer mediated

communication “[…] perhaps signals the emergence of a public sphere that is not subject to the

specific linguistic, cultural and spatial limitations” that exist in the physical domain (Bohman

134). According to Hallvard, during online communication, “speaker and listener are on equal

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terms”. He goes on to describe “Internet-supported public spheres” that “presumably also

eliminate impediments by removing barriers to participation, enabling a greater variety of active

contributors” (324).

In this theory, online communication can erase boundaries that could inhibit access to areas

of discussion in the physical world. However, “the Internet is a public sphere only if agents make

it so, if agents introduce institutional ‘software’ that constructs the context of communication”

(Bohman 132). Indeed, the design of the means of online discussion is reflected in the discursive

possibilities of the medium; “as research has shown, the structures and outcomes of online

dialogue depend on factors like the design, moderation and trustworthiness of the actual

discussion space (Albrecht 76). However, Bohman concludes that “mediated many-to- many

communication may increase interactivity, without preserving the essential features of dialogue,

such as responsive uptake” (135). In other words, users are not engaging in the kind of back-and-

forth arguments that characterize the public sphere, which is likely due to the sheer number of

users engaging with the Internet (Bohman 138; Albrecht 66). Thus, not all voices can be easily

heard. From this discussion, it can be seen that the current generation of online communication,

when analyzed within a public sphere framework, retains the criticisms of the public sphere

theory in general, such as the exclusion of certain voices.

Power and control Both infrastructure and, more fundamentally, patterns of attention are much less distributed than we thought. As a consequence, the Internet diverges from the mass media much less than we thought in the 1990s and significantly less than we might hope. (Benkler 214)

Benkler’s quote hints at an underlying concern prevalent in various writings about online

publics that assert that cyber discourse does not transcend the disparities found in ‘real-world’

communicative power; certain voices dominate discussion, while others are marginalized. For

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example, Hindman opines that in the “blogosphere” – the large network of web logs in which

individual authors write in a kind of public journal – it “is common to hear talk of an A-list of

bloggers whose voices are disproportionately influential” (278). Hindman furthermore points out

that a significant proportion of top bloggers is populated by white males with elite educations.

Thus, the power structure of the blogosphere seemingly mirrors that of the actual world (280).

As a consequence, “those whose voices are left out are likely to be disproportionately female,

ethnic minorities, and poor” (Sanders in Hindman 280). Additionally, technological skills and

knowledge play a part in overcoming barriers to effectively utilize online discussion spaces;

those with higher skills will be able to make their voices heard more efficiently (Albrecht 67).

On Digg, we can see evidence to support these aforementioned claims. Though their

demographics are not known, there is a clear group of ‘top users’ on Digg. Indeed, Digg at one

point had a listing of the site’s top users published on its site, until the measurement was

annulled after rumours of top users’ for-profit digging and ‘gaming’ Digg surfaced (Rose A).

Since that list has been discontinued, socialblade.com – an independent website – has taken up

the task of measuring and reporting Digg’s top users. The data that the website’s software uses to

calculate the top users is obtained via the ‘Digg API’, a software framework published by Digg

whereby interested parties can query Digg’s database and obtain statistical information related to

a specific user, story, or category (Wilms et al). Socialblade’s list ranks Digg users based on the

quantity of stories submitted by said user that have ‘gone popular’, meaning they have received

enough diggs to be categorized as a popular story.

For a grasp of the influence of the top Digg users, this author has used computer software

to determine that in one twenty-four-hour period that saw 183 different stories reach the front

page (FirstDigg A), 48 of those stories (26%) were submitted by members of the top 50 Digg

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users (Appendix A). Expanding the range to the past 5000 stories (FirstDigg B) to reach the front

page, (all front-page stories within a 36-day period), 1785 stories (35.7%) were submitted by the

‘top 50’. Expressed in another way, if we divide 1785 by 50, we can see that each member of the

‘top 50’, on average, saw 35.7 of their own stories reach the front page. This amounts to about

one story per day, per ‘top 50’ member. Considering Digg has over 3 million registered users

(McCarthy) (different from the site’s 30 million unique monthly visitors), the fact that on

average, 35.7% of the stories made popular in one day were contributed by less than 50 people

indicates a certain concentration of discursive power. As each story has a respective discussion

area, and that most user traffic makes its way to stories featured on the front page, it can be said

that the top 50 users play a large role in shaping the agenda of the Digg user base’s discussion.

That they deserve this position of power is a matter for debate; there is disagreement on whether

the top diggers obtain their position in a ‘democratic’ fashion.

‘MrBabyMan’ is perhaps the most recognized of all top diggers; there have been 10 front

page stories about the user himself (on a site whose purpose is to link to external websites) (Digg

A). This renown is largely influenced by the fact that his submissions are ubiquitous on Digg’s

front page – he is the #1 ranked Digger according to socialblade.com (FirstDigg C). However,

this status as the most publicly recognized ‘top digger’ often makes him the target of scrutiny. A

proportion of Digg users feel as though he does not deserve his position; a story that made the

front page and received over 6500 diggs is entitled “PLEASE Ban MrBabyMan”, and subtitled

“Reason: Cheating the System” (zakfitch). This story’s content was a screenshot of

MrBabyMan’s activity log, which apparently demonstrated that he dugg 82 stories in 3 minutes,

meaning he ‘blindly dugg’ the stories, without reading them.

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The majority of users were angry at MrBabyMan’s seemingly automated digging of stories

that his friends submitted. This highlights a certain kind of reciprocity regarding Digg votes:

friends digg each other’s stories (Weinberg). According to my analysis of the digg API data, the

mean number of each ‘top 50’ Digg user’s friends who are also members of the ‘top 50’ is 27.8

(Appendix B). In other words, the 50 highest-ranking diggers are themselves friends with over

half of the others in that category. Thus, they can easily share stories with each other, and ask for

reciprocal digging of each other’s submissions through ‘shouts’ (essentially a message informing

user(s) about a Digg submission).

However, this discussion of the ‘top users’ should be tempered somewhat – in his study of

a government-sponsored online political discussion in Hamburg, Steffen Albrecht (2006)

determined that the 10 most active users in the forum, although contributing to 34.9 percent of

the discussion, did not stifle debate but instead “behaved as ‘old hands’, giving advice and

providing other participants with an overview of the debate” (Albrecht 72). Indeed, he found

“they contributed to the interactivity of the debate without profiting from it” (Albrecht 73). This

seems to echo the sentiments of some ‘top’ diggers: that they attempt to user their power for the

benefit of ‘regular’ diggers by submitting “content that will please the audience” (Weinberg).

In Albrecht’s study, the debate was highly disciplined, in part due to the fact that “the four

moderators were highly present during the entire debate […] thus establishing a constructive

atmosphere of mutual respect and rational orientation” (Albrecht 73). As mentioned earlier, Digg

features communal moderation software, whereby users can ‘digg’ up or down opinions. After a

comment reaches -5 diggs, the comment dips ‘below the viewing threshold’ and the content of

the comment is hidden, with a grey box displaying the username and number of diggs replacing

it (though the user can choose to ‘unearth’ it by clicking a link).

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With such a communal moderation system, the Digg comment areas seemingly would not

need formal moderators. Another interesting facet of the aforementioned MrBabyMan

controversy is the disparity of opinion in the discussion forum for the story recommending

MrBabyMan’s ban. Comments in the story’s discussion space include:

“Digg is about as democratic as Zimbabwe” (ramonathebrave, +81 diggs), “I support MrBabyMan. I don't care what he does” (Ender008, -9 diggs), “ [..] devalue the diggs from people that digg a lot of articles.” (roach, +7 diggs) “So, if someone is good at something, we should kick them out to level the playing field?” (mobecca, -23 diggs)

Looking at the number of diggs that these comments received exemplifies the discursive

climate of the debate on the discussion page; though this is not a representative claim – but a

qualitative observation – by and large, those who powerfully criticized MrBabyMan were dugg

up by the majority of users (ramonathebrave), and those who dissented were dugg down

(mobeca). These negatively dugg submissions were furthermore often unreciprocated; diggers

voted negatively, but did not rebut the arguments being made. Though all able to comment, some

opinions were censored by communal down-voting, while the dominant view was promoted.

Indeed, in a story entitled “Does Digg Have a Liberal Bias? Share Your Thoughts”, the submitter

(MakiMaki, a top digger), stated that some conservative diggers were “frustrated” (MakiMaki).

In the story’s discussion, user Ymeg commented that:

It would not be such a problem if the rational arguments and summations were not buried for the sole fact of being against what the they (sic) think. They have created an (sic) mental barrier; if the don't agree, then the questions raised will not be answered. (Ymeg, +184 diggs)

Considering these examples, there does not seem to be much ‘ideal role taking’ – the

respectful consideration of alternative views. The regulations espoused by Janssen and Kies

(2005) do not appear to be strongly followed in Digg discussions; thus, according the their

criteria and other rationalist-politeness public sphere theorists, Digg would likely not be

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considered an ideal public sphere by any means. This form of communal moderation seems to

not encourage the engagement with differing opinions on sensitive issues nor the careful

deliberation of an issue from all angles.

The fragmentation debate A specific goal the moderation of online discussion to strive for is recommended by Cass

Sunstein in his book Republic.com 2.0. He argues for some kind of regulatory system that

encourages a fertile arena for debate: “The system of free expression must do far more than

avoid censorship; it must ensure that people are exposed to competing perspectives” (Sunstein

xi). This is said to be because dissenting viewpoints “are important partly to ensure against

fragmentation and extremism” (5). Similarly, Hallvard recommends that an online public sphere

should transmit issues and opinions expressed by “the periphery of society, generating public

debate and mounting pressure for the political system to respond” (323). However, whereas

Sunstein identifies fragmentation and extreme positions as a “risk” to democracy (42), Hallvard

claims extremism to be beneficial to political discussion, citing Mouffe’s theory of “an agonistic

public sphere where hegemonic political projects confront each other” (Hallvard 323). Similarly,

Dahlberg claims that the fragmentation theory fails to see how disparate deliberative groups with

various viewpoints can help democracy by interpreting “difference as a force of social

disruption” that can move “disputes towards consensus” (833) and effectively contest dominant

views (837).

This issue is also prevalent in the content shown in Digg’s “Upcoming Stories” section. In

this area of the website, newly-submitted stories are listed to each user based on his or her unique

‘digging’ history. Digg’s software thus determines what it believes one would like to read based

on one’s past behaviour as well as on what community friends and other users with similar

behaviour have ‘dugg’. This is the personalization and filtration of content; “because it is so easy

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to learn about the choices of “people like you,” countless people make the same choices that are

made by others like them” (Sunstein 3). Thus we can presumably identify another cause of the

concentration in Digg’s mediascape. Though this concentration inevitably helps to make certain

stories popular, the viewpoints that become so are predominately those shared by the core group,

and consequently, dissenting viewpoints rarely ‘make the front page’. We can therefore

understand Benkler’s position when he states: “while centralization would resolve the Babel

(information overload) objection, it would do so only at the expense of losing much of the

democratic promise of the Net” (239). Digg seems to function too often as a mechanism for

reinforcing values, not contemplating and challenging them.

Digg’s influence “Counter-discourse […] provides safe spaces for the exploration and nurturing of marginalized voices (‘extreme’ positions and identities) before explicit engagement with and challenge to dominant discourses in ‘mainstream’ communication arenas. (Dahlberg, 837)

If we understand Digg.com not as a mainstream public sphere representative of an

entire population, but as a ‘deliberative enclave’ – a space where a single ideology enjoys

such dominance that it may foster extremist views that would otherwise not get a change

to coherently mobilize (Sunstein 76) – the web site can be seen to become more useful as

a democratic medium than as a failed ideal public sphere. Employing Frasers’s notion of

counterpublics (in Papacharissi 266), we can see that Digg, as a largely self-identified

bastion of liberalism, may serve a legitimate role in bringing issues important to the

majority of users into the public view, which may then be debated in more ‘mainstream’

arenas. Indeed, the optimism of some scholars should not be entirely discounted, as the

Internet and Digg have had a noticeable influence on the politics of the actual world.

There can be all kinds of political information and debate in circulation, but there must be structural connections – formalized institutional procedures – between

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these communicative spaces and the process of decision making. […] there must be some semblance of impact, some indication that the political talk of citizens has consequences, or else disengagement and cynicism can set in. (Dahlgren 152)

Even if Digg cannot effectively ensure that its space consistently upholds the requirements

of deliberative discourse, there is nevertheless “evidence that the Internet is strengthening public

oversight by making “fire alarm” or “burglar alarm” models of citizenship more effective”

(Hindman 269). Hindman shows that news of political scandals can spread relatively quickly via

the Internet when compared to traditional media sources. This form of online citizenship requires

less time spent reflecting on complex moral issues (282), which is said to amount to “a retreat

from deliberative principles”. Digg does seem to exhibit this kind of citizenship; the fast

spreading of news that does not require deliberation, yet helps a specific cause move forward.

For example, in 2007 ‘diggers’ actively promoted numerous blog posts that revealed the key

with which users could circumvent high-definition video encryption and thus facilitate copying

media that had been secured with digital rights management. (Digg C). In fact, after Digg’s

administration had repeatedly deleted stories that posted this illegal content, only to see more

stories spring up to replace them, Digg’s founder Kevin Rose bowed to the pressure of the users

and blogged the circumvention code himself (Rose B). While diggers did not debate the morality

of digital rights management circumvention, their communal solidarity did have an impact on

furthering the cause of their conception of fair use.

Additionally, Digg.com has exhibited the power to influence the affairs of the world

outside of cyberspace. For example, Digg users submitted questions to the CBS journalist Katie

Couric to ask to the United States presidential candidates earlier this year (KatieCouric). Their

voices were heard (though the questions were likely to be chosen by an editor, not a public

consensus). We can see from these aforementioned examples that Digg has some markings of a

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specific public sphere that is perhaps more accommodating to the imperfection of human

deliberation than is the Habermasian ideal.

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Appendix The statistics regarding Digg in this study were derived from Socialblade’s listings. The

data that were obtained are archived, as the original source is constantly changing.

Appendix A

“Digg’s Top 1000 Users” archive is located at:

<http://individual.utoronto.ca/hiltsand/top1000activeusers.html>

This is a list of the top 50 users identified in this study:

1. MrBabyMan 2. msaleem 3. MakiMaki 4. mklopez 5. skored 6. CLIFFosakaJAPAN 7. jaybol 8. p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 9. badwithcomputer 10. insaincain02 11. bonlebon 12. SirPopper 13. Aidenag 14. IvanB 15. Burento 16. TalSiach 17. webtickle

18. maheshee11 19. Bukowsky 20. diggleague 21. kevinrose 22. suxmonkey 23. MediaSight 24. louiebaur 25. hdar3415 26. Gregd 27. 1KrazyKorean 28. motang 29. irfanmp 30. noupsell 31. upick 32. DigiDave 33. schestowitz 34. chris1234

35. bamafun 36. geekchic 37. vroom101 38. Blakovitch 39. SeaMowse 40. openthink 41. sungoddess808 42. AmyVernon 43. adrian67 44. vick3ii 45. oboy 46. ScottMcIntyre 47. numberneal 48. antdude 49. MookiBlaylock 50. arbiterofcool

The 50 users identified were individually searched for a list of their friends using the Digg API.

IE:

<http://services.digg.com/user/mrbabyman/friends/?appkey=http%3A%2F%2Fapidoc.dig

g.com&count=100>

The original XML files generated by the API are archived at:

<http://individual.utoronto.ca/hiltsand/top50friends.zip>

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This data was then saved and parsed using Notepad++ to isolate the names of each user’s

friends. Each user’s friends were then combined into a large list that detailed every friend of

every Digg user in the top 50.

This list is available at: <http://individual.utoronto.ca/hiltsand/top50allfriends.txt>

This list was then queried for each top 50 member, and using Notepad ++’s ‘count’

feature, the number of instances that each top 50 username occurred was determined to be the

number of ‘top 50’ users that were (reciprocal) friends with the queried user (including the user

him/herself).

The data was then imported into Microsoft Excel, where the mean, median, mode, and

standard deviation for “number of friends in the top 50”, “number of total friends”, and “top 50

friends/total friends ratio” were calculated.

Chart 1

Top 50 Digg users by the number of friends they each have in the Top 50

05

101520253035404550

0 10 20 30 40 50

User position in Top 50

Friends in Top 50

(see next page for table).

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Table 1 Digg Rank Digg User friend of top 50 total friends % of friends in top 50

1 MrBabyMan 44 241 18.25726141 2 msaleem 40 525 7.619047619 3 MakiMaki 35 223 15.69506726 4 mklopez 23 263 8.745247148 5 skored 35 216 16.2037037 6 CLIFFosakaJAPAN 7 40 17.5 7 jaybol 34 523 6.500956023 8 p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 7 623 1.123595506 9 badwithcomputer 40 464 8.620689655

10 insaincain02 38 273 13.91941392 11 bonlebon 8 919 0.870511425 12 SirPopper 20 510 3.921568627 13 Aidenag 19 209 9.090909091 14 IvanB 24 429 5.594405594 15 Burento 38 356 10.6741573 16 TalSiach 41 320 12.8125 17 webtickle 30 424 7.075471698 18 maheshee11 26 269 9.665427509 19 Bukowsky 30 330 9.090909091 20 diggleague 35 220 15.90909091 21 kevinrose 21 107 19.62616822 22 suxmonkey 41 435 9.425287356 23 MediaSight 32 247 12.95546559 24 louiebaur 31 207 14.97584541 25 hdar3415 33 148 22.2972973 26 Gregd 5 207 2.415458937 27 1KrazyKorean 41 205 20 28 motang 19 304 6.25 29 irfanmp 35 145 24.13793103 30 noupsell 27 403 6.699751861 31 upick 38 234 16.23931624 32 DigiDave 21 587 3.577512777 33 schestowitz 8 1000 0.8 34 chris1234 36 168 21.42857143 35 bamafun 38 382 9.947643979 36 geekchic 14 363 3.856749311 37 vroom101 26 45 57.77777778 38 Blakovitch 22 443 4.966139955 39 SeaMowse 27 147 18.36734694 40 openthink 29 149 19.46308725 41 sungoddess808 34 203 16.74876847 42 AmyVernon 27 154 17.53246753 43 adrian67 29 157 18.47133758 44 vick3ii 33 304 10.85526316 45 oboy 36 606 5.940594059 46 ScottMcIntyre 28 140 20 47 numberneal 35 205 17.07317073 48 antdude 4 6 66.66666667 49 MookiBlaylock 28 170 16.47058824 50 arbiterofcool 22 477 4.612159329

Mean 27.88 314.5 13.76936601 Median 29.5 255 11.83388158 Mode 35 207 9.090909091 standard dev 10.50877185 200.9969286 11.8476286 (Max, min value) (44,4) (1000, 6)

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Appendix B “Digg Front Page Data” archive is located at:

<http://individual.utoronto.ca/hiltsand/dec101220diggfrontpage5000.htm> (warning:

extremely large HTML file (<7MB); may take a few minutes to stabilize).

The data was copied into the program Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 and searched with a

regular expression that located every instance of a top 50 digger’s story. The regular expression

used is:

MrBabyMan|msaleem|MakiMaki|mklopez|skored|CLIFFosakaJAPAN|jaybol|p9s50W5k4GUD2c6|badwithcomputer|insaincain02|bonlebon|SirPopper|Aidenag|IvanB|Burento|TalSiach|webtickle|maheshee11|Bukowsky|diggleague|kevinrose|suxmonkey|MediaSight|louiebaur|hdar3415|Gregd|1KrazyKorean|motang|irfanmp|noupsell|upick|DigiDave|schestowitz|chris1234|bamafun|geekchic|vroom101|Blakovitch|SeaMowse|openthink|sungoddess808|AmyVernon|adrian67|vick3ii|oboy|ScottMcIntyre|numberneal|antdude|MookiBlaylock|arbiterofcool Each instance of a ‘top 50’ username was then replaced with **TOP50%%. This latter term was

then counted using the software Notepad ++’s search ‘count’ function. The count is 1785.

18

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