Comments on: To Shout or Not To Shout: The Digg Dilemma

By: Leet Gamer

Leet Gamer — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:02:57 +0000

I signed up for Digg recently so I missed a lot of the changes you described above. I didn't know what "Shout" was until I read your article. It makes sense for a limited number of high ranking users to have the ability to collectively choose the top stories. These people built credibility by using Digg over the years and why shouldn't they have an advantage.

By: Elizabeth Barrette

Elizabeth Barrette — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:50:04 +0000

I use shouts very sparingly. Almost all of them are to tell my Friends that I have just submitted a new entry they might enjoy. I’ve only shouted a couple of items submitted by someone else, things that seemed widely relevant but easy to miss. All my Friends are either people I’ve hand-picked (I find the recommendation service very useful, but I don’t read lower than about 16% match) or people who have chosen to follow me that I’ve Friended back because our interests overlap.

Some people do overuse the shouts, but I can always cut them off my list if I see the same person being consistently irrelevant.

What I really disapprove is “swap” shouting, where people promise to shout each other’s posts just because they are friends, not because the material is good or interesting or relevant. I won’t do it for other people — though I’ve been whined at for that, and I’m sure it lowers my success rate — nor do I want others to do it for me. My shouts always say things like “If you like this article, please consider Digging it.”

I don’t submit everything I write online, either; I pick out a few items that are especially sharp and relevant to a wide audience.

Digg would be more useful if more people were careful about using it, but spammers infest everything sooner or later.

By: acnecaregal

acnecaregal — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:05:47 +0000

i dont respond to digg shouts anyway.

By: Brian Wallace

Brian Wallace — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:01:01 +0000

Great post, Brent. I’ve turned shouts off, as they were getting to the point where they were ridiculous. Especially when I started seeing shouts by the same user for the same story in the same day!

By: Lucy Dee

Lucy Dee — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 11:32:16 +0000

I didn’t really understand the shout feature until as of late. I have had a Digg account for a few months, but I never added any friends. Once I did, I received shouts from the same people—HOURLY! It began to get a little burdensome, tiresome, and frankly annoying.

This article/post really cleared things up. I would like to promote more of my friends’ work, but I am beginning to think that they are shouting just everything they can get their hands on (much like that phone calling analogy you mention in the article.)

So this gives me a basis to work from.

Thank you, again!