Yes, as you can tell by the title of this article, I’m still unhappy about getting banned by Digg for no reason that I can find other than overt censorship. I’m further annoyed because Digg administrators have chosen to ignore my emails and it’s now been almost two weeks of patiently waiting.
I’m out of patience. A few days ago I chose to remove all remnants of Digg buttons from this site, all Digg links except one, and I even had the audacity to pester at least one Digg stockholder, but he and his cronies refuse to debate me openly on an Ismaili website.
“We do not take open-ended questions, comments or contentious observations.”
Who could blame them, really; I wouldn’t want to debate me either.
So, how do I fight back against such a monolithic titan of a web presence like Digg.com? That’s easy: I find something better and then I tell you about it. I must resist the urge to get angry about all this, because after all, I still remember the old saying: “Don’t get mad — get even.”
Exhibit A:
The above graphic details something quite interesting to me this morning: StumbleUpon gets results. I have the industrious blogger 1389 to thank for making this little bump in my traffic stats in just over one day on StumbleUpon, and that’s just mainly from one submitted article! The obviously big blip (+3367%!) that appears here as my strongest rising referral source, even overtaking Google, makes me a new believer in the power and the sheer fun that comes along with using StumbleUpon. And best of all, it’s easier to use and more productive than Digging, and you don’t have to worry about the “Bury Brigade” or censor-happy administrators with a slanted political agenda and low-brow taste.
So, if you’ve been in the dark all this time, much as I have been myself, as to what StumbleUpon is and how to utilize it, let me enlighten you today.
“Stumbleupon is a brilliant downloadable toolbar that beds into your browser and gives you the chance to surf through thousands of excellent pages that have been stumbled upon by other web-users.” - BBC World
“Next time you want to wander the Web, forget about Googling it. Stumble it.” - The Wall Street Journal
StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great blogs and websites. As you click the “thumbs up”, StumbleUpon delivers high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages are recommend by other websurfers and friends that you add to your StumbleUpon account over time. All in all, it’s the perfect way to recommend valuable and entertaining points on the Internet and others help you find more great websites as a result.
It’s really that simple, and that popular. I have loaded the bar into my Firefox browser and it works very well and I can hide it out of the way when I’m not using it by simply pressing CNTRL + F11 on my keyboard at the same time. Want it back? Press the same combination again.
You can also find StumbleUpon links here at the Anvil even if you do not use the toolbar. On individual articles (and most pages including the homepage) there’s a large StumbleUpon button on the right sidebar near the top that can’t be missed. And beneath every single article is the Share This icon that opens up more than 14 options for promoting something here that you deem worthy, including submitting to StumbleUpon, as well as emailing the article to friends.
So, help me thumb my nose at the Digg “Bury Brigade” today, won’t you? Just StumbleUpon some articles here at the Anvil and then surf off to other interests; you never know what other reading you might find as a result.
Sources of Note: Omidyar Network Leadership, Omidyar Network and relationship with Digg.com
Addendum: Why StumbleUpon ‘Owns’ Digg, Virtual Schrödinger’s Law
Podcasts Archive
Thanks very much.
I’m an avid stumbler. I have reported this site onto my friends using the Stumble Upon toolbar.
I like what I’ve seen here.More power to you.I hate censorship,too.
I am also a big fan of StumbleUpon. I recently decided to perform an analysis of StumbleUpon vs. Digg traffic and, I have to admit, I was quite surprised by what I discovered.
StumbleUpon beat Digg in several areas including bounce rates and pageviews per visit.
If any of your readers are interested, they can check out the complete post at http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/08/06/stumbleupon-vs-digg/.
Tim
Daily Cup of Tech
http://www.DailyCupOfTech.com
@Greg O’Byrne: Nice work in that article. I’ll add a link to it in the addendum on this one of mine. Thanks for “Stumbling” by.
@troblams: I have no idea why a “thumbs down” wouldn’t work. You’re welcome to come back by anytime and try your StumbleUpon toolbar again, and perhaps that’s the problem — need an update to the bar itself, or perhaps there’s something in the StumbleUpon rules about sites freshly added? And that would make the most sense to me; I refer you to Greg’s article for the logic to as why: Virtual Schrödinger’s Law
A “thumbs up only” grace period perhaps keeps the “Bury Brigade” phenomenon from readily occurring on StumbleUpon to newly submitted sites, otherwise people with fascist ways could just surf in with gangs and push sites out of mind before they’ve even been given a chance by yet unbiased Stumblers.
If you don’t believe in censorship, why can’t i leave a thumbs down?
When I try to give the thumbs down a pop up window comes up and says:
Rating Canceled
This page is new to stumble upon. use the “i like it!” button to add it.
Sounds like some one is trying to censor ME!
I stumbled upon this also. I have written extensively about the phenomenon of Stumble Upon read about it in this article.
Virtual Schrödinger’s Law
Digg sucks.
Stumble Upon Rules.
digg’s a bunch of fascists. FASCISTS! censorship is absurd on the internet.
HD-DVD? Not sure what you’re talking about unless that’s when some Digg users got so upset because they couldn’t promote copyright infringement — probably the very same type of people that think it’s perfectly fine to bury and help ban the Anvil.
Regardless, glad you stopped by!
Hey! I just stumbled by, and thought I’d leave a message.
I don’t use Digg, I could never see what was supposed to be so great about it. Plus the people on StumbleUpon are a pretty friendly bunch
P.S: Is the censorship you’re on about the whole hd-dvd thing?