I’m probably going to catch crap for this, but I am going to say it anyway. Digg is on a downward spiral and I am about done giving them page hits everyday.
And here’s why.
The Digg community is huge and the popularity of the site has exploded, but in my opinion, the mob mentality is coming out and the only contributions that the community seems to have is often presented in a negative way.
Whether it’s trashing a product no one has yet seen or screaming about how stupid organized religion is, the comments people are making these days are SUPER inflamitory an in most cases, completely baseless. I believe these bandwagon situations are not unlike the ones we all experienced in Grade School. Who were the popular ones? Were they nice to you? Or if you were one of them, were you nice to the unpopular ones? People seem to land on this track pretty often. It’s a path people follow that somehow leads them to believe that looking down on people, retaliating in anger, treating others as sub-humans, and looking the other way when someone needs help is OK. Not only that, they often feel empowered and better than most. It’s bad and Digg is only an example of what I see entirely too much of these days. I am not faultless by an means, but I always aim to do the right thing and I hope that somehow more people will come around to that kind of thinking.
No one is perfect, but ALL situations can be approached in a positive manner and EVERYONE has something to gain when people act and react positively and collectively work for the greater good. Not to be all flowery, but it’s true. Even a simple web community has much to gain by connecting in a positive way.
Since you read this far I will share which article got my goat, so to speak.
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/America_Seems_to_be_Going_Through_an_Atheist_Phase
Some of the comments on this page are abhorrent and provide nothing good for anyone.
I might just have to give up my Digg habit, better that than seeing this kind of stuff daily.
-Kamen