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R-igg: A Digg for the Right

Submitted by Aaron Marks on Sun, 06/15/2008 - 17:05
in

If you're a techie like me, you probably love Digg.  If you're not familiar with it, Digg is an immensely popular social networking website -- according to Alexa, Digg is the 32nd most popular website in terms of traffic in the United States, and the 112th most popular website across the entire world.  Digg allows its users to submit links to content, and then other users vote for or "Digg" the content (and if they dislike a link, they can "Bury" it).  Using a complex algorithm that takes into account number of up and down votes and other criteria, Digg calculates which links are the best, and places them on the Front Page.

Digg is arguably the best place on the web to find out the latest news in areas such as technology, science, entertainment, and sports.  It also features political and world news -- but the problem with this is that there is an incredible liberal bias among users at Digg.  Don't believe me?  Just check out the latest political stories: "McCain Stacks Fox News 'Town Hall' With Supporters" (from the Huffington Post); "Rep. Kucinich not giving up on Bush impeachment"; and even "Alert: Impeach Bush - Contact Your Congress Person," which links to a website encouraging you to contact your Congress person to support the impeachment of the President and has received nearly 2800 Diggs at the time of writing.

Don't get me wrong, there are other great places that index political news out there -- RealClearPolitics is just one example -- but they all lack the feature that makes Digg so powerful:  all of the content is generated and promoted by the community.

Out of the belief that members of the Right deserve better, I just today launched a website called R-igg.  I'm hoping that R-igg can serve as the social networking and social content tool for Right-minded folks like myself.

I would like to encourage you to visit the R-igg website, create a user account, and begin sharing links and content -- it's 100% free.  With your help, I believe that we can establish a Right-leaning alternative to Digg.  Thank you for your support in advance!

Aaron Marks is a founding partner of Three Group, LLC, a Pittsburgh-based new media firm that focuses on providing technology-based solutions for Republican candidates and organizations, and in particular has built Web 2.0 campaign management software called Mission Control.  Aaron also worked in new media and voter outreach on Senator Rick Santorum's 2006 re-election campaign.

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Comments

I never went to Digg

Submitted by Jon Sandor on Sun, 06/15/2008 - 18:09.

until I clicked on your link just now. Congratulations for taking action on your own. But one question - what's to stop the site from being taken over by the same people who promote liberal stories on Digg?

 

Excellent Question

Submitted by Aaron Marks on Sun, 06/15/2008 - 18:59.

Thanks Jon -- it's certainly a legit question, and I appreciate the kind feedback.  In response, the first thing is that, at least ostensibly, internal promotion and word of mouth from Right-leaning activists will ensure that the people on our side will outnumber the people on their side, allowing our community to vote our articles up and vote liberal articles down.  In this sense, most of the control over the submissions will be done with the community's assistance.

Second, there are tools that allow administrative action to be taken -- such as removing articles from the front page and banning people on either side who act inappropriately or spam the system.  It is certainly not my intention to silence critics, but the website's purpose is clearly stated: promoting links that pertain to conservative/Republican issues.  I will do everything I can to avoid interfering with the democratic process of the community, and so I will only take administrative action when absolutely necessary to preserve the purpose of the website -- generally speaking, I will not allow any user to submit a singificant number of articles that are contrary to the purpose of the website.

Of course, I'm also fully open to other suggestions for ensuring that this does not become a problem.

Thanks for your question! :)

Meta-moderation

Submitted by josephcollins on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 10:17.

Rigg could allow either personal or group meta-moderation of community members.  If a troll starts burying good stories then the community can give less weight to the troll's participation.  Something like Slashdot karma.

Why limit participation at all?

Submitted by davidfarrar on Sun, 06/15/2008 - 21:39.

The object here is to get participants, not limit participants. Are you telling me in your professional experience you can't find a way to include both and still move the political debate forward for the good of all?

You are shooting too low. Raise your aim. Think big. Think inclusive and push the envelope. Build it and they will come. Do something that has never been done before. Don't just copy others and hope to succeed.

ex animo

davidfarrar

 

Congratulations on R-IGG, Aaron!

Submitted by GOP_Rebel on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 11:02.

And thanks for the super-convenient FoxFire link to the bookmark toolbar.  I've been using 3.0 now for 2 weeks, and I'm loving every minute of it, especially my SpeedDial, Wizz RSS Feeder, FoxMarks, AdMark and other awesome add-ons. 

I'm an IT analyst and a political junkie, so I'm really excited about your new venture.  It looks like the stories are already being vetted before they're published, hopefully this will provide enough of a filter to meet your requirement for a conservative theme. 

Unless Patrick does it himself before I get round to it, when I have more time I'd like to upload Patrick's posts on using Web 2.0 technology to support McCain's campaign.  it would be fantastic to start building a knowledge base including a pool of qualified web developers who can either create or teach the general public how to use various objects on the web.  I might contribute some "how-to" IPE articles also (i.e. how to create and edit links to websites and web articles, how to embed YouTube videos, etc.).  I see this as a real opportunity to partner with the vision of The Next Right.  Potentially very exciting!! 

Responses

Submitted by Aaron Marks on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 21:23.

I agree with all of you folks.  As you mentioned Joseph, Karma is indeed factored in to all of the postings, and it is recalculated regularly.  Excellent thoughts as well, David, thank you!

And thanks GOP_Rebel.  I hope that we can find a way to integrate The Next Right and R-igg, just as you discuss in your post.  All of you here -- please feel free to e-mail me at amarks _at_ threegroup.net to discuss these items or other ones further.  Thanks for your support!