Top Digg User Zaibatsu Banned - Reactions from Both Zaibatsu and Digg Management
There's more user unrest in the community of popular social news site Digg, after the all-time number 3 ranked user Zaibatsu, a.k.a. Reg Saddler, was banned for alleged multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use. That decision is "final and irreversible", according to an email Saddler got from Digg today. JD Rucker of Social News Watch interviewed Saddler to discuss the ban - we have the exclusive audio below.
ReadWriteWeb also contacted Digg to find out their side of the story - we have Digg's response below too.
So why was Saddler banned? It wasn't associated with the recent bannings of other digg users over using Greasemonkey scripts. Rather the ban was handed down after Saddler submitted a website which was, in the words of an email Saddler received from Digg, "spam and a solicitation of products and/or services".
Digg's Response
We sought a response from Digg on the banning, since Zaibatsu was a high ranking user who had seemingly put in a lot of effort and work into the community.
Digg's Sr. Director of Marketing & Communications, Beth Murphy, responded that "this user has been banned for multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use over period of time and not just a single incidence."
So Digg's position is clearly that Zaibatsu has a history of TOS violations, not just the latest one.
What Got Zaibatsu Kicked Out
We don't know the previous violations, and Digg wouldn't discuss details because they told us they're "unable to comment on the specifics of this or any case given that we try to protect the privacy of our users".
Nevertheless, let's look at what the final straw regarding Zaibatsu was. The digg submissions in question, and there were two of them, were photos of a female digger. Although these submissions are no longer on Digg, the following titles give you a good idea of the content:
http://digg.com/celebrity/She_s_Hot_and_a_Digger_Nuf_Said_PIC
http://digg.com/people/A_Cute_Female_Digger_I_Know_A_Few_Of_Them_But_Wow_PIC
After learning of his ban after those submissions, Saddler told Digg that "I didn't know that a picture of a female digger was against the TOS. I didn't even know that she was selling something on the site."
In the audio below, Saddler says that he initially linked to just pictures, but consequently the site owner re-directed the pictures to "some sales crap".
JD Rucker told us that the site in question, Jackiesjungle, "has been submitted to Digg before - 133 times. All of the previous submissions have come from the site owner, Jackie Castellanos, and her boyfriend, Isaiah Irizarry."
But Rucker claims that those two people have not been banned, so he wonders whether Zaibatsu is being singled out?
Digg Community Reaction
It's difficult to know what the wider Digg community thinks, but Zaibatsu is friends with a lot of other diggers and those diggers obviously want to see him back.
A user named Bianconeri4ever said:
"It's a thorny issue to be honest. In a perfect world the whole issue would have been resolved between Digg and Zaibatsu privately. It's just the timing of the ban was very unfortunate. In the light of the 80+ users banned, unbanning Zaibatsu would put Digg in a very bad light, that there are some users who are above the law, even if the banning of the 80 and the banning of Zaibatsu are two separate issues. It's a real shame because Zaibatsu's is a great guy, he is very helpful with beginners and loves the Digg community."
Another prominent digger, MrBabyMan a.k.a. Andrew Sorcini (by most accounts the number 1 ranked digger of all-time), was cautious in his response. He's been under pressure from other members of the Digg community all year - a story we told you about back in May. In any case Sorcini had this to say regarding Zaibatsu's predicament:
"A mistake was made, but it wasn't Reg's intention to link to a marketing site. Anyone who knows Reg knows that. It's unfortunate that he's not part of the Digg community and hopefully his state of banning will be brief and he'll be reinstated soon."
You Decide...
We get the feeling that there is more to this story than we have managed to unearth. Clearly Digg feels that Zaibatsu has violated their terms multiple times and it appears they've simply had enough. But Zaibatsu, a.k.a Reg Saddler, is vigorously defending himself in the latest case - and he has a fair amount of support from JD Rucker and other Digg users.
Here is the audio discussion between JD Rucker and Reg Saddler, which gives you more background from Saddler's point of view:
Download MP3
What do you think? Is Digg within their right to ban a user under these circumstances, or should a top digger who has put so much time and effort into the community be given another chance? Or perhaps it's too late - Saddler says in the audio that he's off to Digg competitor Mixx!
UPDATE: Zaibatsu writes in a comment here: "Everything changes now. I'm cashing in. Now that I am not hampered by the Digg TOS, I am free to build the company that has been inside me all along."
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I remember digging that story, and I can confirm it just linked to pictures of Jakie. Not sure if the page was forwarded to another page or not, but Jakie claims that she hasn't. Unfortunately there is no way to find out.
It is really sad to see Reg go away, but I guess it's not the end of the world, he will probably find another social news site that would value him more. Mixx.com is just around the corner ;)
Riiiight, well, my position is that if someone says they aren't using scripts, or selling front pages, then that's what it is. Glass houses and all that.
Check this out for a list of people blind digging and abusing the system: http://humanorbot.com/
-JB
Either way I can't imagine the frustration of the fact that the digger, as you put it, "put so much time and effort into the community".
I'm curious if 'time invested by the user' is considered when they make a decision like this? I would think they wouldn't take something like this lightly?
"There's more user unrest in the community of popular social news site Digg, after the all-time number 3 ranked user Zaibatsu, a.k.a. Reg Saddler, was banned for alleged multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use."
User unrest? Really? I haven't noticed any. Digg has been much better and the front page has seen a much wider variety of content since many of the top users got banned.
quit whining you exploited digg to your advantage trough "clever marketing" you and mbm deserve hell.
Finally somebody at digg grew a pair,
Fuck MrBabyman (Top #1 digg asshole)
I found a clone of co Diggs a different theme, is about templates, and open source applications for wordpress, myspace and other things, it seems that is new since the model quite basic. link: mercaliz.com
Banning users is not an irregular feature by Digg or other similar sites which feel that the users need them more than they need them. Another service YAHOO ANSWERS is a similar kind of site which loves suspending their members at their sweet will. The only difference between YAHOO ANSWERS and DIGG in this respect is that Digg at least tells you why it has banned you.
Hit him with the bricks, ban him. These top diggers like Zaibatsu and MrBabyMan and MSaleem (the biggest Cheat out there) take money, and swag in exchange for submitting certain stories.
I know for a fact that MSaleem has taken money from sites like FlashDen and in return submitted and frontpaged one of their stories. MSaleem is very well known in the marketting circles as the go-to guy for getting items on to the frontpage for a price, and he quotes a pretty expensive price as well. He does it for several sites including reddit, digg, mixx and propeller.
He's not the only one there's a whole slew of these guys getting paid for submitting stories, and they do it on a daily basis. Many of the sites you see on Digg are paid for, you'll really be able to spot these on Friday evenings which for some reason are riddled with this crap.
Also lots of these top diggers are working together and submitting their own sites or sites they write for. They create powerful digg armies. Funny or Die pays some top diggers, Mashable and We Game used to have a digg army and it really showed a year ago when just about every 2 pages there was a frontpage item from one of those two site.
I SAY ban these guys and don't let them back.
You make it look like the vast majority of Digg users are behind Zaibatsu, which can't be farther away from the truth, perhaps the majority of the top users are, but not the digg community, not at all.
also, user unrest? what user unrest? I can assure you that there is no such thing, its all smooth sailing and things couldn't be better.
you state:
"Is Digg within their right to ban a user under these circumstances"
of course they are well within their rights, If the president of the country commits an felony or a crime should we let him get away with it? if the president of a company stole millions of dollars from his company shouldn't he be persecuted and brought to justice?
"this user has been banned for multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use over period of time and not just a single incidence."
there you go. so what if he gave digg a billion years of his life? Nobody is above the law or off limits, he had it coming, and the ban was deserved and justified.
End of story.
I can also attest to the fact that the submission was linked to pictures of Jakie, and not to anything promotional. I have yet to hear from anyone that had seen the alleged page it had been linked to. As mentioned above, this very site had 133 submissions to Digg and had not been banned for being against TOS prior to Reg's submission.
Beth Murphy's response stated above is so lame that it's transparent in itself as a ridiculous excuse. His previous infractions were very minor, and after more than 3,000 submissions over 4 years of being one of Digg's most dedicated members, it seems the coward's way to rid the site of a power user.
In fact, many power users were removed from the site with the ban for nearly 100 members that were using the scripts. Listen to the video, people. As Reg said, there is no such thing as coincidence. Digg was dumped at the alter by Google ... does it not make sense that Digg is attempting to make the site more salable by these moves? It's my belief that this is merely the beginning. When in battle, it makes sense to target the leaders to crumble the army.
Arcticblue, I don't agree with you. I've been going to Digg daily for the past 2 years, and each time that Digg has lost many top submitters during times of unrest, the front page has suffered dramatically for good content. This case is no exception.
Joe Blogs, where have you been? Had you been following Reg, you would know that he has been widely informing diggers to not use scripts via Twitter etc. It's far too easy to be caught 'selling front pages,' and Reg would not have risked being banned to succumb to such temptations. Jealous people like to throw mud, and many will believe simply because they want to, and for no other reason.
@take that zaibatsu, you're even more transparent for being jealous than Digg is for lame excuses.
@bakkouz, good points. I've seen a few comments both here and on digg about the term "user unrest". Maybe it wasn't the best term to use, but just reading the comments here shows how much friction there is between most of these top users and others in digg. And look at all the digg submissions recently casting accusations over MrBabyMan. I'm by no means an expert in what is happening at digg, but it seems to me there's some unrest going on :-)
Wow. What a whirlwind this has been.
In the last few days, I've been pissed, upset, saddened, regretful, relieved, excited, and just about every other emotion you could think of. Sometimes I've been all at once.
Digg has been very good to me. It has allowed me to meet some of the best people I now call friends. It forced me to learn more about the world, to get angry at things that are wrong and inspired by things that are right.
With that said, I know that I have been good for Digg.
My greatest contribution is not the 4000+ stories that I've submitted, the 1566 stories that I've put on the front page, or the 30million+ visitors I've sent to various sites across the Internet.
No, my greatest contribution by far is that I helped just about every person who asked for help over the 4 years that I've been here.
New users, old users, I didn't care.
If anyone sent me an IM or an email saying, "Hey Zaibatsu, how do I get better at Digg?" I would help them without question. I've been going through some of my old emails and it amazes me how many there are. I see some current power users who 10 months ago didn't have a clue until they asked me for help. This is my proudest accomplishment on Digg. It isn't the 1566 stories that I've put up as much as the hundreds of users I've helped to reach the front page over the years.
Looking forward, I plan on doing what so many have accused me of for years. Since 2004, I have spent thousands of hours learning Digg, learning social media, making connections, analyzing the ever changing algorithms, and learning what good content looks like. In that time, I have made nothing. Zip. Zero.
Everything changes now. I'm cashing in. Now that I am not hampered by the Digg TOS, I am free to build the company that has been inside me all along.
Details are coming. I have no hard feelings towards Digg, but I can tell you this much. Zaibatsu will be back. "I will not go quietly into the night"
I wonder just how much in digg is just people promoting stuff and how much is real articles being submitted by actual users who don't have a clue about the marketing stuff.
Will be interesting to see what Zaibatsu comes out with in the future. To get nothing from all the years of helping out people does not seem right.
No one gives a crap about you, Zaibatsu. Do whatever you want. You were a nobody posting articles on Digg and you're just a whiney, caught for cheating, nobody now. Get. A. Life.
OMG IM TUFF GUY. U DESERV IT CUZ U CHEET.
Shut up you jealous bunch of pansies. No one cares what you think or say, so it's probably best to keep it to yourself.
Isn't being a 'top-ranked Digger' like being the smartest kid in the special class?
Zaibatsu is a great man. Very good at heart and very helpful. Yeah he's correct, he has helped many new diggers including me. At the beginning of my digg life, I just wished if the top 3 diggers will ever digg something for me. Zaibatsu was brilliant with his approach. Just trying to help people.
I wish him all the best in what ever he does. Have a happy life bro. See you soon rocking again.
ThanX
Well you could look for alternative sites some of which will have some kind remuneration. I don't see how these sites can keep going with out rewarding users. These people are doing a difficult job that computers can't do. So there has to be some kind of return
Seems harsh particuarly the effort zaibatsu had put into digg. Must be more to it, surely!
Sounds to me more like a case of someone who stepped on the wrong guy's toes. I doubt this is really about abuse. I think it's more about chest beating and showing who is boss.
People are just fucking idiots.
I just had a look at mixx, and the top story on their front page had a staggering 82 votes. I don't think Digg is shaking in its boots yet...
I'm intrigued.
According to the final paragraph of the e-mail Zaibatsu received from Digg:
“We want to make clear that the images submitted did not constitute the ban, but the content of the domain itself, as it is spam and a solicitation of products and/or services (http://www.jackiesjungle.com/want-a-piece-of-me).”
If that is the case – that the domain itself is the problem – why is it that the same story, same URL, same title, and submitted by Jackie herself 25 days ago, is still sitting on Digg’s servers?
http://digg.com/people/Want_a_Piece_of_Me
Seems unjust that Digg allows some users [but not all] to point to a spammy domain…
Why are you saying that you "doubt this is really about abuse", when the admins have stated repeatedly that he has been warned and/or suspended MANY times for similar TOS abuses and violations?!!
Where's accountability for one's actions in this country? How many people's submissions were blown away and ignored because of scumbags and attention whores like this guy? How much damage has he done to the entire purpose of social networking by hogging it all to himself?
He cheated, ruining things for all of us who play by the rules. He gets caught. He gets banned.
Screw you zubumafu or whatever your name is. Go play in another sandbox.
Who gives a fuck
lol....he acts like he cured cancer or was saving lives.
"the 1566 stories that I've put on the front page"
who cares, someone else would have done it, or submitted an even better thing for me to waste my time reading at my coffee break.
The best line:
"have spent thousands of hours learning Digg"
nobody cares or knows who you are man...maybe 30 people in this world...enjoy the ban and I hope they don't let you back. I already forgot your name.
I've been reading a lot about banning on Digg and I am also quite active there. I could say, that I do miss some Digg Power Users, because some of them were so polite a few moths ago to explain me how to use Digg appropriately and not to shout every single submission I made there for up to 20 times:)
I prefer factual numbers and testing, though, and what is very interesting in last few weeks is quite large drop in Digg's traffic, and refusal of Google to buy them. That could be really scary for its owners and employing a professional 'public spin master' from Yahoo is certainly will not correct the whole situation, because we are dealing with the most Web2.0 savy community in the planet:)...who cannot be tricked and spinned so easy and knows to read between lines, as well.
I only hope, that Digg is finally going to realize that it means a bit more than nothing, if one spends long hours on Digg every day...at least they activate thousands of many Digg adds and create cash/income for Digg owners:).
Directed to the above poster.
Granted they generate more diggs and stories then the average user...why does that make them above the TOS? Rules are there for a reason, and as a "power user" and main figureheads in the community, they should be the most aware of the rules...
I figure if you spend "thousands of hours learning digg", somewhere in those hours you read, understood, and even signed the acceptance agreement to follow them.
My feelings are posted at FilthyRichmond.com
LOL, Digg is SO over rated!
Jiff
www.anonymize.us.tc
Another stupid digger gets banned. Hurray for that! It seems that this guy was making money from digging and got caught. He deserves it.
Digg is such an example of the stupidity of the masses at work. I haven't used Digg for more than a year now. The quality of the links there is really low.
I don't want sites submitted by 'top diggers' who have a cozy circle jerk going on whereby they pump each others' stories.
The bannings seem like a good idea.
No unrest here - quite the contrary.
Yawn...
Screw Digg... they're a bunch of hypocrites. They make their living off of other peoples' content, but when people use their site to promote their own sites, Digg gets all indignant about it. I've never seen a link aggregator that was more obnoxiously hypocritical. I look forward to the day (very soon) when nobody cares about Digg. I abandoned them for Reddit more than a year ago after they wouldn't approve my podcast -- apparently because their podcast directly primarily exists to promote their own partners and nobody else. Screw 'em.
Good riddance. As for the "user unrest"? uhhh.. no. Digg does what digg always does when some "top user" gets the boot. We move on as if nothing happened.
Kind of feels like a waste, once its all said and done doesn't it Zaibatsu?
Now, based on your own comments, you can try to be one of those "top diggers" that you were always trying to defend as "doing nothing wrong".
Good luck with that "company that has always been inside you". You and about a billion others that think they have what it takes to make some money on the backs of sites like Digg.
You have not, and will not, be missed.
Goodbye Zaibatsu. Your duplicate submissions taken from other users (or even yourself in a few cases) will not be missed. Oh, and if you helped other users be more like you, hopefully they will be banned soon as well.
Pics or it didn't happen. Oh wait, this isn't Digg, sorry.
great post, thanks for this.
so unfair.
Um, anyone else get the impression that DIGG is sending shills over here to post against Zaibatsu? Most of these are of the same writing style, and are probably by the same two or three people working with each other for DIGG.
Trolls. Period.
He constantly admitting to submitting dupes of others' content. Other than his paid "friends" he is not missed by anyone at Digg, except those ignorant of his immoral tactics. I am glad to hear that with being banned from Digg he will get out of his mom's basement and get a job!
Tom, you idiot, this story is on Digg and Zaibatsu wronged many diggers, so they are simply commenting on it. You, Z, and your ilk are not appreciated by those you steal from. SO your paid "friends" are being overrun with the true opinion of Digg!
I've followed Digg for years. Zaibatsu was one of the ones I always suspected had no life due to the sheer number of submissions he made. What's happened here is that Digg wants to sell out, but they want a user base that isn't a unified community. Nobody wants to buy an online *anything* that's got a unified "one voice" community because they all think they own the place and not the owners. No investor wants to put up with those types. They simply want sheep who'll surf their site and give them money for banal services.
What needs to happen is Digg needs to be boycotted. If they're going to treat diggers like this, then they need to pay the price. I call for a total boycott of Digg until Zaibatsu and every other high-number digger is reinstated without question, reprimand or advisal. From this moment forward, no digger should submit one single article other than one announcing that they are boycotting Digg until they quit pulling their games. You do not bite the hands of those that feed you, and this is a good time to show Digg and the rest of the world how true this is.
Boycott Digg!
Hi
I am working on a site which try to solve many of the problems with digg.com.
You can find it on http://crowdnews.eu.
The main problem with digg is the voting system.
When only top voted stories get on the front page it has
to be a subject that many can relate to,
which result in stories with a low information content.
crowdnews solves this by using sharing instead of voting.
Every have a personal news page on which they can subscribe to other users and when those users share stories they will appear on the personal news page.
Join Me on Crowdnews
Look at the rediculous articles he was submitting. Digg is designed for articles about technology and science, not for images of women. Lately, many diggs users are obsessed with submitting and digging articles that are merely pictures or videos, which are often stupid comic strips, pictures of women, etc. I think anyone who submits or diggs articles of this type should be instantly banned for life. Zaibatsu is a huge disgrace to Digg and I am glad he is gone.
-Chris
Thanks Richard. I appreciate the reference. :-)
Let me attempt to identify the source of the current problem.
How do sites like DIGG - which don't have any content of their own- grow and develop?
They need a band of committed users who a continously submit content to these sites. This content first draws the search engines and then more users through these engines. The linked content starts getting traffic and the reports of this good traffic coming from these sites draws more users and spammers.Users- who like to search for good content and sometimes put up some content. Spammers- those who see a good oppurtunity of generating traffic to desired places. It is when these spammers enter the game that the site starts to grow in real usage. Every big site which has user generated content owes a huge debt to these spammers for their growth. However, once the site reaches a certain level, the mgt decides that it is time to rein in these spammers (and rightly)starts putting up some filters which keep on getting stronger with time.
The committed users still stay with the system because they know the ways around as they have seen the site evolve.The site owners also use them as employees and take their help to monitor the site usage.These top users form a sort of loose association whereby they support each other.These users also start getting a feeling of power of being known and wanted and being able to move things on the site and/or throw other users out of the system.Some of these users also cash on the situation and try to promote paid content.
The site owners realize that these users are getting very powerful and they need to rein them in. The site does not usually have very clear terms(do's and don'ts) of usage and uses this ambiguity to remove some users to teach them and others a lesson. This is usally done in a swift manner without any warning to the victims so that they do not have any recourse.These banned users fight tooth and nail but are ulimately out of the system.They become the staunchest enemies of the site .
We can also look at some of the questions that arise:
a)Does the site not know that some users are becoming too powerful and probably misuing the system? It Does but it needs them.
b)Can the contribution of these top users be compared equal to or more than that of an employee of the site? If yes,what are they getting in return. Employees are getting salaries.
c)Why does the site not create a system of warning levels ? Eg different levels of users get different number of warnings before their accounts are terminated. Eg a new user may get one warning and a longtime user gets -say- three warnings ? Is it not possible or desirable?
d)Will you throw out an employee who has made an excellent contribution to your company for years and you have given him medals and what not a number of times just because he made a small mistake (which incidentally did not cause any harm to your company) - a mistake which could easily be amended by a warning? And if yes, will it be just?
I think this issue needs further analysis and more thought.
Cool blog but who cares about all these crybaby snobs
They shout for diggs stumbles and when you look you see
they don't do a damn thing for anyone but themselves
Good not let the legit hard working people step up
and Digg's days are numbered anyway.
The next BIG site is right on the horizon.
Digg has the authority to decide whether it's a violation or not; but a warning before ban would be better in any such situations.
Here can be other reasons for banning top diggers http://socializingdigg.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/diggs-new-biz-model-ban-top-users-and-hit-300m/
The investors did not fund DIGG for the joy of giving money away -- they expect a return on their investment, and chopping users is merely the first part of their "normalize community behavior" plan.
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