I can understand Digg being infested with posts that are nothing but pictures — it’s a younger, less sophisticated crowd. But Reddit? Come on, guys; look at the current top 6 posts:

Options:

1. Create an images subredit.
2. Allow us to filter picture-only posts.
3. ?

[ Link: Reddit's Network Security Category ]

This rocks. I’m going to be integrating it into a sick information security news aggregation feed — using Yahoo! Pipes — here shortly (imagine a collection of feeds all combined into one, sorted by date and with duplicates removed).

So far I’m going to be incorporating:

LinuxSecurity PacketStorm SecurityFocus SecGuru Astalavista Bruce Schneier’s Blog Google’s Security Blog Internet Storm Center RootSecure netsec.reddit.com

I’m also making another one for just security blog feeds (interesting opinions rather than news).

Let me know if you have any suggestions for feed sources.:

Dear Reddit Team,

As you will no doubt have already noticed, this link does NOT reside on reddit.com, despite it appearing like it did on the website.

This means that people are currently able to post links to any domain they want and make it look like it came from the reddit domain (see image below).

(clearly not the case)

I’ve sent you (the Reddit team) an email through the feedback function and will be happy to show you how I did it (assuming you don’t already know) as well as offer any other assistance.

Kind regards,

– Daniel Miessler E: daniel@dmiessler.com W: http://dmiessler.com G: 0xD4A8FFF6

[Edit] I haven’t heard from the reddit team and someone’s figured it out in the comments, so I’ll go ahead and mention it here. The problem is that all links on the reddit page don’t point to the real destinations, but rather to reddit-homed redirects for the purpose of counting clicks. This means that when you submit something, reddit makes a nice reddit-based link to any domain you submit. If you then submit THAT link you reproduce the effect.

I think one solution would be to place the target domain in the reddit-created link so that it can be filtered when people submit links that point to the “reddit” domain. So:

-- if link points to reddit.com check to see target domain if not reddit.com drop input else let it through --

[Edit 2] The reddit team finally contacted me and acknowledged the bug, so I removed my story from the site. I find it commendable that they didn’t remove the link themselves; and they didn’t even ask me to do so. Kudos to reddit.:

Look, I prefer Reddit to Digg as well, but I don’t like being misled. As we all know, Wired has been bashing Digg lately. No biggie; many of the complaints seems somewhat legitimate.

 But it seems a little strange given the fact that Wired is owned by the same company that just bought Reddit.

This could just be a coincidence, but I doubt it.

 

I’ve just completed a “Reddit this” FeedFlare module for Feedburner users. This will add the option for your RSS users to submit your posts to reddit.com right from their RSS feed application. After it’s installed, it’ll look like this:

And here’s the FeedFlare link so you can use it in your own feed. I’ll be adding it to the official repository soon so people won’t have to do a custom addition: http://dmiessler.com/feedflare/redditthis.xml

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.:

…I’m thinking a full-force email storm — like something they’ve never seen before. All of us — both Digg and Reddit users.

Maybe…just maybe…this combined with the media outcry will inspire the democrats to grow a spine and take action.

Here are your representatives: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Everyone’s seen the cool little icons/buttons for Digg, Reddit, and Del.icio.us shown under various articles online. They make it easy for users to submit to their favorite social site by automatically filling in the title of your page. I also think they subconsciously add legitimacy to a web presence. In short, they’re just great to have.

A number of plugins can be installed in your blogging software to enable this functionality, but what happens if you want to use these little jems on your own static content? I wondered the same thing and made my own.

Here’s the code (click the image):

Just edit the code to point to your own copies of the images and you’re good to go. Now you can have them on whatever content you create — even if it’s not part of your blog software.:

Nothing is worse for systems like Digg and Reddit than repetitive, mediocre content. These networks are designed to magnify the efficiency of the Internet by taking excellent content — regardless of source — and promoting it through impartial democracy.

Ultimately, the goal is to minimize the time it takes someone to get up to speed on the most original/interesting content within a given area of focus, be it technology, politics, or whatever. When done correctly, the concept is quite beautiful.

Spamming vs. Contributing

The system breaks down horribly, however, when these communities fail to understand the difference between submitting original content and blogspamming. Many are confused about what blogspamming actually is: it’s not posting a link to something on your own blog or website (if it’s decent and original, that’s called “contributing”). Blogspamming is actually very specific (I had the Digg staff spell it out for me) — here are the requirements:

1. Find interesting content somewhere on the Internet
2. Post that content on your own website
3. Post the link to your website rather than the original source

This is blogspamming, and it’s every bit as evil as people make it out to be. But it should not be confused with people posting their own original content. That practice, i.e. sharing ideas, is what makes the Internet so wonderful.

The Idea Bazaar

When it comes to sharing ideas, the Internet should be viewed much like a traditional, open marketplace — where people bring the artwork, pottery, clothing, woodwork, etc. for public review. It’s like open-mic night in front of billions of people.

Hello, everyone. Here’s a short story I just finished. I hope you like it…

This is what the Internet is about, and I think Digg, Reddit, and their successors should be more open to this philosophy. We shouldn’t penalize people for offering their own original content to the world just because they submitted it themselves. It’s far more genuine to do that, after all, than to artificially manufacture a third-party submission (which so many people do).

Remember that writers submit their work to publishers; they don’t wait for it to be found. Artisans have shows and invite lots of people. Academics submit to their respective journals. In short, submitting original content for peer review is an absolute must in any system that values intellectual progress.

Communities that rely on a constant flow of quality content need to adopt a mantra of judging offerings based on only two things: originality and merit. Any would-be resource that fails to grasp this concept (or later forgets it) is doing its users a disservice by discouraging would-be contributors from participating.:

There’s a problem with Reddit and Digg, but it’s not what you’ve been hearing. It’s not the spammers, and it’s not the voting systems. The real issue is that people don’t know the difference between legitimate promoting of one’s own original content and blogwhoring or blogspamming.

Most think blogspamming is when you repeatedly post links to your own original content, hosted on your own website. But that’s not it; blogspamming is when you take someone else’s content, put it on your site, and then post the link to YOUR page instead of the original source. It’s truly disgusting behavior.

The difference is massive, and the survival of sites like Reddit depends directly on people understanding this.

The Idea Bazaar

The Internet’s most beautiful trait is its ability to rapidly propagate good ideas, regardless of source. It’s much like a traditional, open marketplace where people bring the pottery, clothing, woodwork, etc. and ask their peers to look at it. Or, even better, it’s like open-mic night in front of billions of people.

Hello, everyone. This is a poem I’ve written. Or here’s a short story I just finished. I hope you like it…

This is what the Internet’s about, and I think Digg and Reddit should be more open to this philosophy. We shouldn’t penalize people for offering their own original content to the world.

Writers submit their work to publishers; they don’t wait for it to be found. Artisans have shows and invite lots of people. Academics submit to their respective journals. Submitting original content for peer review is an absolute must in a society that values progress.

Sites that are based on a constant influx of quality content need to adopt a mantra of judging offerings based on only two things: originality and merit. Any would-be resource that fails to grasp this (or later forgets it) is doomed to fail.

– [And yes, it's pretty obvious from the post that this has happened to me before, but this isn't a bitterness issue. I speak partly because I'm guilty of it too -- being quick to judge based on things other than content.]