Guest Post by Digg User HunterGreen
I was banned the other day. I’m back now, thanks to the wonderful and quick reactions by the Digg staff. I submitted something of questionable use and they removed both the story and me, but they let me back in after an email.
I hope I don’t sound ingrateful when I say that I should still be banned and many of the recent people who were banned should be unbanned. It’s just how I feel. I submitted, on the request of a friend, a piece that was attached to her business. I didn’t see any harm in it. My account has been mostly dormant for a few months now. I’m not a complete stranger to the front page having submitted 5 front page stories in the past, but 2008 hasn’t been much of a go for me. I come back on every couple of months, see the spam, and leave. Lately I’ve been active, but only just a little.
What I did, submit a blatant piece of spam, probably doesn’t deserve a permanent ban considering that I am not a repeat offende, but it is a more egregious violation than using the scripts. Why? Because nobody knew any better and I did!
That’s the real core of the issue. Had Digg sent a mass email or posted one of their cheezy front page messages when users logged in or came out in a blog post and said “stop using scripts, tell your friends to stop using scripts, you have 1 week to comply or you’ll be banned forever” THEN I could understand the bans being permanent.
Instead, they posted something in the blog that said don’t do it, pointed to their very unclear terms of use, and then started dropping the hammers. This is wrong.
Was it because of Brian Cuban? He was using far worse scripts than the Digg Friends Easy script that got so many people banned, and he got a second chance. Is it because he didn’t heed your warnings that you made it impossible for anyone to get back on? That’s childish.
Digg, please stop being childish. You have the power to do the right thing. Any of the users who were banned for script use should get a second chance, especially if it’s their first offense. You banned and unbanned me and I knew exactly what I was doing wrong. So many of these users did not know. Even the ones who did probably didn’t realize they were going to get banned over it.
Have a heart. Use your brain. Most importantly, grow a set of balls and say “Hey, we changed our mind. Permanent was too harsh for many of the banned. We’ll give them one last chance to do right.”
That’s the right thing to do.
Related posts:
- Digging (and blogging) in Fear
- The Digg Bannings Continue, and Morale is Not Improving
- The Autobury & System Gaming Connection: A Theory
- Digg Needs to Take Courses on Communication 101
- Whitelisted. Blacklisted. Some Sites Are Given Too Much Play.
