But hey, I guess if it’s not some huge liberal whine-fest with a complete disregard for credibility, then that means it’s been “sanitized.” Just so you’ll know, though, the really festive stuff gets dugg down sometimes because we don’t all want to look like a bunch of reactionist idiots who are too lazy to actually read anything but the headline.

I like your idea of re-inventing digg. How about a system that bases your blogs/comments on your reputation as a blogger..etc.

IE- Steve Olson writes intelligent material, therefore just because some people are offended by it doesn’t mean it gets taken off.

One mightchoose to implement such a system by appointing or asking for “gate keepers” who choose what is admissible or what isn’t, based on certain criteria or principles.

Gate Keepers - people who have common sense (a endangered species nowadays), anyone who understands the basic principles set forth in the agreement, for example: agreeing not to censor sensitive posts that are thoughtful.

Gate Keepsers - could go through an interview process using an IM, or just go off of what comments they have made in the system and allow senior gate keepers to invite them into the group.

Another way would be to have the system automatically give users the option of voluntering as a gate keeper of a certain topic after 10 or so blogs in that topic catagory that make it to the front page or that get a lot of comments. Bad Comments would count as well.

The key issue here is trust

There should also be a way to expel or change gate keepers if the topic area they are responsible for doesn’t have good content or isn’t very popular.

Individual topic areas such as : Politics or Economics could have multiple gate keepers, which ensures that things don’t get censored as easily.

Just some ideas here. Feel free to critisize or add some of your own.

So I’ll offer a solution.

No need to re-invent Digg. It’s already there. Just make burying an article much harder. Make it so it needs more buries than Diggs to be buried. And give us a list of people that buried it and make them say why they buried it. Get rid of the anonymous hate. If you think something sucks, at least sign your name to it.

There is a solution.

Take it or leave it, but I think it would make Digg better than Reddit.

Ah, I see you at least noted the irony… ;) My long rant was simply to get my own gripe across: that 1000 people griping about the difference between two socially driven message boards is almost as effective as 1000 people griping about ANYTHING but providing no positive solution. I didn’t mean to imply that the article was “bad” or “had no point” as you insinuated. I was merely hoping more people would read between the lines, use their collective brain power and CREATE something better. My lone hope is that of the 34 responses on here, one of these people (besides me) is working on a BETTER SITE instead of stumbling around on blogs, thinking up all the things that are “wrong” with the very sites they are reading…

But I’m cynical and callous and also believe that there’s a point at which a citizen needs to stop whining about the politics of their country and leave - ESPECIALLY when they are not politically active and are doing nothing to change but bitching and moaning about it and their myopic situation in their own minute and self-centered world.

At the risk of horrifying anyone else with another umm… “maniacally long comment” (yeesh, that’s a little judgemental and harsh don’t you think? I didn’t realize we had to keep it down to Haiku length or risk criticism…) let me set an example by stating here that these are the last words I will personally say on the topic - not just here, but on any board - and I encourage others to shut their proverbial pie-holes and DO something. If you aren’t a programmer, go meet one and collaborate, go to a computer users group, contact the message board owners, *DO* something. Besides bitching… It clogs the tubes on the internet after all… (and please for the love of god, recognize the sarcasm here and don’t tell me the internet isn’t really made up of tubes…) ;)

Meanwhile, I’ll continue working on a better socially driven message board that I’m sure will be full of haters who post articles complaining about how it doesn’t fit their agenda.

Cheers!