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Recently I have been bending over backwards to be a good digg friend and to really nuture my network.  Not only because I am a nice guy (when I don't have low blood sugar!) but because I have been thinking and reading a lot about the dynamics of friends, voting, and vote "power" on digg.  And I had been planning to do some testing with different kinds of stories and shouting methods.  So I've had some focus on the subject for a week or two.

And that is when I realized that there was a whole different kind of play going on which in my head I've labeled: The Cheap Shot.

Cheap Shot

A cheap shot play is when someone "unfriends" you so that your vote counts for more.

Let me elaborate....  Someone "fans" you so you check them out and make it mutual  Or you "friend" someone who posts neato stuff, they make it mutual.  Ok, we're all, like BFF, and we shout and digg and it's all very very keen.  For sure!

A few weeks later they unfriend you (and stop digging your stories!) and you don't notice for a variety of reasons:

• You have a lot of friend action, incoming fans, etc;
• Your friend list is so big it doesn't really all fit in the shout window so you don't notice you are "one short"
• You notice but don't do anything because, hey, you're still a "fan" of their work
• You just don't think about it

Now this former mutual friend can shout you but you can't shout them.  Which means that you aren't cluttering their inbox, but most importantly, your vote counts for more.

Voting Power

Now, there are a lot of theories about how votes are counted in Digg, and nobody outside Digg really knows the answer,  and if they accidently erase that whiteboard it won't be clear to them anymore either.  General consensus is that, time and voting blocks aside (which Digg clearly discounts like crazy), there are different "power" levels in digg votes and they move your stories around into the places where the great unwashed can see them.  (I strongly recommend the 97th Floor guy's 3 Milestones of A Front Page Digg as a clear and cogent description of the promotion process.)  I'd probably summarize it like this:

Now, who the heck knows what kind of divisors Digg throws into the mixture, but lets just use this (overly) simple formula for examining your network. 

Digg Network Thought Experiment Part One

Let's assume that you have a network of 1,000 people in your friends list and that, on any given story you get 5% voting, or 50 votes, almost automatically.  And let's also assume that you have a pure network (you won't, but let's assume).

If you have all mutual friends then you have (50 votes * 1 Power) = 50 Power on your story.

If you have all fans then you have (50 votes * 2 Power) = 100 Power on your story

Hmmm.  Kind of explains why people will take the cheap shot action - they know that they stand to gain a LOT and lose very little.

Digg Network Thought Experiment Part The Second

Take a look at that stranger for a second - he is the vote you really want.  And if you read the 87th floor article (or if you've been digging) you know that you get that vote by moving into places where there is more traffic (duh).  But how can you manipulate your network to actually get access to that stranger before you get out into the open?  Here we are back to the cheap shot and how valuable it is.

What this picture shows is that when a Mutual Friend shouts your story to someone and they vote, they vote you as a stranger.  But Digg can easily see that relationship and probably discounts that stranger vote.  If the Mutual Friend was a "Fan" then that stranger-once-removed vote is probably a lot more likely to be 3 Power.  You can also see that the network passes more power more quickly onto your story - and we all know that time counts a lot in getting your story "popped" into view.

Let's assume again that 5% of your network will vote on a story, so that is still 50 people in our 1,000 person network.  And let's assume that 10% of those will re-shout a story for you.  So that is about two people who will shout it to, say 1,000 people total.  Now you have 50 "strangers" voting on your story so you have 150 Power points.  This will appear to happen twice as fast under all circumstances if you have a mostly "fan" network.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

How far does Digg discount "almost a stranger" votes?  Who knows, but they can't discount it too much or too far.  I don't see how they can because, at some point, they run out of computational power (remember, they have to do this in near-real time!) and, probably, there is a severe 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon problem here too.  I know Digg has a zillion billion quadrillion users, but given the number of active Digg'ers who have hundreds and hundreds of friends, how many votes on a story before everyone is connected to everyone else?  My mind reels at the math, but my gut says that at 150 votes you probably have 90% inclusion.

Gaming Digg With Multiple Users or Silent Voting Blocs

I think it's obvious that having people who are not obviously connected to you (multiple users *cough* *cough*) shout your stories into a network, especially a fan network, is the bees knees for making your story pop.  Enough said.

How Can You Spot The Cheap Shot Artist

Good question - I have no idea.  There are people with a LOT of fans and few friends and it is because they are really picky - I know a real person like that on Digg, so I know they exist. There are others who look like throwaway digg users who have been churning thier 'friend' base for a month or two to get a more powerful voting network.

The problem is that there is no setting for notification of unfriending.  There is no notice in your friends activity log.  You can pull it out of the API (sure, in my spare time) if you want.

At least in high school when someone unfriended you it was clear because you couldn't sit at their lunch table anymore.