http://digg.com/users/elebrio/homepage

If you pay enough attention you will notice that although my account was created in November of 2005, I didn’t really start submitting stories until exactly 16 days ago. Thats right, as a neophyte I have gotten an average of 1 story promoted to the front page per day for the last 16 days. My account is proof that it isn’t impossible to break through the (non-existent) monopoly of the top users. How did I do it?

1. Activity. If you comment on and submit stories actively you will get more people to check out both your profile and submissions. Increasing your chances that others will digg your stories. I comment on many stories. Being the first commenter doesn’t hurt either as you automatically get top billing.

2. Write interesting blurbs. If you only have 3 or 4 sentences to get people to digg your stories, then you better not be boring or people will just scan over it. This is where p9 gets kudos from me. He writes up the best synopsises(?) hands down. Thats why he was the top user.

3. Digg & Comment on your friends stories. If you digg your friends stories and comment on them, they are more likely to check out the stories that you submit.

That’s it! I’m seriously disappointed that Kevin and Jay decided to change things up instead of just let the free market run it’s course. Obviously there are some groups that needed to be weeded out – like the libertarian diggers. They were clearly gaming the system, but the fact that their decision lost them p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 shows how easily they will piss away their userbase. Their arrogance when dealing with the netscape controversy doesn’t make me want to submit stories to their site so they can get rich and talk down to me like they did p9s50W5k4GUD2c6.