Finke Revives Digg's Controversial Top Users List

When Digg, a social bookmarking site that debuted on December 5, 2004, dropped their One Hundred Best User list from the Digg website this morning, it was quickly revived by a loyal Digg fan. Christopher Finke, a developer of Netscape, is the programmer responsible for the list's re-birth.

The list has been a long standing part of Digg, but had received some bad press lately when the people on the list were accused of leading the public. Kevin Rose announced yesterday on the Digg blog that the the list would become a fatality the next morning. He stated, "Some of our top users - the people that have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours finding and digging the best stuff - are being blamed by some outlets as leading efforts to manipulate Digg. These users have been listed on the "Top Diggers" area of the site that was created in the early days of Digg when there was a strong focus on encouraging people to submit content. The list served a great purpose of recognizing those who were working hard to make Digg a great site, as well as a way for new users to discover new content."

Christopher Finke posted the abandoned Top One Hundred Users list, although he claims that this is not a mean spirited move. He implies that he is just being chivalrous and giving the people their due.

His rogue Top One Hundred Users list can be seen at http://www.efinke.com/2007/02/02/top-diggers-list-is-back/. The controversial list is compiled using data skimmed from the profile pages of Digg users. The list is updated twice daily and is already receiving service requests. One in particular was a request for the page to show the time of the last update. One oddity that was pointed out is the absence of a Netscape button beside the Digg button. Christopher reports that this is only temporary until he finishes some necessary page work.

So far, there is no news regarding if Digg will try to legally curtail Christopher Finke's Top One Hundred Users list activities. There is some speculation that Digg might simply try to prevent his list from remaining active by making alterations in their programming. Still others speculate that this situation might very well be the verification that the list was being leaded astray.