The Seven Rules of Trust by Jimmy Wales (and a feature request)

I started listening to this audiobook, at least in part because of that podcast that Jimmy Wales walked out on. He has some things to say about Reddit in the book. Valid perspectives about Community, how they grow, how they fail, and mostly how they thrive (the recipe for which is in the title of the book).

There in nothing earth shattering here but as someone who was brefily a Wikipedian (in my wild and crazy years) I think there are some notable things to remember. I've brought up the rules/principles of Wikipedia before, back when it was just Digg Groundbreakers. The book got me thinking about one that I seemed to have forgotten. Wikipedia is an excyclopedia.

That fact alone, and the mental models that came with it, set the basis for growth at Wikipedia. It was a simple shared purpose that everyone rallied behind. There was a bit of that here in the very early day, a kind of longing for what the internet was, through rose tinted glasses. Nostalgia fades. I think Digg needs to plant it's flag and I think we will have to do it for them (as a community I mean).

Digg is for IMHO, digging. Simply put, unearthing the precious Gems that exist on the internet (but mostly in humanity). It is for remembering, but also facing the notable (even if divisive or scary). My vision for Digg centers on planting mile markers along the long road of human contribution to the shared internet.

With that comes my one request for unique Digg features. Time Machine and community docs.

Digg should be immutable. What is written stores a record and any attempt to rewrite or edit anything is clearly visible and auditable by anyone. Additionally, anyone wanting to look at the timeline should be able to search it but more importantly it should be possible to view it n-gram style. It should be a primary feature to resurface the things that have been lost to time without rewriting history.

Digg needs community docs. We should all be able to commit to this timeline and we should all be able to discuss what is and is not noteworthy with more complex mechanics than a simple Digg or Bury. There needs to be a strong meta. Digg needs a talk page for every post that isn't just the comments. The standard social media scaffolding is fine but there needs to be a meta underneath. Appeals, rejections, reversions, etc.

Take this for what it's worth but this is the direction I feel Digg will make a difference. It is not the front page of the internet.