Digg Bannings: Interview with Diggboss
With me today is a popular former Digg user, Diggboss. Thanks for joining me, Diggboss. Ok, let’s get right into it:
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you start getting into social media in the first place, and which network did you like the most from the start?
2. When did you first discover Digg, and what were your impressions of it back then? How do you think it has been in its progression and dealing with growth, enhancements, and issues?
Answer to 1 and 2 above -
Thanks for having me and giving me a chance to talk to you. I am a Freelance programmer. I specialize in Data Extraction services and writing web-robots or spiders as they are called. Hence the spider avatar.
My first exposure to social media was through digg.com. I didn’t know then that Digg was a “social media site.” I absolutely loved and still love Digg, I am not active on any other social media site other than Digg, i created accounts on Reddit, SU, etc but never found them as interesting as digg. I still don’t even have a MySpace or FaceBook account.
I guess I started from mid 2006, reading news and interesting geeky stuff on digg.com. I became an active Digg member since April 2007.
3. Although Digg has issues with your scripts as you have noted on your site (http://checkfriends.appspot.com/), any plans for creating scripts for other social media sites?
I am not into any other social media site as much as I was in Digg, I do use Plurk and Twitter sometime for micro-blogging but only rarely. So there are no plans for any scripts on any other site.
4. Had you kept your Digg scripts secret, only for personal use, would Digg have caught on you?
I could have kept it a secret but I thought it was a benefit to other Digg users so I wanted to share it. I had no idea it was going to end up like this.
My scripts used Digg APIs. Anyone can use Digg APIs. Digg data is open under Creative Commons.
6. Do you think that Digg was justified in banning you due to creating your scripts? It could be said that letting users create such scripts would give them an unfair competitive advantage versus diggers just using the tools that Digg alone provides.
Absolutely not as I said anyone with a little knowledge of CURL or WGET can make use of the APIs and do what I did.
7. Which begs the question: what should developers that work outsite of Digg be doing with the Digg API? Colorful charts of who’s Digging what? 
Digg is not FaceBook, coders please stay away from Digg. Digg does not have open policies and does not support coders. Every script is a BAD script. Digg uses its TOS to its advantage.
8. Ever think of starting your own social media site? Seems like you have the head for it.
Haha, thats an outrageous question, nope, never.
9. So what’s next for Diggboss?
I am sure Digg would restore my account, I don’t have an alternative. I am banned.
I loved Digg and will continue to love it, my love for digg is not conditional.