Lo and behold they only digg AlexaW's submissions!  And many of them have signed up fairly recently.  As in, since the beginning of October, when Daniel Eran had his hissy fit about being "censored by digg".  It is pretty obvious what has happened.  Either Alexa has signed up for multiple accounts, or the losers at Roughly Drafted have banded together to game digg.

It all falls into place now.  The stories are SO ridiculous that even the biggest Apple fanboys want no part of them.  Yet somehow they still make it to the front page.  Then when they get almost UNANIMOUS negative comments, they blame that on a "small minority of Apple haters"

We've all tried to explain that if a "small minority of Apple haters" had the power to do that to an Apple submission, then EVERY Apple submission would get buried and every one would be bombarded with almost unanimous negative comments.  But just the opposite is true.  Most Apple stories do not get buried no matter how ridiculous they are, and are filled with FAR more pro-Apple comments than anti-Apple ones.  It is only the Daniel Eran articles that get buried EVERY time.

I did not check, but my guess is just about EVERY comment in an AlexaW submission that agrees with him will be someone who diggs ONLY his stories, and has signed up in the last 3 weeks.

So..who wants to do a little more research and get this asshole banned. And maybe it will be enough to ban EVERY submission coming from Roughly Drafted.

I am not in the mood to pretty this up, nor do I care.  But here are some links to screen shots of Alexa's fellow Roughly Drafted gamers.  I am sure I could have gotten MANY more if I really wanted to.  But 8 is plenty to know what they are up to.  Using Digg to increase their Google revenue.  But then again, when you have no real journalism skills and have to write blogs for a living, I guess you have to resort to shady means to try to earn a living.

A recent Alexa submission
Yorkshire 10/10 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
AEChadwick 10/11 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
Cuyahoga 10/7 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
ernie (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
pronk 10/5 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
TravisBelton 10/10 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
znesic 10/10 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
Mica  (Commented on just ONE article, obviously an AlexaW article.)
 

Here are some more.  I didn't take screenshots, but linking to their Digg history is better anyway...
beltonbraces  10/6 (ONE comment in an AlexaW article.)  (Possibly by the same person who registered TravisBelton?)
sweyhrich  10/10  (Comments on just TWO submissions...obviously both AlexaW)
marthill  (Comments on FOUR articles. Two Alexa W and the two articles proving their cheating.)
wormdigger (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
rjdudley55 10/10  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
rogerti9xyz 10/10  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
macaddicted 10/8 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
johninokinawa 10/10  (ONE comment, in an AlexaW submission)
mavailla 10/9 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
blueworld 10/10  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
flashharry 10/9 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
monkyhead 10/6 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
maddmacs 10/7 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
markthebike 10/10 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
dillweed 10/8  (Commented on just THREE submission..two AlexaW ones, and the one where they got caught.)
epplegacks 10/8 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
ralahamy 10/10 (he has dugg a few other stories, but it is clear why he joined on 10/10.  ZERO Comments)
hhansen 10/9 (also has dugg a few other stories, but not many, yet all AlexaW ones.  ZERO comments.)
weslobombs 10/6  (Comments in 4 articles, three AlexaW ones)
brazos1 10/9  (Commented on just ONE article, an AlexaW article.)
johnemmerton 10/9  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
codepounder 10/6  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
Beowulfed 10/5  (Comments on TWO articles, both AlexaW.)
Gambit21 10/12  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
artiefufkin 10/6  (Comments on TWO articles, both AlexaW.)
conradbear 10/10  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
TrafficGuy 10/10  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
percheron 10/6  (Comments on TWO articles, both AlexaW.)
bferrari 10/6  (Commented on ONE article, an AlexaW one.)
realtosh 10/6  (Has dugg a few other stories, but mostly RDM.  TWO comments, one on AlexaW aticle and other on one that proved their cheating.)
johnro200  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
doings  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
BigBossman  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
kanbei   (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
paulkman
rmigneron  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
JayClew 10/6  (Commented on ONE article, an AlexaW one.)
mathijsv 10/5  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
Windows95 10/10
marcrhodes 10/9  (Only comment is on the article that proves RDM cheated.)
twistmeyer 10/11  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
KennMSr 10/11  (Zero comments.  Dugg all rDM stories, even oens that appeared a year before he registers)
stevecheung 10/11
halesgarcia 10/10  (Commented on just THREE submission..two AlexaW ones, and the one where they got caught.)
jasonautomatic 10/10 (Commented on ONE article, an AlexaW one.)
earth2kelly 10/7  (Commented on ONE article, an AlexaW one.)
windward007 10/7  (dugg a few others, mostly older Daniel Eran submissions submitted long before he joined, which is VERY unusual a new user to do.  ZERO comments)
Gizmodan 10/8  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
ludachrs  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
bilogic  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
jbravo556  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
orourke  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
laserius 10/10  (Comments on THREE articles, two AlexaW, and the one that proved their cheating.)
acefury 10/6  (TWO comments, one on an AlexaW article, and one on the article that proved their cheating.)
martaque 10/11  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
HapOlsen 10/11  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
Eucharist9  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
orup70 10/6  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
hcburkart 10/6  (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
bruxi78216 10/10 (ZERO comments.  Nothing on the site but digging AlexaW submissions.)
 

So...what do we have?  SIXTY TWO digg users who digg nothing but RoughlyDrafted stories.  (With a few exceptions whose diggs are 95% Roughlydrafted, and 5% other)

Of those 65, FIFTY joined the site in a 6 day period between 10/5 and 10/11.  And twenty eight of them joined in a three day period between 10/9 and 10/1, which was when Daniel Eran was whining about being "censored" by Digg.

Now, why is this significant? Well, not to get into any guesses about the algorithm to make the front page, but it is no secret that stories start appearing on the front page at around 25-30 diggs.  So, to have 65 people all registered for the sole reason to digg one user's submissions, it is a GREAT bet that every one will make the front page.  It appears that they tried to game Digg in the past as there were a few other key dates found in other users not included here.  For example, June 26 was a popular sign in date for AlexaW's fans, for example.  I guess they felt that having only 10 or so "Free diggs" was not enough so they went over the top and went for 60+.

I should also point out that I only looked at the first two pages of a few of Alexa's submissions.  That is also significant.  If it was just a bunch of regular RoughlyDrafted readers who also like Digg, they would be more spread out in the People who Dugg list.  But they are not.  They are all digging Alexa's submissions pretty much within the first few minutes of it getting posted.  Plus, if I continued onto pages 3 and 4, I would surely find a few more accounts of people who were a little slow in digging the stories.  So 65 is a VERY conservative number for how many accounts that Daniel Eran has created to SPAM this site for his own financial gain.

Again, these people are not contributing ANYTHING to Digg, other than to digg AlexaW's Roughly Drafted Stories.  They are not submitting anything of their own, and are not commenting on anything except to occasionally defend Alexa's submissions.  Of those 65 users, 44 have NEVER commented on a story.  So they have literally don't nothing on this site but digg AlexaW's submissions.  Eight more have commented on one articlee, which was obviously an AlexaW article, and one more commented on one AlexaW article, plus this one.  So that is at least 53 people who have literally contributed nothing to Digg but digging one person's/site's submissions.  Of this list of 65, only THREE have commented on ANY article that was not directly related to RoughlyDrafted.)

By contrast, I went to the Digg Users list and sorted them by number of Diggs.  I thne checked out the pages in which the users had 10 Diggs.  This is about what most of the RDM users have.  I randomly chose 8 pages that were filled with users with 10 stories dugg.  That is 240 users total.  Of those 240, only 22 had never submitted anything, nor even commented on another story.

Amazing!  Over 67% of RDM users do nothing but Digg one users stories, but on average, only 9% of "regular" Digg users with 10 Diggs do the same.  Furthermore, of those 24 regular users, 13 of them dugg stories that were only 4 days apart and 8 dugg stories that were only two days apart.  That strongly suggests that these users stumbled into Digg, signed up, and quickly got bored and left after digging 10 stories.  This is clearly not the case with the RDM crew who have been here for a few weeks yet still don't participate or contribute to this site in ANY way.

Also, of those 24 users, 14 were cheating the system just like the RDM crew.  They only dugg articles from ONE source, just like the RDM people only digg RDM.  So, chances are, just like the RDM people, they were not real people either.  They were multiple accounts used to get stories to the front page.

This seriously must be the worst case of gaming Digg.  Sure, people like aaaz will post messages of varous message boards begging people to digg his stories, and we all know about the gaming cartel that still exists.  At least they are not doing it for financial gain.  But for one man to create SO many accounts to do nothing but bring traffic to his site is reprehensible.  It makes Digg look terrible both with how easy it can be manipulated, and the quality of his articles in general.

Daniel Eran now OWNS Digg.  With 62 user IDs at his disposal (maybe all his, or maybe 4-5 people with 10-11 IDs each) he now has COMPLETE control over what articles make the front page and what gets buried if it DOES get to the front page.  So far, he has not had the balls to bury any anti-Apple story at will, but he could.  Itwouldn't matter HOW many diggs a story gets.  If he adds 60+ Bury votes to what any submission would NORMALLY get it will not survive on the front page.  Furthermore, he can submit a story and quickly digg it up 30-40 times and it will make the front page.  Sure, it will rightfully get buried as soon as the masses see it, but the damage will already been done.  He will have gotten the pageviews for his site, and hurt Digg's reputation in the process.

Basically, he is taking money out of the pockets of the Digg founders (by making the site look bad) and putting it into his own in the form of Ad Sense dollars.