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NEWS > TECHNOLOGY > MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO DIGG EVERY SINGLE STORY
MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO DIGG EVERY SINGLE STORY
October 25 2009
Butte, MT – There are many stories of small companies starting in garages and eventually becoming hugely successful. Apple did it, literally building their first machines in a garage. Microsoft did it with virtually no money in the bank. Google was
started by a pair of students working on a research project. In the modern age, stories of this kind are common, so much so that many people feel that small independent start-ups are the only way to have real success in the world of computers and the web.
It was that kind creativity and sheer will that helped build another web company currently enjoying massive popularity. Digg began as an experiment by a group of friends which has quickly grown to one of the most popular sites in the world and one that every other website bows down before due to its ability to drive traffic. Like all websites though it’s the users that make the site a success. Their digging and burying decide the fate of stories and, ultimately of digg itself. Now though a tragedy has befallen the digg community as a Butte area man has succumbed to an obsessive level of participation.
“We can confirm that we found the body of a young man earlier today. We have identified the man as 29 year-old Thomas Wasserschmidt of Butte. Family has been informed and we are currently awaiting autopsy results but at present it does not appear as though there was any kind of foul play involved,” said a spokesperson for the Butte police department. “While we cannot go into specific detail, we can confirm that Mr. Wasserschmidt was found at his computer desk and appears to have been on a website called ‘Digg’ for a number of hours. It is unclear if that played a role in his death.”
Police also confirmed that Wasserschmidt was logged onto the site under username TW5000 and appeared to have been at that particular session ‘for a number of hours. Probably more than a day.’ This was confirmed by a roommate who indicated that he had not seen Wasserschmidt in three days. He also confirmed that he had become increasingly more obsessed with ‘digg’ and has set himself a goal to digg or bury every story submitted.
“Digg receives thousands of submissions daily and that would make it difficult for anyone to affect every story. Aside from the sheer volume issue there is no real end point. People are constantly submitting so every time you finish one section and go to another you have to go through the whole process again. That never ending stream of content would functionally make it impossible to digg or bury any story unless you just never took a break,” said Scrape TV Technology analyst Ken Kevins. “There is no endgame with digg. It’s just story after story after story and trying to get a grasp on that is simply impossible. This may very well be another one of those incidents where obsessive use has led to a death.”
There have been a number of incidents in which gamers have collapsed and died after marathon sessions but this would mark the first time a death could be attributed to a social bookmarking site.
“Traditionally games and sites have never been held responsible for the misuse by their visitors. Most reasonable people know when enough is enough and pull away but
for the kind of people who are prone to obsessive behaviour this site could provide a toxic mix of elements that could lead to more of these incidents and if not liability for the site, at least an erosion of their user ship,” continued Kevins. “The question would be whether or not sites like digg create this kind of behaviour, encourage it, or simply provide an outlet. Legally speaking that would be the core issue. People feel pressure not only for themselves but for the community they are a part of and they want to act responsibly. In this case digging, burying, and commenting are fundamental to the process and the community and some may feel as though they are letting the others down but not fully participating and we end up with incidents like this. Unfortunately there are a lot of these sites and they are only getting more popular so this may not be the last we hear of this.”
Digg officially recommends ‘Reasonable Digging’ to its users but makes no active effort to limit users time on the site.
Martin Philton, Technology Correspondent
NEWS > TECHNOLOGY > MAN DIES AFTER TRYING TO DIGG EVERY SINGLE STORY
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