Dear Digg,
We want to start by stating that we are not angry in any way, and that we think that a mistake has been made which can be rectified. However, given that the normal channels offered for dealing with these issues are so narrow, we felt it would be best to make these proceedings public. You have banned our site, and we would like that to be undone. We plan on laying out our case and then submitting ourselves to the community at large for arbitration, as our team is surely biased.
You have claimed that we at TechGeist are a “news middleman.” If that is true, perhaps we do deserve to be banned from Digg. TechGeist is a group-written website, with three main contributers, several part time authors, and the occasional guest author to round out the content. We have been linked to by Mashable, TechCrunch, The Week, The Register and many others. We are an active member in the TechMeme technology news aggregator. Also, we are somewhat popular on Reddit.
But to call us a news middleman is to pretty fundamentally misunderstand what we do. All articles on TechGeist (with the occasional exception of some stories we break) are analysis pieces. There are essentially two main types: columns and news. The columns are researched, original content. In fact, one of the pieces has done relatively well on Digg. The news stories do start with a summary of material from another site, but this is a very small part of the article. The rest of the article is opinion and analysis. In other words, it’s original content which is from us and only us. If this violates the Digg terms of use, then we apologize.
We’re well aware that we’re not the largest technology blog out there, but we’re also not the smallest. And we realize just how important Digg is to our continued growth. We are dedicated to our work, and it is our sincere hope that you will reevaluate the position you have taken about our site.If we are in fact breaking the Digg ToU, then most of the websites on Digg (that do not make the front page) are also in violation. Please let us know about your decision.
Respectfully,
The TechGeist Team
- UPDATE -
We just got an email from Jen Burton, the Digg community manager, that the ban on TechGeist is going to be lifted! Thank you everyone so much for the support.
