Automating APOD's submission to Digg

[RJN]

Today someone who follows Digg asked

Can we get the APOD guys to have APOD Digg itself each day? Is it possible? Then we would be saved from tidying up the dregs left by others; description and Thumbnail would be correct... Any ideas folks?

See: http://digg.com/space/Kemble_s_Cascade

How hard would it be to write a script (in php or linux) that submits APOD to Digg every day at midnight eastern US time? Any takers?

[bystander]

Could Otto Posterman do that?

[geckzilla]

I wish I understood what was going on here. Shouldn't the digg button at the bottom make it so all the diggs go to the same place?

[RJN]

This all started perhaps two years ago when I was contacted by Digg and we agreed that APOD could run a Digg link and Digg count on every page. APOD would get a popularity counter out of it. The way it is now, the first person to click the link is taken to a Digg page where they can manually enter APOD information, for that day's APOD, into Digg.

Now that has been working OK and it might not be easily changed. There appears, however, to be a competition among some Diggers to digg APOD because APOD makes it to the "prestigious" front page of Digg.com so often -- about half the time. Very few web sites make it to the front page of Digg so often as APOD. Digging a web site that makes it to the front page of Digg gives the Digger publicity and, sometimes, kudos from other Diggers for spotting good web content.

The problem is this APOD-to-Digg speed competition frequently leads to strange and partial Digg postings about APOD. So I agree it would indeed be better if this could be done automatically. A good way to come up to speed on this is to go back and click on a month's worth of Digg links at the bottom of APOD pages to see what has been happening at Digg.

I hope this is a help. There is more but it might not be relevant.

[geckzilla]

I understand now. Digg doesn't allow automated submissions, though. I am not sure how to work this problem...