One of the best ways to gain rapport on Digg is to study Digg’s culture. A Digg user who has a grasp of the culture will be able to recognize content that is interesting to Digg users and will be able to avoid submitting content that Digg users will dislike. To find out what I’m talking about, visit Digg’s website, click on the world & Business button, and look at the top stories on the right hand side.
Because it is elections season, a lot of presidential candidate news makes it to the “Hot” section (column on the right side of the webapge). You’ll also notice that Digg users tend to like certain candidates (Barack Obama, and formerly Ron Paul) and have a certain distaste for other candidates (John McCain, namely). It almost goes without saying that a story that features John McCain in a positive light, or portrays Barack Obama negatively, will probably not become a popular story on Digg.
Another way to become familiar with the Digg culture is to read the comments on a submitted story. What’s interesting about Digg’s comment section is that users can digg comments the same way they digg stories. To get a feel for Digg culture, look at what people are saying about top ranked stories. Don’t just look at the comments with the most diggs; check out comments that are “buried” (the opposite of “dugg”). After you have a feel for how the Digg community reacts to comments, start commenting on stories (but make sure to either digg or bury the story first, otherwise you’ll lose rapport).
Keep in mind that in order to have a lot of digg users read your comment, you need to comment on a story before it reaches the Top 10 section on the front page. The best way to get people to see your comments is to comment on a story that is in the “Upcoming” section of Digg. If the story gets popular, your comment will appear higher on the page and more users will digg (or bury) it and respond. A comment I posted about a Fox News poll recently got close to 200 Diggs. I originally found the story on the Upcoming section, but it reached the #1 spot on the Top Ten stories list.
When commenting, it is important to clearly communicate your message. I dropped the ball on this one when commenting on a Ron Paul story. I had intended to say that I hoped Dr. Paul would be healthy enough to run for President in ’12, but I made a typo in the original comment that suggested that I hoped McCain would be healthy enough to run again in ’08.
As a result, my initial comment was dugg down, but after I clarified myself (a little better, but the modified comment was also a little ambiguous), I received some positive feedback.
Update: I changed my Del.icio.us widget on the right to display Digg article’s that I’ve bookmarked. I’ll be researching more and posting hte interesting ones as I find them.
Stop the (Word)Press 
Mind you, that does not apply if the stated deadline is missed because you failed to provide the writer with requested information or you held back on your edits until the last minute. ,