I’m a Canadian Digg user (and in a small minority, as you might expect). I have a fleeting interest in American politics, but I don’t give two depreciated American pennies about a second tier Republican who’s struck the fancy of a few wired libertarians.
Because of Paul’s popularity among Digg users, hilariously mundane Ron Paul stories frequently pollute Digg’s front page. I’ve had enough, so here’s an RSS feed for Digg’s popular stories that filters out all the Ron Paul-related silliness. If I knew how, I’d produce a GreaseMonkey script that did the same thing.
UPDATE: Sweet, I just found a GreaseMonkey script that does exactly that.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
You should take the time and read the articles posted on Digg. You would find out he is not a second tier canidate. People are very excited about his campaign.
Zack: Every poll I can find (and there’s a bunch here) has Paul at 3% or less, generally with at least five others in front of him.
If you’ve got any evidence that he’s a first tier candidate, let’s see it.
Darren,
For starters, he won the Fox news “text messaging poll†of the New Hampshire debate by 33% last night. He finishes high in almost every straw poll, winning several by huge margins, he has a huge internet following, and has won almost every online poll, and it has proven to translate into real votes. He has more momentum than any of the “top tier†candidates because of his devoted supporters, and his message of liberty and following the constitution are very popular with the people of our nation.
I don’t have any faith in any polls, and I certainty don’t believe that the media should choose who is a “top tier†candidate this early in the process. The reason why so many of these articles are posted on Digg, is because his supporters are passionate enough to want to spread his message, in any way possible. I am sure it is annoying to people who don’t care for him or politics in general. I can tell you though, I have never seen this level of excitement over any politician, and it is way too early to count him out.
Zack, anyone popular with the Digg crows is going to skew higher in certain types of polls (especially website polls and text messaging polls) than proportionate to their actual electoral popularity. Paul wins because of your obsession, he can’t win the Presidency because of a small group of obsessives.
Darren, the problem is that there needs to be a -“Ron Paul” switch for everything on Digg. I thought he was interesting when I first heard of him, but I’m so sick of having him shoved down my throat. The big problem is that while you can add -“Ron Paul” to searches, and to some RSS feeds, many API-based feeds have no such ability, and I wish they did.
It’s sickening how these Ron Paul fans are hijacking the debate and making it impossible to engage in serious debate about candidates that, at least right now, have a chance.
Zack: So, in other words, by any metric that rational people consider important and valid, Paul is second tier.
But by a number of highly dubious web-based polls, he’s doing okay?
I for one, love the idea of a filter.
although I would like everyone to share my view point and vote for ron paul, I realize that there are those out there, that will dislike him for the very reasons I like him.
Since people out there apparently cant just ignore the submission and move on, this filter sounds like an ideal answer.
I can accept that Ron Paul is not for everyone, maybe this filter will keep the ron paul bury brigade from being obligated from finding it necessary to comment on and bury every single submission with about ron paul.
thechr0nic: If there were a roughly proportional (in terms of general popularity) number of popular Digg stories about all the presidential candidates, I’d have no complaints.
Awesome.. Now maybe people like you who don’t like Ron Paul stories don’t even have to see them. Regardless of our disagreement on this candidate, it’s a better alternative to running a bury brigade, so I salute your effort.
**Modifying script to filter out iPod stories**
$4.2 million in 24 hours. Top tier.