Last week, a blog known as JP's Domain posted an interest bit on Digg, the popular news aggregation site. In the post, the blogger examined at length how stories are selected for Digg's front page. Under normal circumstances, the site acts as a democratic news site where users can sumbit and vote for, or "Digg," stories they feel are worthy front-page material. The idea is, of course, to remove any bias from a small group of site editors and put control of the news flow in the hands of the readers themselves.

Well, there's just one problem, apparently. JP's Domain alleges that in fact a
significant number of front page stories are submitted and Dugg by the same,
small group of prolific Digg members. The blogger even identifies severa Digg
members that are apparently flooding the site with content. But is this true
manipulation? Are these Digg members simply casual acquaitances and avid Digg
fans or are they agents of an insidious plot to turn Digg into their own
exlcusive club? I'm not sure, but JP's Domain believes the issue loophole needs
to be close. The blogger writes:

"What it comes down to is there very literally is a group that controls Digg. If
you are within this group and you submit a story, you are more or less
guaranteed 10-15 (or more) automatic diggs from this group. What happens to the
people who don't have such a luxury and only get the default single vote like
everyone else? This only encourages a cycle where those who are getting votes
will continue to get more and more, as they feed each off each other and pat
each other on the back."

JP's Domain blames Digg's "Friends" feature, which allows Digg members to link
up with other Digg readers. This of course creates a system where a limited
group of people can get together on the site and combine their efforts to exert
greater control on the Digg electoral process.

In essence, they're a lobby group or a PAC (political action committee).

Interestingly enough, JP's Domain submitted the post to Digg, and it quickly
became a popular entry with 865 diggs at last count (including my own digg).
JP's Domain also posted a follow-up blog entry found href="http://jesusphreak.infogami.com/blog/what_happened_to_digg">here.

As a result of the posts, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose href="http://diggtheblog.blogspot.com/2006/09/digg-friends.html">pledged to
reform the site with a key algorithim update that is designed to select a more
diverse range of Digg submissions.

But one member of the Digg "in-crowd" was none too please with JP's Domain and
Rose's promises to reform the system, according to my old CMP pals at href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192600648"
>InformationWeek. According to the article, Digg member " href="http://www.digg.com/users/p9s50W5k4GUD2c6">p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 ," who had
sumbitted the most stories of any Digg user, denied that he or she was rigging
the voting process and decided to leave Digg altogether.

"As a direct result of your blog this evening, I will no longer no supporting
(sic) Digg going forward. I bequeath my measly number one position to whoever
wants to reign," p9 was quoted in the InformationWeek article. "Now YOU can
spend all the time, all the effort and get stabbed in the back by fellow Diggers
-- aptly named -- and then tossed to the side by a Digg team that values toilet
paper with more worth than the core users that feed this site it's content every
day."

I swear, Web geeks are SO sensitive.

Now if you'll excuse, I'm going to get on Digg and check to see if any of the
"in-crowd" ever dugg any of my TwitchGuru stories.