Many top digg users helped push an article to the front page of digg tonight, that discussed the changes Digg made this week to the number of votes it takes for a story to be promoted to the front page.

“Digg has pretty much taken a crap in a cup, and asked everyone, including even the top diggers, to partake in the offering. It now takes (barring a miracle, or a massive, collective pre-planned quick-strike diggfest), around 200 diggs to go popular, which leaves many (including me) to wonder… is Digg TRYING to drive away users, and if so, why?”

At 5:12 pm PST, about 7 1/2 hours after Babblin5 submitted the post “Two Diggs One Cup” made it to the front page of digg. It took 156 diggs with 33 comments for the article to make it, something it would have taken less than 100 to do a week ago.

There was a time when about 30 to 40 diggs on any given story would be promoted to the front page of Digg. That time has obviously come and gone, as we have seen an increase in the number of diggs it takes to reach the front page.

For some users, it now can take upward of 200 diggs.

There are two main arguments to the topic.

1. Top users have a bigger friends base and thus get on average around 70 – 90 diggs based purely on their network. So they should require a large number of additional diggs to compensate that boost that normal users don’t have.

2. Top users are top users because they submit high qaulity material. They should not be required to get more diggs simply because of the great job they have been doing to reach that top user status.

I think msaleem sums it up best with one of his comments on the issue:

“Top user or not, it should be an equal playing field. Doesn’t matter what your standing is, every user should have an equal chance at the front page. Though the system pretends to be helping new users, it hurts them even more.”

So what does Digg have to say about any of this? Well… nothing. Digg has gone almost completely quiet lately. You cannot even get a response by email their support department.

“It is sad to see the veterans who have invested their time, effort, and energy into a community that isn’t returning the favor. Problem is: Digg isn’t defending itself. It isn’t giving people ANY explanations as to why they are banning various strong Diggers and increasing the quota to reach FP. Digg isn’t addressing the autobury situation adequately… It looks like Digg will implode if it continues in this self-destructive path and ignore this situation further..” Nomadelle

It appears a growing number of top users have also decided to speak out in the form of a petition.

“We, the undersigned (comment to join) are ready to find out if there is more to social bookmarking than Digg. We are going to stop submitting to Digg”

So basically they are saying if the site is not fixed, they will no longer use it. If you would like to support the petition to get Digg to change their site you can do so here – Digg Petition.

“What happens if the most powerful users in the community decide to leave? Will others join? Is Digg anything without us?”

Well let us hope we don’t have to find out…

Either way you should read Babblin5’s article and check out the comments on the digg submission. It is an interesting time on Digg right now, and I will be watching to see what will happen in the next few months.

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