After removing the top user list, Digg has taken additional measures against identifying top Digg users, together with some cosmetic changes to Digg’s interface. Before, the number of stories promoted to the front page was visible next to the user names in the ‘Who dugg or blogged this story’ section. Now it’s gone, as you can see in this screenshot:
This number is still visible in user’s profile, however the overall ranking of users is no longer calculated. Now, many questions remain: is this just a change in visibility, or have these rankings been completely removed from the service? Will the influence of top Digg users now really diminish, or will the top users find a way to stay influential? Most importantly, will this improve the quality of stories that reach the front page, and change the bias towards certain subjects, or will the quality of stories on front page get worse? I will be monitoring Digg closely in the next weeks, hoping to get some answers.
Dugg, vote it to the front page:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Digg_even_further_reduces_the_influence_of_top_diggers
I would have dugg this but I seem to be on some form of Digg ‘probation’. I can’t login yet the site acts as if I am logged in (shows which friends dugg a story, clicking links opens new windows as it is set in my profile and my comment viewing thresholds all work.)
I don’t know if I just pissed someone off or what but I can’t interact with Digg today…
Steve -
Try logging in with a different broswer - I was having the same type of issues in Firefox (getting lots of Digg is down pages) but everything seems to work fine in Opera. Strange…
Chris,
I’m working with Digg support on this. My account is not flagged yet the system “half” logs me in. I can see friend related information (green stripe, friends who dugg this tab) but that is it… Real strange.
I hope to have this resolved soon as the only way for me to log in is to request a password change. That only lasts until I log out then I have to request another password change!
Digg is slow as hell for me, but it works normally. Maybe it’s the changes in the interface that are causing problems?
Heh. This story disappeared from all Digg top lists. It got buried pretty fast, something I wouldn’t expect from a pretty neutral story in an upcoming section.
Am I the only one who hears the sound of nails being hammered into a coffin?
I’m pretty sure the number in the bracket refers to the number of friends that person has, not the stories promoted to the homepage.
Maybe your screenshot has no people with friends on Digg.
Kevin: you’re wrong. It refers (refered) to the number of stories promoted.