Digg has faced numerous problems in it's relatively short life to date, most of which have resulted in one form of revolt or another by users.

The latest controversy surrounds Digg user , who has shown a text book example of everything that is wrong with Digg. Raisedinhell's complaint is one mirrored by many, and I can even include myself among the legitimately concerned who quit Digg for this reason.

The problem is this. Raisedinhell submitted a story only to have it 'hijacked' by Digg power user . Raisedinhell backup up her claims with . Look closely and you can see Pavelmah submitted the same article (with a slightly different URL) a while after Raisedinhell, yet has claimed thousands more Diggs. So what's up with that? Pavelmah and many other power users are allegedly part of an alliance (AKA the Digg Army) whereby each member will Digg up each others posts regardless of what they actually are.

"So what?" I hear you ask? While it might not be a big deal, it does undermine the whole concept of Digg (supposedly being a democracy) and it also means regular users are often wasting their time with submissions. Where's the fun in having your time wasted?

This is far from the first time Digg have been accused of allowing this behavior, and in the past they even banned a handful of top users for partaking. Apparently it didn't help.

Can Digg survive another scandal? Of course it can. And Digg founder Kevin Rose has even on the negative feedback regarding this particular situation:

"Over the last four years I've developed a thick skin when reading comments re: Digg - but I'm saddened by what I read in this thread. Not personally upset, but disappointed in the tone taken towards the staff here at Digg. We have 70 or so engineers, designers, project managers, and business development/marketing folks that work 50-60hr weeks trying to create a better site for everyone. Does Digg have issues with promotion/diversity? Of course, we always have, and it's something that we have a team constantly tweaking/evolving to stay ahead of gaming. While we don't respond to every comment thread, do know that we read them - and your _constructive_ suggestions do make it into our project roadmap.

While you're waiting for us to release fixes and new features, do what I do, digg the stuff you like, and bury the stuff you don't like. And, don't take life so seriously, it's just the internet."

Kevins last sentence doesn't seem to echo the seriousness in which his users are taking this, aside that is a rather poor response to a legitimate problem. Imagine if you your complaints to other services were met with "don't take it so seriously".

It's easy to interpret Roses' words as "Meh, whatever, deal with it" which implies that once again the issue will be buried (ahem) until the next time.