Can you Digg it? Maybe not.

Nice move by Digg, in my humble opinion.  I was reading the report on Webware this morning that Digg launched a new algorithm during the past week to keep people from scamming the system.

This new algorithm enables Digg to effectively " punish" people who vote in groups to promote certain stories. The result is that stories that ultimately reach the homepage will need to be "dugg" by a diverse group of people.

"Digg's promotional algorithm ensures that the most popular content dugg by a diverse, unique group of diggers reaches the home page," Digg founder Kevin Rose said in a blog. "Our goal is to give each person a fair chance of getting their submission promoted to the home page."

He goes on to say that as a result of the new algorithm, it will not be uncommon to see stories with more than 100 diggs still in the "upcoming" section. As I am writing this, there are three stories in the upcoming section with more than 150 diggs, the most popular standing at 155. . .

This update will certainly give the little guys a better chance at getting a story on the front page, but it may anger some of the longtime users.

I have often wondered if someone could artificially influence the system by getting a large group of people to all "digg" an announcement from a particular company.  Self-policing is tough to manage in something as wild and wooly as the world wide web, so Digg's approach to this is admirable, in my view.  Here's hoping the hue and cry from the "power Diggers" does not nullify this attempt at creating some equity.