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Digg "townhall" meeting this Monday - what's on the agenda?

Last month, the social news site Digg faced a mini-revolt, following changes to its story promotion algorithm which made it harder for top diggers to achieve a front page success. A so-called "townhall" meeting will be held by Digg's founders Jay Adelson and Kevin this Monday to address the community's concerns.
Written by Steve O'Hear, Contributor

Last month, the social news site Digg faced a mini-revolt, following changes to its story promotion algorithm which made it harder for top diggers to achieve a front page success. (Top diggers are those whose story submissions most frequently get promoted onto the site's front page.)

During a live webcast hosted by four of those top diggers, discussing the changes, Digg founders Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose made an appearance and addressed some of the community's concerns. One of the outcomes was a commitment to hold a regular online "townhall" meeting with the site's user community.

The first meeting is this Monday (February 25th) at 9pm EST/6pm PST and will be webcast live on Ustream. To get your question or suggestion on the agenda leave a comment on this Digg discussion thread, which, appropriately, can then be voted up and down by Digg users. The most popular comments will be addressed by Adelson and Rose on Monday.

So what do we have so far? Here's a sample:

Blacklists

I'd like to see the censorship claims addressed (the theoretical "auto-bury" function, blacklistings and what that actually means, superusers whose buries are so heavily weighted as to prevent stories from ever moving forward)

More transparency with regards to Digg's algorithm

I'd personally like to hear you guys address issues with the new algo. Specifically:

- the high threshold for stories for average users as well as power users - the increasingly stale front page content - the fact that the aglo seems to penalize stories dugg by like minded people (if a group of people enjoys sports, doesn't it make sense that they'd digg a lot of the same stories? and yet, these diggs are somehow discounted because they don't get enough variation) - the fact that the algo seems to penalize the people that use the site most

Buries made public

I'd like to see buries become public. It might discourage to any sort of alliance formed (aka the 'bury brigade') to bury stories without good reason... If a person can see who likes a submission, then they should be able to see who doesn't, along with a legitimate reason for the digg down.

Are these the most important issues with regards to Digg? I'd be interested to read your comments.

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