Digg has changed. And not for the better. I’ve hit my breaking point with the popular, “democratic” news site and I’m nearing the end of using it. There isn’t one reason for ending my time with Digg; it’s been a mixture of four main problems I’ve been having with the site.

1. Comments: The reason I stay clear of forums is the comments left by the users. They tend to be one-sided, demeaning, and childish. This behavior is no different on Digg. Submitting an article on Digg that goes against the views of a few will be subject to harsh personal jabs, most of which sound like something you would hear on a playground. These few Digg users, in my opinion, have ruined the community portion of Digg. Yes, I know you can bury them, but why doesn’t it happen? I haven’t commented on a story for nearly a year, not because I’m paranoid, but because Digg doesn’t deserve my comments anymore, the submitted sites do.

2. Articles: The same three articles are on Digg’s front page every day. The first being something about how Hillary or McCain will ruin our country and Obama is an angel waiting to fix our problems. The second is something about Bush and attempts at impeaching him. The third and most tolerable is usually about Apple. The stories about Apple that reach the front page tend to already be pasted on every electronics blog.

3. Submitting: Reaching the front page of Digg with your story is tough, but it’s now unfair. Now, I might sound like I’m whining because I’ve never gotten a story to the front page, but I’ve stopped submitting any stories after finding Digg’s biggest problem. Newsworthy stories don’t make the front page anymore; they make the front page with the help of the mindless friends you have on Digg. The most active submitters have hundreds of friends to help them get stories (good or bad) to the front page. Digg has always been against gaming (not video games), but why does Digg create tools for gaming?

I’ve also submitted a story and have it become somewhat popular, only to have the same story make it to the front page by another user. You can be the first to submit a story, but it’s the user with the most friends who takes it to the front page.

4. Shouts: One of Digg’s newest features, “shouts,” has contributed to the gaming of Digg. Users can send shouts to friends asking them to Digg their story. Until just last week, the shouts had been piling up in my gmail inbox. I had been getting about ten shouts a day asking to “Digg my story,” but I finally turned off email notifications. I think “shouts” was intended for Digg users to send interesting stories to friends (non-digg users), but it’s become the easy way to get a story to the front page.

Digg needs to stop trying to become a social network and become the democratic news site it once was. Get rid of shouts, get rid of friends, and keep it just news. It’s become a popularity contest.

Ob81.com, has an interesting article by an active Digg submitter.