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Really, I am not trying to game the system. Hell, I will even submit this story myself. If you are going to bury the story, bury it because I did a self-submission. Don't bury my idea. I want to propose an idea to the Digg community.

Is it remotely possible for 5% of the Digg community to "Digg" one single story?

I am a huge Digg user. I visit the site 2-3 times a day in order to get my tech news. I listen to Diggnation weekly. I pretty much bleed yellow, blue, and that olive green color.

So anyways, I was sitting in bed last night after checking out Digg. A quote popped into my head. It is a recent quote from Kevin Rose.

Now, as the site has matured and we regularly get 5,000+ content submissions per day, we believe there are better ways to discover new friends based on your interests and what you’re digging. So if you have been digging stories about digital cameras and Oolong tea, you will be introduced to other top users with those interests.

We’re currently working on designing and refining the technologies required that will help enable our nearly 900,000 registered users to make real connections that we believe will greatly enhance the Digg experience – whether you’re brand new to the site or have been on Digg since the beginning. We plan on rolling this out in the coming months along with features and programs that do a better job of rewarding positive contributions to the Digg community.

The 900,000 users kept sticking out in my head. I was curious; would it be even remotely possible for only 5% of the users on Digg.com to digg the same story? It really doesn't seem like that hard of a task on paper. 5% is nothing. If only half the registered users on Digg actively participate on the site, only 1 out of every 10 would need to digg a story. Not too bad, right? At least 5% of Digg should be active diggers.

It sounds easy until you actually look at the numbers. 5% of Digg users digging the same story would result in over 45,000 diggs. The most story on Digg with the most about of diggs is the Apple iPhone announcement with 21186 diggs as of this writing.
45,000 diggs would double the amount of diggs for the most dugg story of all-time. A story which was dugg by 5% of registered users would see more diggs than the deaths of Steve Irwin, James Kim, and Saddam Hussein COMBINED.

Is it still possible to have 5% of Digg users digg one story? Most likely not. Digg has grown into a internet behemoth where only a small portion of members actually participate. Hundreds of thousands of people might visit the site everyday and click a few links. However, stories on Digg will never be an accurate representation of the interests of the viewing population until more users actively voice their opinion and digg stories.

So, will any story ever be dugg by 5% of the Digg population? I doubt it, however it would be quite interesting to see the reaction around the community if one digg. I can only imagine the comments.