I have just read two great posts about the downfall of Digg.com. The post pretty much asks if Digg is or ever was a democracy where the best posts prevail, or whether the "Digg Mafia" bury what they don't like and give rise to an underworld of posts.This question is well posed and poised to alert the general public to the issues surrounding services like Digg and the South African equivalent, Muti.Muti is brilliant, I love using it and reading the posts. However the "stats" section on the Muti site is somewhat worrying in regard to the Death of Digg post that I read. It seems that there is an "elite" posting cream at the top of the Muti crop. These users have the most "kudus" and are submitting the most content. I am interested to know how many of these users posts have consistently reached the top spot and stayed there the longest? I have a feeling that the results would not be surprising.I would like to know how Muti is differentiating itself from the likes of Digg. Is the content different? Maybe, but more recently I have noticed many "Top 15..." posts from international sites reaching the top 20. These posts simply aim to reach the top of any rating site and they seem to be doing fairly well. Why are these posts reaching the top? Why are users not voting them down and how is Muti going to prevent a Digg scenario?If these users maintain their dominance over Muti what is the chance of an unknown blogger or contributor to Muti being heard for long enough to make any sort of impact? Many new voices that emerge have incredible things to say. Yet it seems that unless a prolific submitter discovers them and submits their post to Muti the new voice will wither away and die a slow and unrecognised Mutied death.Is Muti actively trying to engage the general blogging public? Are people aware of the service and the public and open nature of the service? If they are then maybe they simply choose not to submit for fear of looking stupid, but if they are not aware of Muti I think it is time to let the public know and make their posts and submissions count.In the very heated debate on stii's blog regarding the SA Blog awards, the "elite" bloggers were mentioned as an issue in the SA Blogosphere. I am beginning to wonder if this "elite" is dominating in more ways than we may realise.The SA Blog awards, Muti and then the world!