Some of the generals in Digg.com’s army of volunteer news readers are in revolt over new abuse controls that could undermine their influence on the site. In an attempt to defend Digg from gaming and spam, founder Kevin Rose announced the site will be changing its algorithm for weighing and ranking stories.

Digg’s open news model — stories on the site are ranked on popularity among its users — has been criticized recently for being vulnerable to fraud or abuse.

Groups of users can bump news items to the top of the site’s front door by working together in a bloc, submitting and promoting (“digging”) stories together. To break up groups, Rose’s proposed changes will favor news items given positive votes by users who don’t know one another.

“This algorithm update will look at the unique digging diversity of the individuals digging the story,” Rose posted on Digg’s blog. “Users that follow a gaming pattern will have less promotion weight. This doesn’t mean that the story won’t be promoted, it just means that a more diverse pool of individuals will be need to deem the story homepage-worthy.”

Since the new system aims to change the way users’ submissions and votes are handled, some of the site’s top users will see their importance in the insular world of Digg diminished.

Many of the site’s top users spend hours on the site and forums, and they often digg each other’s submissions. Because of this camaraderie, the site’s top users are responsible for a disproportionate number of the stories that end up on the front door.