Even in a real world democracy, there are people whose opinions have a disproportionate influence. Why do we think that democracy would work differently in an online community?

Further, one would expect to see a power law distribution in things such as no of submissions, karma, edits etc. If somebody choses to spend 10 hours a day submitting links to digg, I don't think that is anybody's business.

What the article seems to be wishing for is a socialist utopia, not a democracy.