PopSyndicate.com

On Thursday, Kevin Rose, Founder and Chief Architect of digg.com, announced a new commenting system that utilizes AJAX to give the site faster load times.  The comment system’s format changed from supporting only two tiers of threaded discussion to a four tier system that users click to expand.  The result: bloody mayhem.

“Ok really digg wtf were you thinking. This commenting system offically sucks. Why would you think it’s a good idea to make me click 5+ times just to view all the comments, click an unknown amount of times to view all the replys to a comment, or if a comment is dugg down have to expand it to see comments below it that aren’t dugg down.” 5000+ diggs and growing

While this isn’t nearly the hysterical fit thrown over the HD DVD Key hissy fit a month ago, there is no outcry over the spell checker.

Why the big change?  The growing popularity of digg was showing its wear on the system.  Each page request needed to render every single comment. And from a design aesthetic, two tier comments don’t lend well to easy-to-read conversation.  By only loading in the first tier comments, the pages load faster and reduce bandwidth.  Sub-tiers only load into the page by clicking on the “expand” icon.

So what’s the problem?  Is it that digg developers are working to make a smarter system?  Changing the way websites bring in user interaction? What’s the matter, freebsdmike, couldn’t find the “Expand Full Tree” button? Not likely, it’s more a case of not liking how it looks and feels.

Back when the story broke about the HD DVD Key, digg almost immediately blocked it.  This resulted in digg users everywhere posting the key all over the place making the initial censorship moot.  Ultimately, digg unblocked the story and its users got to enjoy their victory in sticking it to the man.

This isn’t the same case obviously (posting the DRM key was considered illegal), but the users are reacting in the same manner now as they were then; using digg’s own posting features as its feedback form. I commend Kevin and crew’s position in this, “use the comments, and continue giving us your suggestions” because, hey, at least your still using their ad revenue driven site.  However, at what point does a popularity/voting system reach the saturation point and tip toward “might is right” decision making?

Chris Williams writes for PopSyndicate.  Kevin Rose is on his “friends list”.