Digging the New Digg Comments

One of my favorite sites is digg.com (and although I’m dating an employee, I was a fan long before). This week Digg finally released their new comments system.

I know not everyone likes the new comments. It’s tough to get used to them. I went to lunch today with Kevin and Daniel and we chatted about how they really are listening to the user feedback. They care about the user’s opinions and criticisms. They have also been working on redesigning the comments for a long time now and are genuinely trying to provide a better experience - faster page loads, easier to read comments, and less spam. They are also trying to keep different kinds of users in mind, those who just skim the comments as well as those who are more active in the comment discussions.

So maybe we should give ‘em a break. On a related note, this morning I un-joined all the Facebook groups that were hating on the news feeds. Things change…

Meta

This entry was written by Leah, posted on June 22, 2007 at 3:36 pm.

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7 Comments

  1. cannibalrock

    Posted June 22, 2007 at 3:47 pm | Permalink

    hmmm…shameless plug I suppose…though its actually nice to hear that the people on the inside are actually READING the comments rather than counting the hits or comments left.

  2. Andrew Mager

    Posted June 22, 2007 at 7:43 pm | Permalink

    Yes, I like the comments too. I was surprised that most people didn’t like em! The richer web experiences will always taunt semi-effective surfers.

  3. Michael Terry

    Posted June 23, 2007 at 1:31 pm | Permalink

    But do these supposed other sorts of comment viewers matter, and are they really being catered to by the new system? I say no. Depending on the story, I’m both kinds of comment viewer, and the new experience isn’t fun either way.[1] If I’m just browsing casually, I want to see the highest rated comments mostly, not the (what amounts to) random sample of top level comments.[2] And if I’m browsing with purpose, I’m typically visiting the busiest threads, and it takes billions of clicks to finally reveal all the comments. I’m guessing. See footnote 1.

    There is a better way. A much better way. Someday there will be a famous site/comment system/bbs software using my better way and my name will be behind it.

    [1]That’s not to mention that I’ve lost confidence that the system even works, since the first time I clicked to display a thread rooted from a top level comment, they never showed up.
    [2]Maybe this a switch somewhere, but it should be the default.

  4. Kitta

    Posted June 26, 2007 at 12:26 pm | Permalink

    Can’t please every Digger (or should it be Diggr?). From a design point of view, I like the new comment system, much easier to use and faster load time.

  5. Brant Tedeschi

    Posted June 27, 2007 at 3:31 pm | Permalink

    I hate the new comment system. Digg seems to be obsessed with overusing Ajax. They are making it needlessly complex. Simple is better. Follow that model and they will be just fine. :)
    Dating an employee? Hmm. I guess I’ll just assume its the DarkTipster. :(

  6. Bob

    Posted June 28, 2007 at 12:31 am | Permalink

    Unfortunately they’re still terrible.. waiting for the option for the old system.

  7. Chris

    Posted June 29, 2007 at 3:43 pm | Permalink

    Hey Leah,

    Just a thought - tell Kevin to scrap the AJAX fetching for nested comments (preload them), and instead use it to fetch the dugg down comments. The bandwidth savings would likely be about the same because there would be less server hits, and in most cases, you wouldn’t have to wait for the fetch.

    Keep up the good work.