Digg's Comment System needs a Tune Up.

Digg is one of my favorite sites for Tech News and other random items which I wouldn’t have come across just browsing the web.

What makes Digg really special is that users can comment on these stories and their comments can be rated by other users. Now many other sites have this but the digg interface is really a great way to view and sort these comments.

However this feature also causes a lot of aggravation to users. I presume Digg uses open source javascript and Ajax components available over the web for the comments. Primary features of which are
1. Hide Show which will make the comments slide in and out.
2. Rate Positive/Negative.
3. Block User.

All of these features utilize Javascript which is being run on the client’s computer eating up CPU cycles. I usually use a IBM Thinkpad X41 with a Pentium M Chip at 1.6 GHZ and 2 GB of Ram. Now although not cutting edge this is by no means and outdated system. Even After a commented page has loaded it takes a few seconds before I can actually start scrolling down or use any of the feature sin the page because the system clock replaces the mouse. If a Story has more than 200 comments it can take anywhere between 10 to 20 seconds before I can actually scroll down. This is very frustrating from an end users perspective and a huge waste of time.

This is where I think the developers need to step in and either rework or replace the modules which cause this slowdown. Another alternative would be to make the comments page more simple and without all the eye candy such as the slide out effects etc.

Just a random thought that came up. Would love to hear back from Diggers what they think about the commenting system. Am sure theres a lot that can be done in this regard.

Hopefully someone at Digg takes note of this fact and helps make Digg an even better user experience.