Cancer and spam are just about the only thing you’ll ever find in the comments section below most web articles, which is why so many websites have decided to do away with comments sections entirely, but Digg wants to solve the problem, not just avoid it. In what’s probably going to be the most significant thing the website has done in years, Digg is working on a new product called Digg Dialog, which it hopes will be able to foster in-depth discussions on articles instead of asinine bickering and middle school-level arguments.
Social news site Digg is working on an ambitious project: rebuilding the comments section that lives below articles, so that journalists and readers can communicate with each other without the spam and vitriol that dominates many commenting platforms on the web. Dubbed “Digg Dialog,” the new product debuts on Friday and will feature Paul Ford, the author of Businessweek’s must-read coding issue, discussing an upcoming piece on Wikipedia for the rebooted New Republic. As described by The Verge, Digg Dialog is an attempt to create an in-depth discussion of the articles that Digg features, and have those chats become destinations in themselves—similar to what Product Hunt and Reddit have created with their own Q&A features. Unlike Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” section and Product Hunt Live, however, Digg’s chats will be built around specific articles rather than general topics or notable individuals.
