I had an interesting chat just now with Twitter's CEO Evan Williams (@ev) about the company's #fixreplies, #twitterfail problems this week (in which a status change that apparently impacted just 2% of Twitter users ignited a firestorm.)
I asked him what had driven their decision to change how replies worked. Engineering issues or (as originally stated) a desire to reduce user confusion?
Answer: Both.
(And now I'm paraphrasing him, not quoting): The engineering issue was significant in that even though the vast majority of users were on the default option (of seeing only those replies that go to others you follow) the system still had to investigate the relevant status of all of a user's followers every time he/she submitted a reply. But equally important was the fact that the choices were simply confusing. Twitter's ethos has always been that if you keep the rules simple and clear, users will do amazing things. They were noticing that many, perhaps most, Twitter users weren't 100% clear on who would see their replies. (I was among them.) The concept of 'mutual friend/follower' is not obvious and having the extra two choices (that v few were using) made it that much more confusing. Different users would treat replies in different ways, expanding the confusion. It's not always the case that more individual choice is a good thing for the overall system. Simplicity and clarity are really important for a well-functioning community.
And then the endearing bit: "Look we know we screwed up the way this was handled." But they'd learned a lot from the episode and were determined it be turned to the good, by using the torrent of feedback to build a stronger solution than before. From what he hinted at, they're well on the way.
The temporary fix is here. But they'll have something better soon. (And he also said they would fix a confusing bug in the old Twitter search engine: currently, when you click to reply to a listed name, their @name does not appear in the text-box as it should.)
If I had to guess, I'd say they'll come out of this OK. They're smart guys, with an obsessive commitment to the explosively-growing Twitter community. Exhibit A: this talk Evan gave at TED this year.
It's not been their best week, but in the immortal words of Friedrich Nietsche "That which does not kill you, makes you stronger."