For centuries, China has offered its people a chance to come to Beijing to petition the emperor directly to address grievances.

But starting Monday, Chinese officials offered a new way for those not inclined to make the trip: petition online. That makes the process more convenient, said officials who spoke to state media, and allows them to track the process of their pleas.

As it turned out, progress was scant: The website crashed on the first day. While it came back online Monday afternoon, the morning failure triggered mockery across China's social media platforms, including the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service.

"Sorry! Weibo brought too many people to the page," said Li Kaifu, CEO of Innovation Works, who has more than 46 million followers on the site.

Many Weibo users said they expected the crash due to the number of potential petitioners. Some interpreted the government's use of a server that couldn't handle the first-day traffic as a sign of insincerity.