If you look at images of rotary phone dials I think you will see that it is 0 and 1 that can be dialed easily without vision. Only in New Zealand can 9 be dialed so easily (they use a different dial, however unbelievably).
At rest the rotary dial was at say null. As soon as you moved it over a number and then released it, that was the number that was dialled. 0 and 1 were first (obvs). When you hit the backstop (a small metal shim) then you had hit nine. It isn't as bad an interface as it might sound. You would get feedback via a series of clicks as the dial returned to null and also via force (springs etc).
There really was a good reason for picking 999 originally and the world has moved on since but I still assert that 999 is a far better number (or nowadays: a symbol) for invoking an emergency call than any other number.
I too used rotary phones - I'm 28 (if it makes a difference) and I grew up in a former Soviet republic. The phone had a dial with 10 holes in it: 1-9 followed by 0 (just like on a modern phone keypad, by the way). You stick your finger in a hole over the digit and rotate clockwise until the the stop. Then, take the finger out and wait for it to rotate back to the original position. Then you dial the next digit.
I'm not sure what to tell you to do to fix this problem, but I thought you might want to know. I think the site tries to trick you into thinking everyone can see your comments when they're actually made dead. So you might never know.
What did yours look like?
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you are saying, which is entirely possible.