While sometimes it does look like some kind of throttling on your activity, I wonder if it can also be some kind of general throttling (site-wide)
Though the usability of that message could be improved, as for example, you could be given more info, maybe some timing on when you'd be able to post again, or at least something to let you know before posting
It said I was posting too quickly (regardless of where I tried to post) and I hadn't posted anything in over 45 minutes. Maybe it goes up exponentially or something and I've just never run afoul of it before.
I took a several month break from HN and decided to have a go at participating again.
I now remember one of the main reasons I stopped posting: It seems that if I comment on more than a handful of articles, I am hit with a rate limiting message saying I am posting too fast. I guess I can see the reasoning behind that, but even after waiting several hours I still get the message.
Is this unique to my account or did the rules change earlier this year? It's nearly impossible to participate in productive discussion if you are limited to 5 messages per day.
I've been getting "You're posting too fast. Please slow down." messages a lot lately. Even if I try to post an article within an hour of posting a comment. Did something change? I used to be able to post about 3 times every 10min.
This is what seems to cause “You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks.” to appear for up to two hours. Fittingly, I had to wait two hours to post this comment.
Something else to possibly consider, is the submission rate restrictions, on top of glitches. Like blocking people from submitting a link based on frequency. An example is I submitted 1 link 2 days ago, and an attempt to post a new one gets the "submitting too fast" type message. Possibly some ongoing punishment that was handed out in the past, but appears to have no time limit.
This can arguably be seen as a defacto ban or even censorship if a person is opposed to the reasons for the punishment. 1 submission per 2 or 3 days, is such a reduced frequency of posting level, that the person may not bother anymore. As it is, I don't come around here too much anymore.
The board is not made in PHP. It's made in Arc that is a LISP like language.
"posting too fast message" probably means that the system thinks that you are posting too much. The mods added a los of small tweaks to prevent flamewars and spam. (Sometimes these tweaks block innocent comments by mistake.) The message doesn't mean that the system is too busy.
Anyway, for an official reply you can contact the mods by email hn@ycombinator.com
I seem to recall hitting the limit after posting something like two replies on one story and being confronted with “you’re posting too fast” when trying to post an unrelated comment on another story.
I think the limiter kicks in as soon as one of one’s comments get any downvotes at all (i.e. even when also being mostly upvoted), but I’m obviously not sure about this.
This is obviously very annoying, and I can’t see how it helps discussions.
It's unfortunately true. I know what you mean, but this same warning message shows up in both occasions. With "rate-limited" account it shows up after two posts and then one cannot post for about 6 hours. The message doesn't make sense, it's there like the shadow ban to annoy one and get you to move away from the site eventually. I promise I won't interact again with the admin.
posting too much. Much like HN some reddit groups have a time out to let you cool off if you go over N posts, especially if your account is new. Happens to me a lot since I delete my account and start over ever 3 or 4 months. I don't care about karma more than say enough to not get rate limited.
I spend enough time slacking off with just one account. I can't imagine getting anything done at all with two or three.
Perhaps that is done to avoid the rate limiter?
I can usually only make five posts in one 8-hour span, and then the sixth attempt says, "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks. Also, don't count the number of posts tptacek can make in one thread in one hour and compare it to your total for the entire week, or it might raise your blood pressure."
I am barred from having more than half a conversation in one day, while it seems that [some] others can post as often as they can hit "[reply]". So yes, I do feel censored on HN. The article didn't even mention the post-rate limits.
"You're posting too fast" is a limit that's manually applied to accounts that have a history of "posting too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or getting into flame wars". You can email dang (hn@ycombinator.com) if you think it was applied in error, but if it's been applied to you more than once... you probably have a continuing problem with proliferating flame wars or posting otherwise combative comments.
While sometimes it does look like some kind of throttling on your activity, I wonder if it can also be some kind of general throttling (site-wide)
Though the usability of that message could be improved, as for example, you could be given more info, maybe some timing on when you'd be able to post again, or at least something to let you know before posting
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