59

It's a shame to type out an entire question, press post and then:

Sorry, you are only allowed to ask 50 questions in a 30 day period

Could you put some sort of notice on the page itself before submitting it to let you know the question won't be going through? Or perhaps tell me how many questions I've asked in the last 30 days if it's >0?

Edit

This is not a complaint or statement about the limit, just a request that the error handling be done in a slightly better way to save people a lot of time.

Improve this question
17
  • 21
    It's simply incredible to me how many people this is hitting. In the entire 200+ days I've been an active member, I've asked 3 questions. I probably could have asked 10 if I tried really really hard. I just can't understand how you could ask 50 good questions in a 30 day period.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    May 3, 2011 at 8:57
  • possible duplicate of 50 question per month limit?
    – fretje
    May 3, 2011 at 8:59
  • 4
    @Ftet it's not a duplicate, of that question at least
    – Tom
    May 3, 2011 at 9:02
  • 2
    @Cody people are different, I'm probably not as experienced as you so need to ask more I guess
    – Tom
    May 3, 2011 at 9:02
  • 1
    I'm not nearly as experienced as my reputation might indicate... But anyway, I'm not in favor of raising the cap, but I see nothing wrong with a notification that one has hit that cap, so +1.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    May 3, 2011 at 9:04
  • This might be a bit hard to implement for unregistered accounts, where the user details are sent while posting the question. I'm not sure if the development effort is worth it then.
    – Arjan
    May 3, 2011 at 9:09
  • 2
    @fretje it's not a dupe
    – Pekka
    May 3, 2011 at 9:09
  • 11
    @Arjan: Then don't implement it for unregistered accounts. If they don't care enough to register, then they don't get handy little features like this. It seems to my completely inexperienced self that this would be trivial to implement for registered accounts, and that it'd probably be doing them a favor.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    May 3, 2011 at 9:12
  • But then, @Cody, there would be two paths in the code: one for registered accounts and another for unregistered accounts. Surely no rocket science, but I really don't mind that questions askers who exceed this limit need to copy their question to try again later. (And, very theoretical: the limit might not be exceeded at the time of posting, while it might be exceeded at the time of browsing to the /questions/ask page. ;-))
    – Arjan
    May 3, 2011 at 9:16
  • 1
    @Arjan just a notice at the top saying "You can ask again in x hours" would be handy if your logged in at least, or even, in my profile just list how many questions I've asked in the last 30 days
    – Tom
    May 3, 2011 at 9:18
  • 1
    Just saying I don't care much for this enhancement. (Many other feature requests or even bugs in need of some time too.)
    – Arjan
    May 3, 2011 at 9:20
  • 2
    If you did get this warning, what effect would it have on your behavior? Would you spend some more time investigating, trying to find the solution yourself? or would you ask anyway?
    – Brian Reichle
    May 3, 2011 at 9:21
  • 2
    While the limit itself can be discussed I personally think that letting a person formulate his question (formulating a good question takes time) and then just formally reject it is Interface Done Bad.
    – sharptooth
    Jun 14, 2011 at 14:14
  • 1
    i hit the 30 day limit easily working with node.js. Not a ton of info out there yet. and SO is a great resource for finding answers. I would like to know how many questions I have left for the day/month when I post. Rather than be blind sided by it when I need an answer the most.
    – chovy
    Oct 11, 2012 at 23:45
  • 1
    At the very least, we should be able to earn more access by answering questions. I cannot wait 30 days to ask a question.
    – chovy
    Oct 11, 2012 at 23:57

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
38

I agree. We should not be permitting users to fill out the ask question form if we already know that the submission will be rejected.

When they press the ask question button or go to the ask question page (and honestly, they probably have that page bookmarked to be asking 2-3 times a day) then we should:

  • display a message stating that they have reached their limit
  • indicate how long they should wait before trying again (if they just hit their limit it should be under 24 hours)
  • provide a link to the relevant FAQ questions here on meta so they don't feel the need to ask Yet Another Duplicate (TM)
  • disable the text entry boxes and submit button

I can see the point of not expending the effort - honestly most of the people that this is affecting put no real thought into their questions, and so it's at most a loss of 5 minutes of work. However there are a few users who are otherwise reasonable stack overflow users, and we shouldn't be stubbing their toes with bad user interface design simply because they are hitting a limit that we consider abusive.

Improve this answer
5

When someone presses the submit button and they have X or fewer questions left in the next 24 hours, post a message to their mailbox, "You are near your limit for asking questions," with a link to the relevant FAQ.

I'm not convinced that giving them too much information is a good idea, since we don't want to train people to stay at the limit by asking exactly the number of questions they have.

Improve this answer
2
  • Submitted as a separate idea so people could vote up the implementation they like better. I'm not a big fan of this one, but it might be easier to implement than the other one.
    – Pollyanna
    May 3, 2011 at 12:16
  • I would like to think that not knowing how many questions remain would encourage people to conserve them more by spending a little more time trying to find the solution themselves ... but then again, I have it on good authority that not everyone thinks like I do.
    – Brian Reichle
    May 3, 2011 at 13:21

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .