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Background:

Allow more than 1 comment upvote in 5 seconds Summary of that thread: "Can we change the 5 second limit on up votes?" Status: "Declined." My interpretation of the reason: An altered time limit might lead to more noise in the signal, the very thing the mechanism is designed to avoid.

My take is this:

The problem is not the time limit, the problem is the failure message behavior. I believe the "you can't upvote on a comment again so soon" message's BEHAVIOR is complete overkill, though I understand the necessity for the underlying time limit mechanism.

Problems with the current error:

  • Brings up a popup.
  • Displays the most visually noisy red error I have yet seen on the site, total overkill.
  • Remains open until you manually click to close it.
  • Provides no indication of when the functionality will actually be available again.

All just to tell you that you're being a bit too eager in your non-value-changing upvoting.

So I argue that the problem isn't the mechanism, it's the presentation, and I think that we can propose something better and much less annoying.

What alternatives can we come up with?

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3
  • I'm all for removing time limits, but 5 seconds? Just, throw a pencil at the ground and pick it up; you're ready to vote again.
    – GManNickG
    Commented Feb 15, 2010 at 6:16
  • 4
    Just remove the time limit altogether. It doesn't solve anything. People are going to vote on comments whether they have to wait 5 seconds or not.
    – endolith
    Commented Nov 24, 2011 at 0:47
  • @GManNickG: Ctrl+W is faster :)
    – Navin
    Commented Nov 10, 2015 at 19:25

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Arrow Fadeout

When an upvote is clicked before the limit is met, turn the up arrow red or some other warning color, but then immediately start fade it back to grey. The fade should take as long as the limit is set for, so once the button has turned fully grey again, the upvote mechanism should be available again.

Optionally, this behavior could be based on the user's reputation:

For less than (e.g.) 300 rep: display the current message. Once the user has a certain amount of rep (e.g. over 300): Display the simpler, less annoying, fadeout.

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2
  • 7
    I like this because you don't have to change the properties on all the arrows to signify they can't be clicked. Instead change the one arrow you did click and fade it so it's obvious when the comment upvote service is available to you again.
    – Pollyanna
    Commented Feb 12, 2010 at 20:38
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    This is close, but why not hide all the arrows when a vote is made and then fade them back in so that they're back to full when you can vote again?
    – Joel Coehoorn
    Commented Mar 8, 2011 at 19:43
5

X out arrow until upvoting is available again.

Display an alternative image to the up arrow (e.g. an X) and then replace the arrow after the limit is lifted.

(Can potentially be dependent on rep level as with the answer above.)

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1
  • This could also include a hover hint, in case people don't understand why it's X'd out. (Mouse over the x, get a tooltip saying that it's expiring in 3... 2... 1... [dynamic number.])
    – lindes
    Commented Sep 6, 2013 at 22:44
3

The comment vote throttles have been removed, so this doesn't need to be implemented.

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