1

I'm a fast typer and I have a habit of wanting to speak in many small sentences one after the other.

Example:

UserA: @Raynos snarling You go and fool around with Linux ^^
Me: Of course
Me: install linux
Me: install git

It's almost impossible to send many small statements one after the other without triggering the anti spam system. It's rather frustrating.

Not only this but when I'm active in multiple rooms in parallel the anti spam system seems to trigger more often.

Could the spam protection system be reduced. Maybe based on some rep gate or chat room activity gate.

I havn't actually seen the spam system defend against real spam which either means its very effective or not neccessary

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  • 7
    inb4 "herp derp write out the whole thought before you hit enter."
    – Incognito
    Sep 21, 2011 at 19:55
  • 2
    As a person, I have a strong habit to not think before I say something but stream my thoughts directly. This has both advantages and disadvantages. I have no desire to change this.
    – Raynos
    Sep 21, 2011 at 19:56

2 Answers 2

9

Suggested fix: Hitting enter in rapid succession should append a line to your previous message in the chat as if it were an edit, which leads to a seamless experience.

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  • 2
    I quite like this idea. Might be worth working it into a user-script to gauge the effect...
    – Shog9
    Sep 21, 2011 at 20:00
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    I suggest: It should append only if you're the most recent post in the chat, limit it to 15 or something.
    – Incognito
    Sep 21, 2011 at 20:03
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    This is a great solution -- I only run into this rate-limiting when saying something about a link then posting the link as a separate message so it gets oneboxed. As a separate line, it will still get oneboxed. +1
    – user154510
    Sep 21, 2011 at 21:23
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    @MatthewRead it isn't being on its own line that is important. It needs to be the only thing in the message. Multi-line messages are not parsed for oneboxes or markdown formatting. Sep 21, 2011 at 21:54
  • @RebeccaChernoff What's the issue in parsing multi-line in that way?
    – Incognito
    Sep 21, 2011 at 22:10
  • @Incognito It "totally defeats the purpose of chat" to support people sending large blocks of text. Apparently Sep 21, 2011 at 22:13
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    @RebeccaChernoff Ah, my bad, I must have misread something. Thanks for clarifying. In that case I don't like this solution.
    – user154510
    Sep 21, 2011 at 22:35
7

Rather than the limit being 1 message per second, or whatever it is right now, I'd prefer to see it be 5 messages per 5 seconds or something similar. It's the same rate over time, but allows for short bursts. This is how most successful IRC rooms and other chat systems (that I've seen) do it and it seems like a more natural limit.

I would think in the vast majority of cases where a user posts 2 messages in rapid succession, they are not spamming. And it's not like you can clog up a chat with 2 messages!

To avoid "slow" clogging the rate should get harsher with increasing time. For example:

  • 5 posts per 5 seconds
  • 10 posts per 15 seconds
  • 15 posts per 45 seconds
  • 20 posts per 120 seconds

These further limits could possibly not be applied to moderators, in order to prevent Rebecca from being blocked during Town Hall discussions and so on :P

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    Limit exceptions should be a configuration for the room owners, rather than moderator-exclusive.
    – Incognito
    Sep 22, 2011 at 14:48
  • this is already how it works, but our limits are conservative. I see no reason to change them; complete a thought before randomly hitting enter. Sep 24, 2011 at 22:36
  • @JeffAtwood I hit the limits when posting a link I want oneboxed after describing it. Provide a good way to have something oneboxed without being in a message by itself and I wouldn't mind the limits.
    – user154510
    Sep 25, 2011 at 0:27
  • Such as this.
    – user154510
    Jan 25, 2012 at 18:20

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