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Do not allow to repeat same comment again and again. See the below image as example case.

screenshot

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  • 9
    Here's the poster. LOL @ rant in the "about me" section. Here's the dupe that just got deleted.
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 2, 2011 at 6:56
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    @Null I like when people flip out in their profiles; it's an easy way to tell the difference between people that are having a bad day and people that are just rude all the time
    – Michael Mrozek
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:12
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    @MichaelMrozek For further amusement, here's another rant of his. I love the closing statement
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:21
  • Preventing the same comment is not a good solution for what actual is the problem here: spamming.
    – egaga
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:35
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    I would just go with reporting such thing and sending the one spamming to chill out in the suspension box for a week or SO.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:14
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    @NullUserExceptionஇ_இ: Too bad we can't close his answer as being subjective. That'll show him.
    – Jeff Mercado
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:21
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    I can't believe he wasn't contacted/suspended. Yet.
    – user1228
    Oct 3, 2011 at 11:14
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    Just have the mod who handles these comments flag them all as offensive (-100 rep each) instead of using the delete button.
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Oct 3, 2011 at 12:38
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    If you can point to other times when this was a problem, I'd probably support the proposal. As it is, I don't think there's good reason to create a rule that would affect only a few users, especially where the problem's impact is very, very small. A suspension is the perfect response to this solution, and this person obviously needs some hand-on care anyway. Making it impossible to do this, as DanBeale points out, is merely going to cause them to vent their frustration in possibly more annoying ways.
    – Pollyanna
    Oct 3, 2011 at 13:11

2 Answers 2

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There's an idiom: "give 'em enough rope".

Someone who lashes out like this does little harm to anything (I'm guessing it's easy enough to clear up) and is clearly visible.

Removing this outlet means they might concentrate on other forms of anger, which might be harder to spot and harder to clear up.

5 seconds is, for a few of the faster typists here, a bit frustrating. (Not me, I'm just 50 wpm.) Allowing them only 1 comment per minute would not be fun.

Perhaps limit the comment rate for people with less than X reputation? But only if this is actually a problem.

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    +1 Not more rate limiting because of one problem user please.
    – Martin Smith
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:07
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    I think the point of the request was to prevent repeating the same exact comment rather than rate limiting the comments. Being able to comment frequently isn't that much of a problem but under no circumstances should anyone be able to repeat the same exact thing over and over again. Of course, that's not to say that it's fool proof, people will get around it if they wanted to.
    – Jeff Mercado
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:17
  • @JeffMercado - of course repeating the exact same comment X times is silly, but it's less harmful than other stuff people could do, it's really visible, and it's (AFAIK, ICBW) easy to clean up. Preventing repetition of the same comment may push some people to other forms of venting, which are harder to detect and clean.
    – DanBeale
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:58
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    To discourage specific behaviors like this, SO already has a solution called Penalty Box. I agreed with most of the comments here. Without implementing complex logic to control this kind of rare situations, it is better to handle it by the SO community. proper flagging will help moderators to do the needful.
    – Damith
    Oct 3, 2011 at 16:19
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I recently saw that actual question on Stack Overflow. He did this "masterpiece" because the community (some users) closed the question for being an exact duplicate.

The problem is that I see more and more of this these days. It is really irritating for me as well.

A solution could be to limit the user to submit one comment every minute. 5 seconds are nothing. If everyone would post a comment every 5 seconds, Stack Overflow would be an uncontrolled chat room. Also the hosting would cost more as well :)

Summary: Increase the time between two comments to stop spam and dups.

Edit:

Or there could be another more efficient and intelligent way of doing this. You could make the time limit proportionate to the user's reputation. Like:

If someone has 20k+ rep - the time limit is 3 secs

10k+ rep - 5 secs

5k+ rep - 10 secs

2k+ rep - 15 secs

1k+ rep - 20 secs

500+ rep - 25 secs

100+ rep - 30 secs

15> - 60 secs

Maybe this would be a more interesting and safe solution. Just an idea though...

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    The time limit is 15 seconds, not 5. The worst part is the "Only 1 comment per 15 seconds. You only waited 14 seconds. Timer reset bwahahahahah"
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:15
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    (although on meta it's 5 seconds.)
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:15
  • Yes on SO it is 15 seconds, but on meta it is only 5 secs...
    – Akos
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:18
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    The user in question had over 3k rep, so they wouldn't have been subject to the majority of the increased limits.
    – Troyen
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:20
  • @Troyen Yes you are right, but think that if you have built your reputaion up and up to 3k, you don't want to get banned for such a little thing.
    – Akos
    Oct 2, 2011 at 7:23
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    @Troyen 3k rep from 453 questions... S/he's got only about 100 points from her/his 22 answers. All that rep comes from the questions.
    – NullUserException อ_อ
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:30
  • @NullUserExceptionஇ_இ agreed...
    – Akos
    Oct 2, 2011 at 8:31

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