Please make the multiple comment timer less annoying (non-resetting etc.)

Question

As a little feature to prevent comment spam, you can only enter one comment every 15 seconds. That's a very reasonable limitation, since you very rarely have a good reason to write comments that quickly. I've only seen it twice at all, I think, but both times it was extremely annoying.

Only 1 comment allowed per 15 seconds; timer reset.

The reason is that every time you hit the limit, the 15 seconds begin anew. You have no indicator that tells you when you are allowed to comment again, and if you hit enter after just 14 seconds, you're back to zero. Yesterday, I went through four cycles of not quite 15 seconds, counting in my head, before I got a myself a coffee and tried again afterwards.

I suggest that you do one or more of the following (in decreasing order):

• Make the counter non-restarting
• Add a visible countdown
• Make it clearly visible that you can't comment right now
• You can actually increase the waiting time, if it is clearly visible and there is no unnerving invisible countdown. Actually, just remove all comment fields after one comment, and tell the user to reload the page. Just please don't have UI elements that look like they would work, but feel like they are trolling you.

Answer 1

Comment (and comment-voting) rate-limiting is one of the most irritating features on these sites and there are many requests to fix it, here's one.

Not everyone can time 15-seconds in their head well, and the big irritant is that once you get the message the timer reboots itself. So you get to sit there trying to time it again; it's like a game, but not a fun one.

EDIT: The comment voting rate limit has been eliminated, as per here.

Answer 2

Oh yes this is incredibly annoying!

There cannot be a reasonable argument for the auto-reset. I type and think quickly, and I multi-task. What begins as a reasonably quick comment job on a few answers on the same question (or even on different question on different tabs) becomes an arduous cat-and-mouse game with the SO interface.

And why? Because the interface wants me to "take more care and attention"? Thanks but I'll be the judge of that. This just hinders my workflow.

Answer 3

Quoting points 2 and 3 from your suggestions:

• Add a visible countdown
• Make it clearly visible that you can't comment right now

Addressing those, here is a userscript that does three things:

• adds a timer to the error message
• disables the comment form submit button for the duration of the timeout
• lets you know when it is safe to comment (error message changes)

Here is a screenshot:

It would be nice if we could get something like this for all the timeout errors we have on the site.

// ==UserScript==
// @name        Comment Timer
// @namespace   http://example.com
// @include     http://meta.stackoverflow.com/*
// @version     1
// ==/UserScript==

$(document).ajaxComplete(function(e, xhr, options) {
    if(xhr.status == 409 && xhr.responseText == "Only 1 comment allowed per 15 seconds; timer reset."){
        var span = $('<span class="timer">15</span>'),
            interval;
        $('.error-message').append(" Time remaining: ", span);
        function callback(){
            var time = ~~$(this).text();
            if(--time>0){
                $(this).text(time).delay(1000).queue(callback).dequeue();
            }else{
                $(this).parent().text("You may submit your comment now.");
                $(this).remove();
            }
        }
        span.delay(1000).queue(callback);
        $('.comment-form input[type="submit"]').stop(true, true).prop('disabled', true).animate({dummy:1},15000).queue(function(){
            $(this).prop('disabled', false);
        });
    }
});

Answer 4

FTR, I have never changed my mind about a comment based on the timer being reset. I think the reason the timer was reset was to prevent users from pressing ENTER ENTER ENTER ENTER until the comment went through.

Was there a serious technical reason for needing to stop users from banging their keyboards? Or was it just "HEY! STOP BANGING YOUR KEYBOARD! THAT'S IT. YOU'RE WAITING LONGER NOW."

Another thing you could do to ease tension is show a little clock icon, about the size of the edit pencil. The clock fills up with black or red and when it is completely full, wait time is up.

Answer 5

I don't know enough JavaScript to attempt implementing this idea myself, or even to know if it is realistically possible, but as a work-around how about a userscript that enables you to enter multiple comments quickly, but buffers them and submits them to the system at 20 second intervals.

Answer 6

Replace the timer reset with an automatic flag for too many comments in too short a period of time.

• The resetting timer is an annoyance. Yes, Jeff is right when he said that we must design for abuse. However, Jeff has tended to prefer strong automated solutions, even where it interferes with the user experience, because they avoid burdening moderators. Comment abuse is rare, so I don't believe this is an issue. As much as we want to avoid overburdening our "human exception handlers", there is often no substitute for human intervention.

• Instead of resetting the timer on trying to post more than one comment per 15 seconds, have Community ♦ raise a flag on the last comment posted if some user posts more than, say, 12 comments in 5 minutes. That way, if someone or something does decide to abuse the commenting feature, it can be taken care of effectively.

• The rate limit itself should stand at 15 seconds per comment.

Answer 7

Patience, padawan.

There are reasons this system is in place that go beyond spam protection. By forcing users to pause for fifteen seconds, they do just that: pause. If someone's posting an angry comment, they pause. It eases frustration and forces users to think for more than three seconds about what they're posting.

Of course it's a spam protection filter, but it also prevents careless comments. It also prompts, for thoughtful users, that they should instead edit their previous comment (when applicable).

And for those few users who can generate two well-thought-out comments in a span of fifteen seconds: patience. You do yourself no good obsessing over wasted seconds.

Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying I enjoy waiting, nor that my time is valueless. What I'm saying is that I do not let a fifteen second pause in my day frustrate me, much in the same way that being cut off does not frustrate me. I do my best to be patient with delays, and to stop the little things like this from bothering me. You don't have to agree with me. Still, I prefer the calm of patience to the stress of meticulous temporal preservation.