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My moderation activities on CV were abruptly curtailed due to a

Daily vote limit reached ...

message when trying to upvote a comment. It's pointless to continue further today if I cannot use such a standard tool.

What is the reason to apply such a limitation to moderators? Given all the other things we can do on the site that are much more drastic, surely there is enough trust to allow mods to upvote as many comments as they see fit? (A site search did not turn up any discussion of the comment vote limitation in this regard.)

How about removing this limit or at least changing it to a friendly warning message for mods without hindering them?

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    Maybe I don't understand since I am not a moderator but why do you need to be able to upvote a comment in order to moderate comments?
    – Joe W
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:00
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    I agree with this considering we can already comment without any rate limits. I don't think it's as drastic of a problem as you're saying, but I do feel it is a worthwhile change.
    – hichris123
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:01
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    @hichris123 and whuber, can you elaborate? How would unlimited comment votes make your life as a moderator easier? (Beyond the obvious "I won't hit the limit" type stuff).
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:16
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    @AnnaLear Not really a problem on a small site, but if it's a larger site, I'd want to be able to upvote comments by other users before deleting a post (i.e. I'd like to at least give some indicator of why I'm deleting). Not a major thing, of course. Also, the The Complete Rate-Limiting Guide seems to think moderators already have unlimited comment upvotes... (traced back to this revision)
    – hichris123
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:21
  • @hichris123 Looks like that revision was made when the "5 seconds between votes" limit was taken out. The implication that there isn't or shouldn't be a limit on the # of votes is unfortunate.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:26
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    @AnnaLear (1) Often it's easier to upvote an apt comment rather than post one yourself. (2) Upvoted comments go towards the top and remain visible. (3) Upvotes help encourage people who post useful, appropriate comments. (4) An upvote is an easy way to acknowledge that somebody has read a comment and as such is useful feedback. (5) If a mod is doing anything in a consistently constructive manner, why build in a system-wide inhibition to prevent that behavior? How do you think extensive upvoting of comments by mods could be harmful?
    – whuber
    Dec 18, 2014 at 0:53
  • @whuber It's not so much that I think it'd be actively harmful; it's that I don't see a compelling reason to make an exception. Would it be nice to have? Sure. Is it necessary? I'm not convinced. Either way, you should edit your question here to include the five points you just listed in your comment.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 18, 2014 at 0:58
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    @Joe (and several others) That's a good question. I think it's important to do whatever we can to make people feel good about interacting on SE. Following that principle gets one into the habit of trying to post positive comments and doing everything else to give positive reinforcement for desired behaviors. That includes upvoting comments. Comments, however much they might be deprecated, serve an obviously useful function. People contributing them in appropriate and useful ways deserve to know that. But it would not be appropriate always to post additional comments to say so!
    – whuber
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:01
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    Still confused at how a user is supposed to know the upvote on a comment came from a moderator and what it is supposed to mean giving the second class status that comments have in the stack exchange network.
    – Joe W
    Dec 19, 2014 at 13:42
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    @Joe I don't believe I ever intimated users were supposed to see a difference. The biggest distinction between an (active) mod and most users is the additional workload undertaken by the moderator in curating the site. The issue raised here is that an artificial restraint--evidently designed to avoid potential abuse--can curtail a moderator's activities, so why should that restraint be applied to mods (or any high-rep users)? If you think it's a good thing to restrict how much a moderator can do, then you should support the status quo.
    – whuber
    Dec 19, 2014 at 16:32

1 Answer 1

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Why do you think you as a mod deserve more votes on comments? As said in comments, they are not a moderation tool. In fact, comments are there to support the post and can vanish after time, but you know that.

I see where you are coming from, just like power users like to have more upvotes or downvotes, but they are not necessary.

I think it is a sign of fairness to other users: a moderator is here to moderate, after that, he is just a regular user.

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    -1. Responding to a comment with just an upvote might be a way to respond faster and save some time. Moderators get pinged many times a day.
    – Andre Silva
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:34
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    @AndreSilva If a moderator is responding to a user's ping with an upvote... that's arguably the worst way to respond. How do they know who upvoted? Upvoting as a response is as good as not getting back to the user at all.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 17, 2014 at 22:48
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    @AnnaLear, I mean about comments which the most likely answer would be: 'thank you for letting me know', or 'yes, I agree'. Moreover, If I were a moderator I'd like to show optimism by upvoting comments I agree when engaging into a discussion.
    – Andre Silva
    Dec 17, 2014 at 23:23
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    @AndreSilva I think you overestimate the number of "thank you" comments that need upvoting. :)
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 17, 2014 at 23:23
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    The primary moderation reason to upvote a comment is to explain a vote (up, down, close, etc.). If moderators can't vote on comments, then the only way to indicate support of a comment is to post their own. That's why comments have upvotes, so that you can reinforce a comment without repeating it. So perhaps upvotes on comments on a post where someone voted or flagged should not count against the limit.
    – Brythan
    Dec 18, 2014 at 0:05
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    For what it's worth - and I realize this is entirely anecdata - I never ran out of comment upvotes even back when I was moderating Stack Overflow. Most comments just aren't that important.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 18, 2014 at 0:21
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    @Anna How you moderate should not determine limits on how others moderate. I tend to leave extensive comments both to encourage and explain (you can check the moderator stats on both CV and GIS where I have a long record). As a result, I manage a very large number of other comments by voting (and deleting). Limiting how I can interact in any way on the site thereby limits my options as moderator, which necessarily will limit how much I can engage with the site. (Maybe that's a good thing, you're thinking... :-)
    – whuber
    Dec 18, 2014 at 0:57
  • @whuber Of course it shouldn't (and it generally doesn't). However, you are still not limited from leaving comments. :) I'm mildly curious how many moderators network-wide run out of comment votes. How widespread this is would affect my take on it - not that I'm vetoing the request or anything.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:00
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    @Anna I doubt it would be widespread: this is the first time I encountered it. But why impose a limit needlessly? If you must have a compelling reason to make any improvement, eventually you will find no reasons to improve the site at all and it will die a death of a thousand little cuts. Regardless, shouldn't the positive, open governing principle of "get out of the way and let people make their contributions" trump the negative, closed principle of "show me why I should let anybody do anything?"
    – whuber
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:05
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    @whuber My inner software developer is objecting to a special case for the sake of "why not". It may well be that the maintenance cost here is worth it. That's what you're trying to convince me/us of. :)
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:06
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    @AnnaLear I believe all of us can appreciate the maintenance cost issue. You should, however, distinguish between the validity of a suggestion and the cost (or practicability) of implementing it. Confounding the two sends confusing, inconsistent messages. It would be fine to say "Yes, having the capability you request would be good, but it's likely other requests will have better cost/benefit ratios." If you also made it very clear what all the built-in site limitations are--rather than having them come as surprises--these little things would not come up as often.
    – whuber
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:10
  • @whuber I'm not sure where I said that I think this suggestion is invalid. I personally disagree that it's worth implementing, but that's different. I apologize for giving the wrong impression here.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:12
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    @AnnaLear Whether this suggestion (or any other) is worth implementing is not something we can rationally disagree over: because I haven't the information needed to know what the costs are and what the competing priorities are, I cannot take an informed position on that. All I can do is try to let you know about the things that affect one's abilities to moderate the site and provide ideas for how moderation could be improved.
    – whuber
    Dec 18, 2014 at 1:17

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