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Rev

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

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*

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.

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25

Sure, but when you've accidentally waited 14 seconds and submitted, to be made to wait another 15 seconds - which you may still guess wrong about - is crazy-making

Kate Gregory
– Kate Gregory

2013年01月17日 19:26:39 +00:00
Commented Jan 17, 2013 at 19:26
3

@KateGregory There's this new-fangled invention that measures time. I think they call it clog or something similar. No need to guess anymore.

Daniel Fischer
– Daniel Fischer

2013年01月17日 19:30:10 +00:00
Commented Jan 17, 2013 at 19:30
14

The thing is, we talk about "frustration", but the problem is not that we don't have patience or time. The problem is that the present solution is a bad user interface design. The comment box looks active, but it is not, and in fact the user gets "punished" for using it. As the instintual animals that humans are, one might even feel like the site is "acting up" against one. What makes it worse is that this site has an otherwise excellent user interface, and it's makers usually make the right decisions regarding the subtleties of human-computer interaction.

jdm
– jdm

2013年01月17日 19:58:21 +00:00
Commented Jan 17, 2013 at 19:58
22

@DanielFischer if I have to start an external timer so I can see if it's 14 seconds or 15 seconds yet, how happy am I with that UI? I find it especially spiteful that it RESTARTS after I misguess. I see no good reason for that at all. It's just a mean joke.

Kate Gregory
– Kate Gregory

2013年01月17日 20:42:00 +00:00
Commented Jan 17, 2013 at 20:42
4

I do not subscribe to the "don't fix poor interfaces — be zen and put up with it" mentality on a website dedicated to reporting problems with the interface.

Lightness Races in Orbit
– Lightness Races in Orbit

2013年08月28日 10:34:49 +00:00
Commented Aug 28, 2013 at 10:34
1

The feature makes me more angry, not less.

Lightness Races in Orbit
– Lightness Races in Orbit

2014年10月29日 17:09:05 +00:00
Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 17:09

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