Comment Limit

Question

What is the limit to the number of comments per day?  It seems to be very low (~2?).  Between the limits on comments, and on private messages, not being in a trusted list makes it very hard to make progress on merging and inquiring about profiles.

Would it be possible to relax these limits?  I understand it is due to spammers, but the limits seem too low as is.

Edit: the text that pops up says "After attacks by spammers we were forced to place a limit on the number of comments per day. You will need to post your comment in 24 hours or use a Private Message or email instead. We're sorry for this inconvenience."

Thank you,

Sharon

Comments

I am surprised to see that this limit also includes "bulletin board messages" - including on pages I manage myself.   I wanted to post content in the bulletin portion rather than the body of the page - and it seems I had better copy it somewhere to a scratch pad if I am to remember.

Answer 1

It is usually 10 message a day but I didn't know there was a limit on comments.  Have you tried leaving messages on the Bulleton Board of the profiles you are interested in?

Comments

I have been getting an on-screen pop-up similar to the one for private messages after I have entered Public Comments on pages for a few ID's (depending on how they are counted, ~ 8).  Maybe I am the only one seeing this and it could be a glitch...?

---

Mary and Sharon,

The limit is 10 comments or private messages per 24 hour period.

Three reasons the limit is confusing:

1.) It's the combined total of comments and private messages.

2.) It's 24 hours not one calendar day, so you might experience the limit over two days, e.g. one night and the next morning.

3.) Limits are relaxed for trusted Greeters like Mary, so she wouldn't be seeing the same limits that Sharon sees.

Confusing, I know. :-)

We should relax the limits. We haven't had a problem with this particular type of spam abuse in a while.

Chris

---

Thank you for your response Chris.

It would be great if the limits could be relaxed a little.

Thanks,

Sharon

---

It has been relaxed!

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Daily_limits_on_messages

---

YAY!  Thank you very much, Chris!

---

Greetings, Chris. When does a new member stop being a new member and so increase their comment limit. Thanks!

Answer 2

Sharon:

The purpose of the limit, (since it sends an email to the profile manager for the profile you post the comment on), is to prevent folks from getting a bunch of unexpected/unwanted emails on a given day when perhaps an energetic WikiTree'r is chasing down a particular line.  It is not meant to personally frustrate someone nor to prohibit their working on particular profiles.  It is there merely and primarily to safeguard people's online privacy and traffic.

Thank you for your work on WikiTree and for your question here.

~ Keith

Comments

Hi Keith, thank you for your reply.

Can you tell me what the limit is? It seems to be around 8 for these type comments.

It is having the effect of causing frustration, because it means that I will have to write down and save the questions I am finding and post them on subsequent days when I may have less time to spend on it than on the weekend.  Perhaps there needs to be a place where the comments are saved, and then the user (ii.e., me or whoever is an "energetic WikiTreer ;) ) can forward them on...?

I certainly understand the concern about traffic. I'm not sure I understand how it is an online privacy concern.  Just curious, is this a limit the Profile Manager community has asked for?  Personally, as a profile manager (but a new WikiTreer), I would rather see the inquiries and have the choice of when to respond, than have a user asking a legitimate question on one of my profiles feel stymied by the comment limit.

Thank you :)

Sharon

---

Sharon:

Since I am not a member of the development team I can't address all of the points you mention, so this is only what I think regarding a couple of them:

I think the system limits the number of emails generated by any user to 10 per day whether they are comments on a profile bulletin board or private messages.  This limit does not apply to Leaders nor Team members -  (I'm hoping the reason for this relaxed application will be obvious).

As the pop-up language explains, some of these safeguards came about after spamming occured.  It not only can happen, it has happened and caused a great deal of damage for WikiTree and those users affected.  Safeguarding against spamming at some level seems a responsible way to operate a Wiki site - to me, at least. ; )

As for input of the "Profile Manager Community", I would like to mention that WikiTree just passed 200,000 users - pretty tough to poll that large a population of such an eclectic assemblage of humans.

Thanks again for your commitment to WikiTree.

~ Keith

---

Thanks again Keith.

In my opinion if the limit for any one "regular" user is to generate at most 10 emails a day, that seems pretty restrictive to me. A spammer would typically try to send hundreds or thousands - not just 10 or even 20.  I certainly agree with protections against spammers. There are other technical ways of dealing with spammers, though.

Yes, polling 200K people would be tough; I didnt realize there were so many :)

it just seems to me that if we are trying to promote WikiTree as a single source of ancestry information, and trying to encourage more users to embrace it, the limits on asking questions/posting comments needs to be higher. I think there may be way to solve the spam concerns without frustrating or alienating well-intended users if we understand what the requirements/challenges truly are.

I guess I'll go to the beach now since I can't post anything else that generates an email ;)

Thanks again.  I appreciate you taking time to respond :)

---

Hi Sharon,

Trust me, we use or have used just about every approach to fight spammers under the sun. It's a constant battle. One weapon is not enough.

The idea of the limit is to contain the damage a spammer does. Spammers will get through. Only enabling them to send 10 messages means that the member(s) who gets those 10 spam messages through WikiTree and their Internet or e-mail provider will be less likely to label WikiTree as a spammer.

That said, I think we can raise the limit. It's been a while since we've had spammers abusing this particular aspect of WikiTree.

Chris

---

Thanks again, Chris.

I'm sure Wikitree uses spam tools, such as wordpress sites do, so hopefully that keeps spam activity to a smaller quantity.

Sharon

Answer 3

A "workaround" is to be more involved in Wikitree as a Volunteer  http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/volunteers 

then your limit is "opened" up;-)
------

A Greeter is:  - (The Greeters Project)

• A special volunteer who is friendly, hospitable and enjoys meeting new people.

• A Wiki Genealogist who has signed the Honor Code.

• A member who joined WikiTree more than one month ago and either has a good understanding of WikiTree principles and procedures or knows where to find the answers.

Comments

Not a work around.  Please refrain from joining the Greeters if your intended purpose is to post more messages. The purpose of the group is to greet and confirm new members along with answering questions. 

If you truly want to greet that's awesome.  The project would love to have more greeters.

You can always use private messages. 

---

"workaround"...