Time delay between posts: 15,360 seconds?

Most forums usually ask you to wait 15-30 seconds before a second consecutive post, but 15,360 is a bit excessive, no?

It used to be 960 seconds (which is itself excessive), then it kept doubling every time I tried! I realize it's probably a spam-reducing tool, but this is starting to hamper a normal person's posting habits.... (I'm normal AFAIK, lol).

Is this normal behavior?

As far as I know, the delay is still just 30 seconds.

My second post, 31 seconds later.

Originally posted by Pesala:

As far as I know, the delay is still just 30 seconds.

Yup.

Originally posted by ikjadoon:

It used to be 960 seconds

No. Definitely not. I don't wait 16 minutes before my next reply.

OK, funky. Thanks for the confirmation, guys.

I'll message a moderator, then? Haavard or aminth look like good bets.

Thank you, guys. I'm to be liberated!

~Ibrahim~

There's definitely something wrong. We'll have a look.

Thank you, zoso! Robertj, if you happen to know him, let me know that he's written up a ticket and someone will follow up with me, so hopefully I should be in the clear soon!

Thank you, guys!

~Ibrahim~

This is actually already fixed internally, the plan is to release sometime tomorrow :-)

Woohoo! Good to hear; thank you again!

~Ibrahim~

This is still broken. I just received a wait time of 3840 seconds for a post. My last post was 16 minutes prior, and I waited approximately 10 minutes before trying to post again. (I've seen these messages alot, lately, and I certainly wait more than 30 seconds between post attempts.)

Do the Opera forums receive enough Spam to warrant such a "countermeasure" as plausible? IMHO, this seems like a ridiculous countermeasure that will hurt new Opera users far more than anyone else. Does this disappear once a member has held an account for awhile? I've used Opera for years and never even needed forum support until recently.

I hope it's fixed soon.

Originally posted by Tamil:

Yes, there was huge rise in forum spam lately.

That's unfortunate. Thankfully, the new system appears to be effective, if the present bugs are worked out. I've read recent reports of longtime members being auto-banned by this new system. That's extremely disturbing, especially were it to happen to someone like Tamil or sgunhouse.

Originally posted by zoso:

There's definitely something wrong. We'll have a look.

Why were signup prevention methods abandoned? Those methods are effective for The Big Three, so I'm a little curious why they didn't work here, as well. Anyone know?

Originally posted by ravensgrace:

...if the present bugs are worked out. I've read recent reports of longtime members being auto-banned by this new system. That's extremely disturbing, especially were it to happen to someone like Tamil or sgunhouse.

I'm gdveggie, one of those auto-banned "long-term users" ('course nowhere near as long as Tamil or sgunhouse ), & it's definitely disturbing, especially as all 1,710 of my posts were also deleted. The posts have now all been restored, but all with the same 08:34:48 UTC January 27, 2012 TimeStamp. I'm hoping the TimeStamps can also be restored, but haven't heard back yet.

But I'm posting here because this imposed time-delay between posts also came up in my attempts to post about my gdveggie auto-ban (first time I had seen it). Per sgunhouse in that thread:

Originally posted by sgunhouse:

Ideally, the timer should reset to 30 seconds after a little while. It doubles every time you try to reply too quickly

If that is correct, that's a geometric progression that can rapidly increase to excessive (understatement) levels. For example, the first time it happened I didn't read the whole My Opera - 403 - Forbidden - Opera Community page because I thought it was either the same MyOpera bug that occurred frequently maybe 10-11 months ago, or that I'd tried to post at the same time as someone else. So I quickly ran the delay up to 960 seconds (16 minutes) by attempting again several times before I even realized what was happening.

But later, I had a delay of 7680 seconds (128 minutes) that doesn't seem could be accounted for by quick-posting attempts only. I got another My Opera - 403 - Forbidden error and just noted the time was about 15 minutes after the previous post. But I didn't know then about the increasing time-limit and didn't actually check how many seconds the page said that time (i.e, assumed it was still 960 seconds). So I just figured it hadn't quite been 16 minutes and hit the Back button to wait a few minutes and try again. At about 22 minutes I tried again and saw the 7680 seconds (128 minutes) delay!!! I don't know what happened to jack it from 960 seconds to 7680 seconds, but AFAIR I had only the one "too quick" reply at 15 minutes (which I'm speculating might have said 3840 minutes if I had read it).

So I echo the concern about this auto-delay feature and think a geometric progression seems overly aggressive (at least without a reasonable ceiling). Perhaps it is programmed differently for established MyOpera users (would make sense), but I haven't checked with my gdveggie account because I'm still waiting to hear if my TimeStamps can be restored before using that account.

I might add that the automatic time delay apparently doesn't drop back to 30 seconds all at once either. IIRC, the next time I encountered it after the above was about 15 hours later, and at that point it had dropped to 1920 seconds (32 min). So if it is a 2x geometric progression on the way up, it appears to be programmed that way on the way down as well (1/2x).

And maybe the above geometric progression isn't how it actually works, but whatever the case, it seems to me like it needs some re-tuning.

[BTW, I don't have enough data to confirm this yet, but my impression is that the auto-delay kicks in only when one attempts to post again in the same thread and no one else has posted since your previous post (i.e., it seems one can post right away in another thread, or if someone else has since posted in the same thread). I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else can confirm/dis-confirm.]

Originally posted by disposable22:

it seems one can post right away in another thread

I can now dis-confirm this, as I was notified earlier of a 480 second (8 minute) delay when I attempted a post in a different thread about 6-7 minutes after my previous post.

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However, I first tried to post this about 17 minutes after my previous post in the Opera browser forum, and was informed I now have a delay of 1920 seconds (32 minutes) before I can post again. ...And there were no intervening post attempts.

Definitely broken!!!