4 ms·

If we didn't have prior restraints on people speaking about places where you could buy cheap Ugg boots, HN would be so overrun with spam that it would be unusab

• couchand 13y ago
  That's a good observation, but doesn't really get at the point the parent was making. If I may continue the example of First Amendment rights, consider the well-founded prohibition on yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater, which seems more or less in line with an ad for boots on the Internet. Could you address the issue of only allowing a user to post one comment at a time? I think the parent made a good point on the potential chilling effect that may have on parallel comment threads.
  • pg 13y ago
    That's a variable the moderator can tune as well. We actually ended up setting the limit at 5 when we launched, which I don't think inconvenienced anyone.
    • sedev 13y ago
      I didn't know that part, thank you for bringing that up again (I imagine you've had to repeat it). That reduces my worry level a lot.
  • sedev 13y ago
    Yeah, I think we're all pretty clear that the pending-comments feature is a different thing from conventional anti-spam measures, which have fairly reliable programmatic solutions in this kind of scenario.