# Rate limit create topic - a problem for PMs
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [July 23, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792 "2019-07-23T22:57:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792/1 "2019-07-23T22:57:46Z")
The “rate limit create topic” setting under Rate Limits makes a lot of sense for Topics.
However, as PMs are treated the same as topics this causes a problem when a user wants to send either a PM right after posting a Topic or to send a few PMs in quick succession to different people, This has annoyed some of my users recently, and is leading them to post rather than PM - which is a bad habit.
PMs seem to be an unintended target of this setting. Should it only apply to Topics, rather than PMs?
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792/2 "2019-07-23T23:45:13Z")
The default is 15 seconds for a new topic, and 5 seconds for a reply/post. Topics and PMs are treated in the same way, and typically creation of a new topic or PM will take more than 15 seconds. In six years and across a broad number of communities I’ve never received a complaint from a user over hitting this limit, have you raised your defaults?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2019, 4:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792/3 "2019-07-24T04:10:29Z")
Sounds like these users are rapidly copy pasting the same content and sending it to other users? They would have to be doing it quite rapidly to hit the rate limits.
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### Author:  [@nathank](https://meta.discourse.org/u/nathank)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2019, 7:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792/4 "2019-07-24T07:07:38Z")
> [@Stephen](#):
>
> The default is 15 seconds for a new topic, and 5 seconds for a reply/post.
Our setting for a new topic is extreme compared with that (900 sec) - I had just assumed that was the default and that there was a good reason for it.
@pacharanero - is there any reason we can’t drop back closer to the default?
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### Author:  [@pacharanero](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pacharanero)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2019, 7:40am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792/5 "2019-07-24T07:40:30Z")
Yes I have no problem changing the setting. I didn’t (knowingly) change it, although we have been on Discourse for nearly 5 years, so I may have set it and forgotten. The other possibility is that the default might have been different way back when? We were on Discourse when it was still in beta.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2019, 5:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/rate-limit-create-topic-a-problem-for-pms/123792/6 "2019-07-24T17:33:20Z")
Reverting to the default should address this. I don’t recall the default ever being that high; maybe you had problems with spammers early on?