# Reply Limit Problem
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [December 5, 2018, 5:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525 "2018-12-05T05:07:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lee\_Davy2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lee_Davy2)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 5:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/1 "2018-12-05T05:07:12Z")
I am running a course on Discourse, and all of my students are suddenly complaining that there is a 'Reply Limit" imposed upon them. I have never had this before? I changed all of their statuses to ‘member’ thinking that was the issue, and then went to Settings/Postings/NewUserMaxRepliesPerTopic and changed it to 100 but they are still having problems.
Any help?
Lee
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### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 5:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/2 "2018-12-05T05:48:32Z")
Are they running up against any of the rate limits or consecutive posts limit?
`/admin/site_settings/category/rate_limits`
`/admin/site_settings/category/all_results?filter=consecutive`
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### Author:  [@Lee\_Davy2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lee_Davy2)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 5:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/3 "2018-12-05T05:56:37Z")
Hi Omar,
I changed the Rate Limits so I don’t think that’s the problem.
> [@omarfilip](#):
>
> /admin/site\_settings/category/all\_results?filter=consecutive
I couldn’t find this one in admin?
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### Author:  [@omarfilip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/omarfilip)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 5:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/4 "2018-12-05T05:59:26Z")
You can search for the term _consecutive_ in the Admin to find it.
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### Author:  [@Lee\_Davy2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lee_Davy2)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 6:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/5 "2018-12-05T06:44:09Z")
Is this it, Omar?
If so, what does it mean?
I have read it and re-read it and I can’t wrap my head around it?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 9:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/6 "2018-12-05T09:53:29Z")
Well, the definition of the word “consecutive” might help:
> con·sec·u·tive – following continuously.
>
> _“five consecutive months of serious decline”_
> _“share prices fell for three consecutive days”_
>
> synonyms: successive, succeeding, following, in succession, running, in a row, one after the other, back-to-back, continuous, straight, uninterrupted
So if someone adds that many replies in a row to a topic (aka consecutively), they will be prevented from adding _even more_ replies until someone else replies.
In other words, this is (generally) a bad pattern for discussions:
| | | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reply #7 | Martin | words words words |
| Reply #8 | Martin | even more words |
| Reply #9 | Martin | yet more words |
| 💥 | | |
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### Author:  [@Lee\_Davy2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lee_Davy2)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/7 "2018-12-05T15:29:54Z")
You can trust that I know what the word ‘consecutive’ means, Jeff.
I didn’t view the word ‘row’ in that context. I was thinking in terms of ‘rows’ as in the platform.
Thanks for clearing this up.
I will extend it.
Lee
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 12:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/8 "2018-12-06T00:20:24Z")
> [@Lee\_Davy2](#):
>
> I was thinking in terms of ‘rows’ as in the platform.
What does that mean?
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### Author:  [@notriddle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/notriddle)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 12:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/9 "2018-12-06T00:38:54Z")
Well, the definition of the word “platform” might help:
> ([computing](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/computing#Noun)) A particular type of [operating system](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/operating_system) or [environment](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/environment) such as a [database](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/database) or other specific [software](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/software), and/or a particular type of [computer](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/computer) or [microprocessor](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/microprocessor), used to describe a particular [environment](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/environment) for running other software, or for defining a specific software or hardware environment for discussion purposes. quotations
So the underlying platform for Discourse is made up of Linux running under Docker, Ruby on Rails, Redis, PostgreSQL, and a few other things that I can’t immediately think of. The word “row” is a term of art for SQL-esque databases, so, presumably, that’s a setting for configuring how many replies get stuffed into a single database row.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/10 "2018-12-06T01:12:38Z")
Touché 😉
I’m still unclear what one could be confused about, is “consecutive posts” and “posts a user has to make in a row” not understandable?
We can replace it with one or more synonyms if that helps people understand:
> synonyms: successive, succeeding, following, in succession, running, in a row, one after the other, back-to-back, continuous, straight, uninterrupted
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### Author:  [@notriddle](https://meta.discourse.org/u/notriddle)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 4:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/11 "2018-12-06T04:24:22Z")
Actually, that might make it worse. Under the [rule against surplusage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation#Textual), anyone reading that list is going to try to come up with a definition under which all of the given “synonyms” actually mean something different.
If you really want me to try to write a description, though…
> Number of posts a user can make to the same topic, _without giving anyone else a chance to reply_, before being prevented from posting again.
But I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.
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### Author:  [@Lee\_Davy2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lee_Davy2)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 5:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/12 "2018-12-06T05:04:36Z")
I would remove ‘in a row’ and replace it with ‘consecutively’.
For clarification, in your replies, are you trying to make me feel more stupid than I already do? Are you trying to make a joke? Are you serious? I’m interested in understanding the context of your replies.
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 5:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/13 "2018-12-06T05:23:40Z")
I can’t speak for Jeff, but I can say that reading this thread it doesn’t come across that he’s trying to mock or belittle.
As terms go, here in the UK ‘in a row’ is a much more commonly used term than consecutively. It’s used in all kinds of fields; we talk about seats in a row, days in a row, personally I would expect more people to know and use that term than to ever reach for consecutive. Both terms appear on the setting, so hopefully people will be able to grasp at least one of them - there aren’t many good alternatives, lest we be reduced to referring to _successive_ or _ensuing_ responses.
Either way, it appears as though you have your solution.
> [@notriddle](#):
>
> without giving anyone else a chance to reply
That’s fairly misleading, particularly when there’s no measure of time involved in that setting. Consecutive posts aren’t a rate limit - the setting exists to encourage people to think out their responses and minimise excessive thread bumps. As pointed out earlier the majority of communities don’t encourage such behavior, which is why the default is 3 but it can be overridden if needed.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 5:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/14 "2018-12-06T05:28:01Z")
> [@Lee\_Davy2](#):
>
> For clarification, in your replies, are you trying to make me feel more stupid than I already do? Are you trying to make a joke? Are you serious? I’m interested in understanding the context of your replies.
Not at all, I’m curious how any other interpretation of “consecutive replies” is possible. So you think changing:
> **max consecutive replies**
> Number of posts a user has to make in a row in a topic before being prevented from adding another reply
to
> **max consecutive replies**
> Number of consecutive replies ~~posts~~ a user has to make ~~in a row~~ in a topic before being prevented from adding another reply
is the way to go? I was thinking having a synonym in there might be better than repeating the word “consecutive” again?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/15 "2018-12-06T23:19:36Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> is the way to go? I was thinking having a synonym in there might be better than repeating the word “consecutive” again?
“successive” I guess does not work cause brain reads “success” but “continuous” kind of works imo if we want to avoid consecutive, however it is somewhat open to interpretation.
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### Author:  [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/16 "2018-12-06T23:44:49Z")
Continuous doesn’t really mean in a streak though, does it?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/17 "2018-12-07T00:10:02Z")
I guess we can wait for now and see if others find the language confusing here as well. I am big on improving copy to make sure things are as understandable as possible by the widest possible audience.
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### Author:  [@markersocial](https://meta.discourse.org/u/markersocial)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2020, 9:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/18 "2020-06-25T09:27:19Z")
Is the ‘max consecutive replies’ setting meant to apply to users own topics also? Doesn’t seem to be limiting consecutive replies in a users own topic for me.
Edit: Going to use the no bump plugin, it’s more strict than limiting consecutive replies though: [Discourse No Bump](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-no-bump-prevent-users-from-bumping-topics/78186)
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2020, 5:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/19 "2020-06-25T17:21:54Z")
> [@markersocial](#):
>
> Is the ‘max consecutive replies’ setting meant to apply to users own topics also?
It does not. If you created the topic you can reply as many times in a row to your topic as you like. Topic owners are immune to this restriction.
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### Author:  [@Jumanji](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jumanji)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2021, 8:19pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reply-limit-problem/103525/20 "2021-03-19T20:19:05Z")
How do flagged/hidden replie work into this situation?
If I user makes 3 consecutive replies, but before a new reply from anybody comes in, one of the 3 replies is flagged and hidden, can that user reply a 4th time?