I'd especially enjoy seeing "15 minutes between comments, sitewide" without regard to where they're posted. If you only got 96 comments a day, and they had to be "at least one attention span" apart, what changes would occur to the tone of discussion at HN and would the quality of discussion end up higher or lower as a result?
I don't really see the reason for that. Usually people don't reply in bursts here like you'd expect in a chat app. If there are multiple comments by a person in a short amount it's usually because you are replying to questions or addressing points of a discussion, hindering that doesn't really seem like something that helps the discussion.
I've been in the comments sections of HN hot-topics where one person basically derails the conversation on every top-level thread with their same argument, yet it's such tempting flame-bait that nobody can resist responding every time.
Sometimes you just need to contain your arguments to a single thread so others can enjoy the show.
HN has a rate limit but I think it should kick in more aggressively once you're making your, say, 5th post on the same submission.
I seem to recall hitting the limit after posting something like two replies on one story and being confronted with “you’re posting too fast” when trying to post an unrelated comment on another story.
I think the limiter kicks in as soon as one of one’s comments get any downvotes at all (i.e. even when also being mostly upvoted), but I’m obviously not sure about this.
This is obviously very annoying, and I can’t see how it helps discussions.
