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Shog9's answer to the SE meta question 50 question per month limit? appears to confirm that there is such a limit, but this ELU user appears to have asked more than 50 questions in the past week.

Did the limit never apply to ELU? Does it no longer apply to any sites, or what? I'm not necessarily taking against the specific user here - even if there is a limit, it's certainly not publicised. Ignorance of the law may be no excuse, but ELU isn't a courtroom.

Also - I don't know if it's connected to the (imho, excessive) number of questions, but I notice that if I view that user's questions, the display starts off by telling me there are 90. If I then look at any individual question and use my browser "back" button, the redisplayed list says there are only 42 questions (so I'm going to add the "bug" tag to my question).

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    I believe the question limits are only enabled on SOFU. That said, 47 questions over two days (by my count) certainly does seem a bit much.
    – waiwai933
    Feb 27, 2014 at 17:38
  • @waiwai933: Ah, right. There's a certain kind of logic to that (a SOFU user might be working against the spirit of the site by simply throwing over to SO every problem he gets while trying to configure a new server, say, without making any attempt to address the issues himself). Most of the questions in point here have no upvotes (or accepted answers) and I know I've closevoted several as duplicates (sometimes of questions from the same OP), but I suspect that's not much worse than the average for all questions (particularly, lately, I feel <:<) Feb 27, 2014 at 18:14
  • @waiwai933 - can we pleeeeeeese enable these limitations (6/50)? Mar 3, 2014 at 2:48
  • Just as a point of interest, one current prolific asker has asked 60 questions in the last month, only three of which have been deleted. There appears to be no limit at all.
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Jul 7, 2014 at 11:52

2 Answers 2

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The limit is 6 questions per day and 50 questions per month.

The limit is only enabled on Stack Overflow, Super User, Server Fault and Math as far as I remember. Each site has to request the limit to be enabled, it is disabled by default.

So if you want to enable this limit, make a meta post about this and gather some community support and discuss it. If there seems to be a consensus that it should be enabled, one of the moderators can ask an SE employee to throw the switch.

The alternative to enabling the limit can be to manually warn users that ask an excessive amount of questions, and suspend them if necessary.

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  • That's very useful info, ty. In light of which I think I'd better remove the "bug" tag, to avoid wasting any of the tech guys' time if they get auto-alerts for all questions with that tag. Feb 27, 2014 at 18:17
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    I will never get to 50 questions a month :(
    – oerkelens
    Feb 27, 2014 at 18:17
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    Belay the last sentence in that comment! There's still a bug relating to "number of questions" in the display. Feb 27, 2014 at 18:20
  • I'm not sure whether we really need to enable posting limits in ELU, and I'm not sure whether it would help this user become a better ELU citizen. Warning and suspension may be the better solution here. Mar 3, 2014 at 4:00
  • The Complete Rate-Limiting guide confirms that there are, at the moment, only four sites where this limit is enforced. (Hopefully, it is up to date.)
    – Martin
    May 12, 2014 at 8:38
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I would like to please renominate enabling the limit on ELU the way it is on some of the other higher-traffic sites. The reason why is simple: the help vampires are gaining on us. Limiting them to 50 questions in any consecutive 30-day period seems only prudent.

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    I can get behind this particular mule. Though I'd rather see some flexibility in the limit, based on average score for past questions. Something like "Limit of 30 questions over 30 days, with that limit increasing by 10 for every (rounded down) positive integer average score (also reducing by 10 for every negative integer average score)". Jul 6, 2014 at 17:27
  • @FumbleFingers If it is a simple matter of flicking an existing switch, it will probably be easier to enable than if we want it fancy-tuned.
    – tchrist Mod
    Jul 6, 2014 at 18:20
  • Of course. But just maybe there's not so much pressure from various SE sites to enable this feature because it lacks such a (relatively trivial and easily-understood, imho) tweak to make it seem less of a "blunt instrument". Jul 6, 2014 at 19:25

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