
Why does HN prevent replies sometimes? - giantg2
I tried searching for this but the results were full of people stating they couldn&#x27;t reply but I did not see any explanation as to why.
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AnimalMuppet
Disclaimer: I don't know what HN's algorithms are. These are my non-rigorous
observations on how HN seems to behave.

If the article is flag-killed, you can't reply to any of the comments in the
article. (I'm pretty sure about this one.)

If the thread is getting "heated" (too many replies too fast, too much anger),
I think that the thread may throttle replies. People can still reply, but they
are rate-limited. (I suspect that this one may take intervention from a mod to
trigger it, but I don't know.)

If the discussion gets too deeply nested (indented too far on your screen), I
think that the replies may get throttled as well. You see this with posts
showing up without a "reply" link. If you refresh a few minutes later, _then_
there's a reply link.

Finally, individual users can be rate-limited. This might be due to getting
flagged too many times, or might require intervention from a mod.

As I said at the beginning, take all of this with a grain of salt, because I'm
just guessing based on what I see.

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giantg2
Thanks! I was not getting a reply button. I recieved quite a downvotes in the
thread so I thought maybe that plays into it. I saw the button show up after
about 20 minutes.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
You can cheat. If you click on the "x minutes ago" to the right of the
commenter's name, you get a screen where you can reply, even if there isn't a
reply link below the comment. (That won't let you reply to a flag-killed
topic, though. And it may not help if _you_ are rate-limited.)

~~~
giantg2
Cool! I didn't know that.

