An Explanation of the Daily Profile Comment Limit
Over the past few weeks and months we've had some great discussions taking place that tackle the issue of quality profile commenting which in many cases can be seen as spam (or is spam).
A great discussion was started by Beverley here:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/bis/blog/are-your-welcome-messages-scaring-newcomers
Another by Rich here:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/rich/blog/pied-pipers
What we have discovered is that many of our brand new members to WA were being welcomed by too many people. I know, this sounds like it couldn't or shouldn't be an issue, but actually it was. People who are brand new to WA do not know that we are a trustworthy group. Quite frankly, it's not normal to be welcomed by "REAL" people so much. Too many "Welcome to WA" messages were being seen by new people as SPAM because "how could this be true" to have all these real people saying hello? Although we are an active community, saying "hello" 100 times a day to new folks by copy and pasting a message is not helping anyone.
Also, there are a select few people who were abusing the system by asking for people to follow them, and copy/pasting the same robotic message on everyone's profile.
The Resolution
You may have come across a little red error message when you are posting on other people's profiles that says "You've reached your daily comment limit". We have implemented a daily limit on how many people you can say hello to for the first time.Here's how it works.
We put a limit on something we call the "First Time" comment. A first time comment is one that you post on someone's profile for the first time. If you have never before posted on the persons's profile, your first comment counts toward your first time comment limit. Every 24 hours you will only get a handful of "First time" comments that you can post on people's walls.
This has absolutely NO affect on posting on people's walls who you have posted on previously, so this will not stop anyone from having full conversations with folks that they have created a relationship with in the past.
What this stops is someone coming into WA and being susceptible to having 5 or 10 immediate comments on their profiles within the first few minutes. This confuses people a lot of the time, and as mentioned above, causes them to believe it's spam.
Another reason we have done this is to give people who have referred others, the chance to comment first. Many people welcome their friends and family, or visitors from their websites and networks and they should have a chance to say HELLO first.
We know that many people here at WA who are active in the community and who were posting on people's profiles were doing so with the BEST of intentions. If you see that you reach your limit, it is because of the reasons above. We have not limited commenting in Discussions, Blog posts, or Training, because we want that to be as OPEN as possible...but people's profiles are now more protected to ensure the best possible first impression.
For many, taking the step to join a community like WA and take that leap into Internet marketing can be a very big decision. We're trying to make sure that people have a chance to become comfortable with WA and check things out without the possibility of being too overwhelmed.
As always, we would love your feedback and we will be continuing to refine these limits and how the system works. The last thing we want to do is prevent people who have GOOD intentions, from communicating. I see this as one of our continuing efforts to maintain the high quality user experience in WA.
Cheers,
Carson
Recent Comments
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Really like this approach and support having new people first welcomed by whoever invited them and/or you or Kyle. I know when I started two months ago I appreciated the welcomes and best wishes but I was still a bit skittish given that I had recently been involved with other "spamming-type" sites. Wouldn't have taken much for me "to bolt".
The change you've made here speaks volumes to the integrity of WA...that's why I'm staying!
Great response! I must say I was overwhelmed to begin with when I started a little over a week ago.
Carson, excellent response to the situation. I am glad that you are so involved for the benefit of WA, that only benefits everyone. I commend you and Kyle for such a great site. I am in awe of the community. Diva B and Rich´s blog posts opened my eyes to higher levels of quality relations.
Hi Carson,
Thanks for the explanation. I actually posted in the forum earlier today asking for a little clarification, and also expressing a concern with the comment limit that has affected me.
If someone follows my profile, I go to their profile and thank them, and typically comment/converse on the content in either their profile, blog, or one of their websites. Just being appreciative and building a relationship.
Since I've become more active over the last few weeks, I've had more people follow me, and sometimes several in one day.
Unfortunately, I get a little "backed up" in responding to their follow, which backs up the next day, etc. This is particularly a problem if I choose to follow someone new (typically a more established member whose content or contributions I find valuable) and write something on their profile saying hi or commenting on what they've written. It seems I get about 4-5 comments before I reach my limit, so that definitely affects me responding to others.
A look at my profile shows I'm following 91 people (most of whom I've been following for a couple of years) and am followed currently by 72 people (in the last week or so I've had 3-6 or so new followers in a day). So I'm the numbers aren't that large, comparative to many members here, but it still affects me.
I understand and appreciate the limits, but is there a way to at least alter the feature so that if someone first follows me, I am able to respond to them, without affecting my limit? Similar to how we are unlimited in posting to people we've already posted on? And to continue to build community with/offer assistance to someone who found value in us?
Thanks very much for everything you guys are doing here to keep this a legitimate, safe, trustworthy place to learn online!
Danielle
Hey Danielle. Great constructive feedback, thanks! I responded below to @Mama2karsten similarly to how I will respond here. Excluding people who follow you from the daily comment limit is a great idea. If someone follows you, then you should be able to post a message on their profile without subtracting from your daily limit. I'm going to be making some tweaks because this is a very valid point that I agree with.
Love the fact that you have been so active at WA!
Carson
Thanks Carson. I'll look forward to that, and catching up on my hellos to followers! :-)
And I wanted to also say I appreciate that you and Kyle always respond directly to members, and incorporate suggestions. That takes a considerable amount of your time, I'm sure, but it really makes WA stand out as a safe, supportive place to learn. Thank you!!
I'm still pretty new and have just started training, but I know I was overwhelmed when I first started, by all the welcome messages, blogs, etc., not that I thought it was spam, but because I thought I should read everything, and answer everyone. I enjoyed talking to everyone, but was stressing on how to have time to answer welcomes, read blogs, etc., and still have time to do traiing. It's all slowed down now, or maybe I've just got a system going now, but it's no longer an issue for me, Even so, I really like the limit put on these welcomes, since I still feel as though I should say hi, and thank them, and just read their profile and get to know them a little, like getting to know your co-workers. I think a handful of these a day is enough though, so personally, I really like this new procedure.
Thanks for the feedback Cindi. We've heard very similar remarks from other members as well that while getting started they were distracted by too many welcome messages. One of our new initiatives is that when people join, we put them directly into the Getting Started Level 1 training. Within this training we explain how WA works, and what your personal profile is. I think this is helping with that initial feeling of being overwhelmed.
Cheers :)
Makes sense to me, although the only people I welcomed were new people that I was notified had chosen to follow me... I don't know how they picked me out... I just thought it polite to respond and give them a sense of what WA is and how to get help and guidance if they needed it. I always looked at the links others had posted to insure I did not duplicate links or info... I thanked them for choosing to follow me and still follow up and check in with as many as I can remember.
You bring up a very valid point. If someone follows you, or if they comment on your profile first, perhaps that should not be counted as a "first time" comment and be excluded from the daily limit.
I'll see what I can do to make some tweaks here because this is quite a good point. Thanks for the feedback.
I heartily agree with this. I may be in a unique situation as I get quite a few followers a day. I have been unable to respond back due to the limit. Opening this feature up would go a long way towards allowing me to comment to those that follow me.
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Hi Carson, fully appreciate the reason why this has been put on. Is the limit renewed each day? I only ever comment on a profile if that person has followed me and I follow them back. This morning I reached my limit after only one or two postings,
Regards
Hudson
Yes, the limit is on a floating 24 hour time period. When you add a "First time" comment, the system checks back 24 hours to see if you are within the limit.