Maybe slow mode could be reserved for contentious or rapidly developing conversations. Not being able to immediately reply to answer simple, friendly questions is discouraging.
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Sorry, Jason. I appreciate the feedback, but it’s here to stay. I have really good experience with site-wide 15-minute slow mode on La Locanda, and I often slow down threads even more than that just as a preventive measure due to the nature of the topic—even up to 24 hours. I’d like to encourage slower and more thoughtful discussion, rather than quick call-and-response chatting.
I think 15 minutes should be well under the time to write a single post in normal conditions. If you’re taking less than that, you’re probably writing too fast.
The objective is to keep the site tidy and searchable, as well as avoid situations where a small amount of people writes a large amount of messages, shutting out others from the conversation.
Quality > Quantity.
P.S. And it’s perfectly reasonable to take a break from the forum and answer a question later! Nothing wrong with that.
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Hi Jason, I see you point but I’d like to provide a couple of reasons why the 15 minutes Slow Mode is good for the conversation. I really like the Slow Mode on forums.
- It avoids what I call the “Social Media Effect”. (OT: I’ve been living without social media for 5 years now.) Social Media encourage people to react quickly and instinctively. Sometimes, I see on forums the same kind of social media patterns, where people shout at each other rather then listening. 15 minutes limits the problem even when the conversation is not heated; otherwise, people tend to reply after having read a couple of sentences and filled the blanks. 15 minutes obliges you to read everything and think carefully what to say.
- If a conversation is too fast, many people are cut off. I read a couple of times the posts before replying. A too fast conversation makes difficult for who joins the discussion to catch up and read everything. See it as the online version of “I leave a chair for others to join and express what they think” from events like the Knutepunkt.
I hope to show why it is good to have such limitation.
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I’m having a similar reaction to Jason and Alessio, and it’s quite interesting. I often do and can type and post in less than 15 minutes, so sometimes the constraint does frustrate me quite a bit. However, like Alessio says here, I can see some interesting positive effects on our conversations from all that frustration 
It also makes you think a little harder before posting - maybe it’s just a little, but that’s enough to impact things a fair bit.
I know @Froggy has a lot of experience running and moderating forums and forum culture, so I’m also just watching and learning what some of the practices are and seeing them in action.
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For the record, I find similarly that slow modes in other places are frustrating, but once the frustration cools off I can appreciate how much they improve the quality of what I post.
I hate how I come off in chats. ADHD doesn’t help. I loathe social media and I use it only when I have to.
if I was able to enable a setting to slow myself down as well as other users, I would.
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