I Reached My First 100 Comment Limit!

I’ve been on Medium for about a month now and breezed through everyday commenting, clapping, and writing with no limits. That was until I tried commenting on a few people’s posts and I got the dreaded drop-down red bar. I had reached the 100 comment limit.

If you’ve ever reached 100 comments in one day you know what the red error message looks like.

At first I thought it was on my end so I shut down the laptop and tried again after rebooting. Lo and behold, the issue persisted. I read more about the comment limit and realized I had hit it.

I had no idea I made so many comments. Then I realized Medium resets your comment limit to 100 after 24 hours.

It’s sad when you are about to leave a comment on someone’s post then BOOM you get hit with an error message. I didn’t realize I was commenting so much, but at least I’m engaging to the maximum extent.

This is something to consider when you get claps on your posts but no comments. Perhaps the user wasn’t able to comment, because they’ve been blocked from doing so until it resets.

Of course, drive by clappers who never comment will do what they do, but a lot of people may have tried leaving a comment only to get stonewalled. They will then clap and/or highlight to show support.

I’d be curious to know everyone’s thoughts on that. People who have time to read posts but can no longer comment due to reaching their 24-hour limit may clap but can’t comment. Is it right to consider them spam if they genuinely read and highlighted the post? I don’t think so.

While I don’t agree with drive by clappers, I don’t think it’s a good idea to overthink when people clap but don’t comment, especially if they took the time to highlight parts of your post. Engagement is still engagement.

Honestly, a read is a read to me even if someone doesn’t comment. I obviously love when people comment on my writing, but now that I know how much of a bummer it is to write a whole comment only to be prevented from posting it, I’m not going to judge people who only clap and highlight. I’ll assume they’ve likely reached their comment limit for the day or they’re getting close to it and they want to conserve their replies.

I was reading on another post that Medium saves your comment drafts so at least for the following day you can reply to everyone.

This also makes me more aware of budgeting my comments. If we can’t comment over 100 times per day then it takes some strategizing once you get more comfortable with engaging.

Replying to comments on your own posts can take away from that number, but I don’t want to just clap when someone’s kindly taken the time to respond to what I wrote.

What I will try now is be sure to reply to my reader’s comments then read about 30–40 posts from other people per day (Including my readers who commented) and that should keep things steady without going overboard.

It feels like a weird badge of honour to comment so often that you can’t comment anymore for the day.

Have you ever been hit with the comment limit? What are some strategies you use to avoid being put in “Medium jail?”

Thanks so much for reading!