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According to The Complete Rate-Limiting Guide, you can only

edit at most 5 of one's own posts per day, more for high-rep users (scales with reputation), does not apply to ♦ mods (multiple edits of same post are fine)

Yet this user managed to delete the contents of all 9 of their questions within a 1-hour period today (annotated screenshot for future reference in case that page changes). Their reputation page suggests that they had 19 reputation at the start of the day, which doesn't seem like it should be enough to scale from 5 posts a day to 9.

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  • 2
    Might be a case of a merged user? As per comment here: stackoverflow.com/questions/68234036/…
    – Luuklag
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 10:20
  • 1
    @Luuklag Hmm, interesting, but it looks like at least that account is still separate.
    – Ryan M
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 10:22
  • 1
    Ah okay, couldn't see, don't have enough rep on SO.
    – Luuklag
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 10:22
  • That account did the same things btw @RyanM, I rolled them all back.
    – Luuklag
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 10:46
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    It wouldn't surprise me if those 19 points were enough to do this: new user restrictions lift at 10...
    – Tinkeringbell Mod
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 11:40
  • 3
    Related: Looks like this is the same perpetrator.
    – Adrian Mole
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 12:59
  • @Tinkeringbell If that's the case, then that FAQ answer needs to be edited. The quote says "high-rep users" and "scales with reputation". Although I doubt that the "remove new user restrictions" privilege is related because it does not say anything about editing.
    – 41686d6564
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 22:56
  • 3
    Related, with no answer: What exactly is the rate limit for editing your own posts?
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Jul 16, 2021 at 23:17
  • Jesus... Is this a public stoning of a user? How he dared to edit 9 times? How is this even possible? 9 times deleting is not allowed. How could he be permitted to do so with so low a rep? Lowarap...
    – Deschele Schilder
    Commented Jul 18, 2021 at 12:38
  • 2
    @DescheleSchilder - no, this is a discussion about the rules and mechanisms in place, the user is just an example
    – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine
    Commented Jul 18, 2021 at 13:54

1 Answer 1

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There are some other rules on that query for whatever reason never got disclosed. The description in the guide is not exactly accurate.

  1. We provide amnesty on recent posts which give you unlimited editing capabilities on posts that were just created. Anything posted today or yesterday is exempt from the editing rate limits (today and yesterday are defined by the date only and it is not a rolling 48 hour time frame, so posting at 23:59 UTC would effectively cut the amnesty to 24 hours). It would be annoying if you've posted a bunch of questions recently to start getting blocked from editing when people are asking for clarifications.

  2. Only posts with a score greater than -1 count towards the limit. We encourage users to fix closed and downvoted questions all the time, especially when they are blocked from asking.

Both of these criteria apply to both the edit and delete daily rate limits.

Those do leave some holes open, but the checks were really meant to catch vandalism that is removing value from the site while trying to keep out of the way of users who legitimately need to fix things. In the case of this user, only one of the posts edited currently contributes towards the rate limit.

As an aside, to be crystal clear about requirements, strictly speaking, there is no scaling based on reputation either. There is one number that applies to everyone who's subject to the limit (users who don't have the moderator tools privilege).

I will also note that the rate limit does not consider whether you have already edited the same post today or the score of the post. Once you hit the rate limit for the day, you are blocked from all editing for the remainder of the day unless the post is new per point 1 above.

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  • 2
    When did it cease to be the case that the edit rate limit scaled with reputation? The text in the FAQ was edited in by an employee, so it must have been correct at the time. It would also be nice if you answered this related question asking about the exact rate limit.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 16:42
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    @Sonic Possibly a misunderstanding. The code even at the time that edit was made did not have any trace of reputation scaling. Was just incorrect information. // I'll look into writing a more detailed answer for that question later.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Jul 17, 2021 at 16:59

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