Another thought on question rate limits:
- Initial limit 3 per day - More than that gives you an explanation about:
Welcome to our site. Since you’re new here, let’s get your first 3 questions answered first and then you’ll be able to ask more questions.
I think most people would understand that quite well.
- Additional initial time limit of 1 per hour. This should easily minimize spam robot activity. Here the explanation would be something like:
Welcome to our site. We see you just asked your first question and are trying to ask another question. Many new users don’t realize they can edit their questions to add additional details [followed by explanation of how to do that]. If this is really an new question, just wait an hour and you will be able to post it. As you get more experience with the system, you will be able to post without having to wait between questions.
I would also, make all of the following configurable both per instance and per site:
- Number of questions in first day
- Number of questions per [additional day, upvoted questions, etc.]
- Time rate limit for new (e.g., 1 hour) and trusted (e.g., 1 minute - mainly to catch hijacked accounts or users gone bad/mad) users
- Text for each of these explanations