> Well actually it does because you're wrong about this, it isn't about him replying to you, he manually sets a flag on your account.

Right, but in my experience, this usually occurs after a reply.

You said it doesn't take a genius to work it out but you haven't worked it out. It's opaque other than that we know it's a flag that can be manually set on the user without their knowledge

I worked out that I had been flagged. I was not saying that dang replying was the mechanism, you are just (intentionally?) misinterpreting what I am saying. That dang replies to you is an indicator that he has flagged you.

Not going to keep replying, as I suspect that a conversation between two people flagged in this manner is one of the likeliest to turn flame-y :)

Unfortunately, that reply can sometimes be days, weeks or who knows how old, and HN doesn't inform you of replies to your comments, so unless you happen to see it when it happens you're stuck with having to intuit that "you're replying too fast" is an extremely passive aggressive flag on your account and not just a general site-wide rate limiter. Or notice that your flags no longer work, or your vouches no longer work, or any number of even more subtle effects.

>Or notice that your flags no longer work, or your vouches no longer work, or any number of even more subtle effects.

Wait, I'm now wondering if I've been limited. I've never once seen the "Vouch" button and I've flagged some blatant stuff that nothing happened to, but figured there was somewhat of a vote (or multiple flags) before it took any effect. Can anyone confirm this behavior?

Your account is fine.

Thank you for the confirmation, dang! Big fan of the job you do around here.