The use case for this specific problem and fix is actually very niche. The more niche the problem, the less likely you’ll find the right solution right away.
If your wordpress website is providing the following message when trying to leave a comment or review*;
“You are posting comments too quickly. Slow Down.”
The “Comment Flood” prevention mechanism within WordPress is likely to have been triggered. In some cases waiting to post the next comment or review* is futile – no amount of time fixes the problem.
We found the solution at Frique.me which basically requires you to add a single line of code to your functions.php file
The code was as follows:
add_filter('comment_flood_filter', '__return_false');Comments as Reviews*
In our particular case we were adding reviews to a website in bulk (transferring them over from another source). The Product Reviews are actually recognised and managed as “Comments” within the WordPress system. Despite the subtle difference, the solution presented worked.
We actually added the code snippet to both the functions.php file of the Parent and Child theme of the site. At first, it appeared adding to the Child theme didn’t cause the fix.
Leave the code or take it back out?
It appears the “Comment Flood” prevention mechanism is there for a reason – and a good one at that. However in this particular case causes a job to be impossible, and not just difficult.
Once the comments or reviews have been bulk transferred, it makes sense that the code is stripped back out of the functions.php file to restore the spam prevention.
Without the Comment Flood prevention in place, any number of comments can be submitted by the same IP address over and over again. If someone wants to take down your site, this sounds like a pretty open door.
Our plan is to remove the code once the transfer has been completed, and if we need to do this at some point in the future, we can always re-input the code.
A VERY niche WordPress fix, but a useful one none-the-less.