I finally heard back from Facebook, I think. It smacks of form letter as opposed to actual communication, but hey, given they’re a faceless company devoid of contact forms, I’ll take what I can get.
Their response, mine follows:
Hi,
We have noticed that you recently received a warning from our system. You received this warning because Facebook determined that you were going too fast when writing on Walls. Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site.
If you have also been blocked from writing on Walls, please note that these blocks can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Unfortunately, we cannot lift the block for you. When you are allowed to resume using this feature, please proceed with caution to avoid reaching the limit again. Please be aware that the threshold at which you are warned is not a specific number, but rather determined by different factors (such as speed, time, and quantity). For security reasons, we are unable to provide additional information about this system. We apologize for any inconvenience.
If your inquiry was not related to the warning you received, simply reply to this email and we will assist you further.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
My response back:
What constitutes too fast? No more than 1 a day? Hour? I posted on two walls within about 30 minutes. If people don’t know the rules, they don’t know how to avoid breaking them.
Unless Facebook is really a shell company for the TSA that is, in which case the apocalypse really has arrived
Incidentally, an interesting little writeup on Wired’s Epicenter blog: Host Your Own Facebook with Opera Unite