excessive rate limiting

[colin-heberling]

Previously I was making API requests without using my credentials, and I was able to make several simultaneous client requests without much issue, in order to download around 1-20 images per instance, no problem. But recently when I switched to using my user credentials, it seems like the rate limiting is much more strict, and if I want to download full galleries, then I can often download the first couple hundred images very fast, and then I'm limited to about 10-15 images for every 3 minutes.

Why is it rate limiting so harshly? With it being that slow, I could download by myself manually much faster, and if I'm not limited from downloading at such a rate manually straight from my browser, then what is the point of limiting the API requests that much? I've used this API client tool with several other image board websites, and the rate limiting with DeviantArt is by far the worst, no contest. For instance, I might be able to update all of my followed artists on Pixiv within 15-20 minutes, but on DeviantArt it would probably take me hours or days. Is the online traffic really that heavy?

So the rate limiting has always been the worst with DA, but it has seemed to have gotten even worse more recently (maybe as a direct result of switching to my user credentials? In which case it should be faster when using my credentials), so I'd like to get to the bottom of that, and at this point, I may even be willing to pay for a higher rate.