Editing Pause

I seem to be getting "editing pause" messages when I try to edit Wiki pages, telling me to wait one minute before opening a page to edit. I will still get them after waiting several minutes. This doesn't happen all the time though—I've done a few back-to-back edits in a row, less than a minute apart. Is the "editing pause" message simply an indication of a busy server?

The editing pause is for new accounts, as a deterrence against vandalism. For security reasons, we will not disclose the exact mechanism by which it works, nor the duration of the new account period.