  The occurrence of electrical discharges in gas detectors restricts their
dynamic range and degrades their performance. Among the different methods
developed to mitigate discharge effects, the use of resistive materials in the
detector assembly was found to be very effective. In this work, we present the
results of a comparative study of electrical discharges in Thick-GEM-based
WELL-type detectors - with and without resistive elements. We present a new
method to measure discharges in the resistive-detector configurations; it
allows demonstrating, for the first time, the occurrence of discharges also in
the Resistive-Plate WELL detector configuration. It also provides direct
evidence for the Raether limit.
