Confused Gandalf

It seems to me as if you don't want them to be seen.

Why would I have been spending this whole time talking about how they need to fix the system in which all memes, including original memes, need to start on the first couple pages of the latest tab the moment they get featured if I didn't want them to be seen? Top users don't see it as an issue because they already have plenty of traffic towards their content. However new users don't have that traffic. So if it took a few weeks, or in the case of people who can't spend 16 hours a day on here, a few months, by not starting on the first few pages, they are missing out on a lot of traffic to their stuff. This one is only 4 hours old and has as much traffic already than my originals that are 2 to 3 weeks old. Try to tell me it doesn't matter all you want, but I have seen the results of what happens when memes start on the first couple pages and when they start 9 or more pages in.

I didn't say it didn't matter. Views make a big difference.

I said that it seems to me as if you don't want your submitted original memes to be seen.

Well then I guess you should explain your reasoning behind that. Because if I submit them I would want them to be seen, logically speaking anyways.

Ok. The reasoning is that you have had one of the top users on the site, Raydog (who is famous, in part, for memes with original templates, and getting lots of traffic to them) give you advice about exactly what to do if you want to increase traffic to your memes.

He's told you to make funny comments on front page memes, which is likely to make you more well-known, and then people would look at your profile, and see the original memes that way. (You could also achieve a similar effect by continuing to make a mix of memes on original templates and on standard templates, with the possibility that if your standard memes are interesting enough to people, they may see that and check out your other memes too.) But that's what you do - you "play the game" on the site, by giving people content that's interesting enough to make them interested in you and look at your profile. There's no guarantees with it in terms of timeline, but that's what you do, and that's what top users tell anyone whom they want to help out.

He also indicated to you what you should not do (make memes complaining about it). The reasoning behind this is that it makes you well-known for the wrong reasons. It's possible that it will still work to drive some traffic to your memes, but it's more likely to bring the kind of traffic that is people looking for a fight etc.

So when I see you not doing what Raydog and others who know have advised, and what everyone knows works to get your images seen, I conclude that you don't want your images seen. And when I see you continue to do exactly what has been indicated that you should not do, I conclude that what you want is for your original images not to be seen, since that is what your behavior indicates.

The reasons why imgflip releases memes deeper in the original stream are unlikely to change, no matter how many users are dissatisfied with it. So when I see you trying to do the impossible by changing what's not going to change, instead of just doing what's possible, I conclude that you don't actually want people to see the memes you make on original templates.

Well I will just go back to what I stated earlier. Not everyone has hours that they can spend on this site making hundreds of meme comments a week in order to get noticed. So should their original content suffer and not be seen because they can't put hours on end into the site just to get noticed? And I don't see this as an impossible thing to change, since it didn't use to be this way. They would just need to figure out what they changed to cause this to happen and reverse the change.

When you say it didn't use to be this way, what time frame are you thinking about?

Just a few months ago, so before the removal of the downvote counter. There was still a wait time for originals to get featured, but once they were featured they started on the first couple pages of the latest tab, not somewhere down the line.

Isn't it more likely that the reason for that is a higher number of total submitted memes per hour by the increased number of users, rather than a change made to the site?

The memes in the Latest stream are released in batches (usually once per hour). The maximum number of pages a meme can be down in the Latest Stream is determined by how many pages of memes there are in the last batch that was released - it can't be any lower than that. Original templates are always going to be lower than the standard templates because they take longer to review, and that's connected to positioning because the memes in the Latest Stream are sorted in order of when they're generated, not from when they're submitted (and originals generated from a several hours ago are always going to come out in a lower position than a standard template made 1 hour or so ago).

I didn't notice anything significantly different about this site from a few months ago. That could be, as you've said, because by that time I was already a popular enough user to have traffic coming to my memes regardless of position. But I'm not sure either way. I have never expected my original memes to have a high position in the stream, so I've never really looked at it.

For a meme to start on page 9, that would require just over 120 memes to be submitted that hour. I have only seen about 30 on average each hour get submitted. I find it really hard to believe that over 120 memes are submitted at the same time each time I have submitted an original meme.

When a meme is released in the Latest stream, it is released in the batch of memes that featured in the last hour. It does not drop down to be among the memes that were featured the hour before.

The amount of pages per hour released varies with the volume of submissions.

Whatever the reason for memes with original templates featuring at an unfavorable position, it's important to realize that this is not likely to change.

The reason I say that is because the types of changes you want to see would require the mods taking a more hands-on approach to the review of memes, and what I've seen them write on the site goes in the opposite direction - they want the site to be as automated as possible.

So you're left with either trying to do something impossible, in a way that you don't even know how, or do what you can see is possible, based on the experience of other users.

Also, it doesn't take hundreds of meme comments a week in order to get noticed. There are users on here who have done well with different levels of time commitment. The front page refreshes slowly. If you're able to get comments on front page memes that people find funny, you'll get noticed, since they'll stay long enough to be seen. I'd say that making an average of around 3-5 funny meme comments per day on front page memes would do it. The key isn't hundreds of comments, but rather consistency over time.

I have had 10 times with all 10 original submissions start on page 9 or later, which means that over 120 memes had to be submitted at the exact same time each time. Every other time it is only about 30 memes on average.

It's a lot higher than 30 memes per hour during peak hours (e.g. evenings).

Don't be mad, but is it possible you're coming late and seeing 3-4 hours worth of submissions at once (or something like that)?

Let's take this meme for instance. Submitted roughly 5 hours ago. It is currently on page 14 of the latest memes. That is an average of 39.2 memes per hour. https://imgflip.com/i/11b8yq was submitted roughly 11 hours ago, page 35 making it an average of 44.5 memes per hour. Even if you take the first one I submitted today. It is currently on page 65. So even if you calculate the difference between the first and second one, that is only 85 memes per hour, which is still a ways off from the 126 to put one onto page 9.

Let me put it to you this way as well. When I started noticing this problem, I tracked my memes. I would check each hour to see if it featured yet. One hour it wouldn't be featured, the next it would be on at least page 9. Even with 80 memes submitted in 1 hour, that is only page 5 or 6. I even check the difference between 2 memes that I submitted at the exact same time once. There was an average of about 32 memes each hour between the common template meme and the original meme that featured 5 hours afterwards. So I find it really hard to believe that for 6 hours there was an average of 30-35 memes being featured and that next hour there were over 120.

It sounds like you're saying you believe that imgflip is submitting your memes so that they are not included in the latest batch released, but inserted deeper into the stream among those of previous batches.

Whether it is something being done deliberately or something that is being done because of how a program is written, I don't know. I can see the possibility that when a meme is submitted, depending on the time it is submitted, the next available hour in which it would be featured it puts in a book mark of where it is suppose to be at in line. Whether or not it gets featured right then can depend on if it is an approved template or not. The common templates are already approved, so they would still go ahead and feature at that moment. However an original template would not be approved, and therefore has to wait until the approval is given. While it is waiting for that, if a new batch of 30 come up the next hour and get their bookmark, that one is pushed on pack in line as to what number it is. So say it was 15 before, it would be 45 now. Repeat this process a few more times for each hour that goes by until it gets approved. It wouldn't take long for that number to hit 130, which then means it is posted after page 9. Even if this is taking place, I still have a sense that something deliberate is taking place because I have had 1 meme in which it set for a couple days and had 6 views on it with no link posted anywhere so the only other people to know it existed is the admins. When they saw it at that time, why not click a button to say that the template was approved if it was to ever get submitted? Instead after it was submitted, it still waited 6 hours and had 3 more views before it finally got featured on page 11.

I know this just makes it look like I am trying to come up with some sort of conspiracy, however since they refuse to respond to me anytime I have submitted a feedback report on this, this is the only conclusion I can come up with that seems reasonable based off of the information I have.

I can see why, with that information, it would seem like something unusual is going on. Whether it is or not, I don't know.

How likely do you think it is that whatever is happening will be changed?

What do you think about the point I was trying to make that it might be better to do what you can see is possible based on other people's experiences, rather than do what's likely to be the impossible?

I only see it as impossible because other people have already given up, which I really think is sad. It is the users of this site that make it popular and bring traffic here, so the people should have input into how the site works. I am not saying every little change each person wants should be done, but if the mass call out for the same thing to happen, then something should be done.

As far as doing what you say is possible, what I don't like about it is that it then turns this site into a popularity contest more than what it already is. Before there was just a popularity contest just to get to the front page and be part of the top 10 weekly lost. Now it is turning into a popularity contest just to have your memes seen at all. Where is the fun in that? Who really wants to create memes knowing what they make may only been seen by a couple dozen people?

It was always like that as far as I remember. There's no guarantee of people getting views on their memes when they make a meme on a website. And as far as I can tell, there's no reason why there should be.