To my fellow imgflippers: perhaps it's time to ask the mods for a downvote timer? this troll problem is getting RIDICULOUS

I, KenJ, am a free speech extremist, but there are those on site that envelop you in a downvote swarm if you disagree with them or even 'look' at them funny. Claims of being 'insulting' fly and then an hour later I've lost the ability to use pictures, I'm on a 4 minute comment timer, and I've lost a submission. And it's been happening day after day. And I'm not the only one, I've heard many stories. At a certain point downvoting is no longer free speech but becomes a method of suppressing free speech. Perhaps limiting downvotes to 'x' number an hour might help? Or even letting the downvoted know who is doing so? I know downvote limits might not stop the committed trolls from swarming with alt accounts, but it might make it harder, or make the easily offended think twice about mindless, quick vengeance.

Thank you for your ear...

I agree with limiting or eliminating downvotes. I think that would solve a lot of the problems. The situation makes me think of the imgflip peacy treaty imgflip.com/i/1iovkh

the peace treaty, IIRC, didn't really last long. Trolls used it as an opening for a field day. I was being blocked consistently before and after. I sent feedback forms and named people I suspected of being behind it. I usually had full service returned in short order. helped that I had a pro account, too.

I notice that flagging threatening comments and sending e-mails to [email protected] with copied obnoxious statements tends to restore service quicker than just begging for upvotes. I am not inside the heads of the administrators or moderators so I don't know for certain, but I imagine some of the more extreme users are noted as being so and keep getting flagged. So I'm also saying continued flagging and e-mailing in conjunction with slowed downvotes should temper the power of a negative few.

Yes. I mentioned one of the suspected perps in a couple of my e-mails and phone calls. I noticed that shortly afterwards, my timers had disappeared (I'd also got a pro account. money talks) and, amazingly enough, said trolls were suddenly not posting as much or not making the hot pages with their extremist drivel. Two or three of them were complaining that their memes weren't being featured because of being downvoted back into submission. One is already complaining about it because upset that I won't follow their line of BS.

Just today I looked at a couple other user's memes complaining about their being downvoted to obscurity, and I noticed a couple of sympathetic comments were from users who I know have been troll downvoting me. I had to do the literal Robert Downey eye roll. :P

Yeah. I had one accuse me of downvoting her replies to my comments. I think she was upset because I stood my ground. She acts like she wants to debate but pulls bullshit arguments out of nowhere.

gee wiz I wonder who you could be talking about, lmao!

Trust me, it's not anyone of real importance

:)

Substitute listening/writing/reading ;)

Sounds like one of mine. :P

... and if you limited the upvote the whole sense of this page would have been in doubt.

But I agree, something should be done - even if I wasn't affected by a red "paint bomb" ride so far.

I have to disagree - in a friendly manner. :) Upvotes by their very nature are positive. Maybe they have been abused by those seeking to advance their own creations, but no-one is losing the ability to use the site easily due to upvote abuse. (I was recently flagged by a Big User incorrectly for spamming when all I was doing was linking creations of mine to a friend on site, but it was resolved quickly.) Downvotes are negative and can be abused to hamper the creative abilities of those on site who have made enemies, often for no other reason than having an opposing view on an issue. Limiting downvotes to a (very) few an hour would make people think about their use and perhaps get them more properly used to express strong disagreements to those who might make offensive statements. A downvote, as currently situated, is more powerful than an upvote, and having a negative more powerful than a positive is a recipe for those who would attack rather than construct to have more power.

I agree with your ideas in your first comment. Especially the part about letting down voted users know who's dragging their reply time and points down.

Maybe if it's a user who is downvoting on a meme and it's comments a lot, or if it's someone who is downvoting a particular user many times. I think there are a few meeker users who just want to register their disapproval quietly once. If they were known I know there are trollish users on here who would attack them in a huff, and that might limit commenting by those meek users or even drive them away. I find downvotes okay, but when it becomes mass use to censor or limit a particular user then it loses it's legitimacy.

Never heard of the peace treaty. I was probably in a flame war with someone. :) Anyway, I'm not arguing to eliminate downvotes, just limiting their use over a period of time. They're being used en masse to get revenge on users that some users don't like. I know alt accounts won't be affected as much, but it will slow people down. Right now there are a small group of people, who will remain unnamed here, who are wielding out-sized power on the site because they are able to get others to agree to swarm certain users with downvotes and flaggings.

Apparently someone is attacking isayisay now and one of my submissions today is getting attacked too...

Been happening a lot to various users. Why I thought it was time to broach the subject more thoroughly.

LOL

No one is teflon anymore. ;)

I've been getting down vote constantly too. I see votes on week old memes withering away. Today, I'm on some kind of time that made me wait before I could add a comment. How horrible have my comments been? Like this: imgflip.com/gif/1ui5i7

Have you had any arguments lately? That's usually where it starts...

I just left you my reply. I posted my comment. I come back, and my reply is no where. Can you contact the owner of this site?

I can't contact them any easier than you can...just use the feedback form tab...that's all I would do...they don't show me any special treatment around here.

My reply was that I don't know anyone here. So I have no bias. If there is something I don't like, I don't down vote, I just move on. My memes have been getting hard core down voted for a month. I just quietly up vote every comment in a good meme. Like this one. Every comment got an upvote. It promotes a good spirit.

It was probably as simple as something you said to someone and it set them off somehow...hard to tell if they're attacking you from the dark.

I'm letting it go, because I don't talk to anyone here!!!! Ha, ha. Only you and DashHopes I give compliments to. I do know 1 thing: Facebook used to be my life. A former girlfriend kept track of every move I made. So in April, I quit FB cold turkey, and began here. I've seen evidence to make me believe they followed me here. They have no life unless they have secret control over others. They really need to get out more. I'm having a blast here. Notice how I avoid politics and religion? Just crazy slap stick stuff. Monty Python and Airplane are my type of humor.

The hardcore downvoting is what I'm trying to get clipped here. Keep up the good spirit. :)

Replies sometimes take time to show up. I've seen that many times. But when I reload the page 5+ minutes later it is there. Also I don't think down votes are subtracted from the upvote count when a meme is displayed. Votes going down could be due to people accidentally clicking on the upvote button again (which of course retracts the vote) or just a system glitch.

My fear is accidentally clicking the downvote arrow when I meant to click the upvote, and not realizing it. Mortified though no-one is likely ever to find out. I'm pretty anal about checking if I did it right. ;)

The two buttons are too close together it is all too easy to misclick.

I'm with you on this. Changes are needed to prevent down vote abuse.

Amen. I don't think they should be done away with completely, just limited. Like people on comment probation are limited now. A sign popping up saying 'please wait 1 hour to downvote' would be less bothersome to most (I imagine) than the common 'please wait 122 seconds to comment' is. The idea behind the comment timer is to keep those who would comment troll a meme limited in their swarming abilities.

Forgive me if this betrays my lack of tech knowledge but I've thought of the timer in terms of not allowing more at one time than could be handled by the tech doohickeymajiggz. Is that a possible factor? One can comment a lot in a very short period including using meme commenting if there's no timer istm. There's gotta be some capacity limit though for all I know that's not actually a problem at this time. *shrug*

If I get your gist: I think a comment timer comes into play for the purpose of limiting trolls from dominating a conversation. DashHopes successfully worked to get the comment timer turned off if you are commenting on your own meme creation, but I do see the point in having a mass commenter who seeks to have their say at the expense of others being slowed down. I do think it's too limiting at times, but I can take that. I just don't like the idea of a person or group of people being able to downvote a person to a point where they end up on probation, usually merely for taking an opposing viewpoint.

I have no tech knowledge myself. And I know nothing of the doohickeymajiggz. :)

Ya you got my gist. Thanks. It's weird. I get held up by the standard 3 min timer at times but it seems to come into play at times when I've surely had comments posted less the 3 min apart. Like post comment, immediately notice typo, post correction comment all well under 3 minutes. And it seems like the timer kicks in but might go away for a few comments later if things time out right. Really there are stretches where I'm rapidly pouring out comments for a while before I'm told "you're commenting a lot!" in the little box that pops up. Sometimes I forget there is a timer. Is that all normal?

Yep. There is little logic that I can see to the programming on here. Everyone has the same problems on imgflip. My complaint is that when you get dinged en masse and can't comment much at all.

Or instead of "x" number per hour, what about "x" number per day? Wouldn't a more moderate daily number possibly make the people doing this think twice to if a better comment might be coming later to downvote. And if this were to happen and these people made more alt accounts wouldn't that make it easier for the Mods to see who they are?

while the idea is good, there is still the problem of alt accounts. it can be time consuming to switch back and forth from other accounts in a short period of time, but if it's set at a daily number it's easily done and the trolling continues.

Alt accounts ARE the big problem with my idea. And it is hard for the admins to target who is alt and who is not; anonymity on the 'net has its drawbacks but is mostly for the good, allowing many to say what they want without being physically targeted. I do think that if hourly (or daily) limits are set, even alt troll attacks would lose punch. I find most of those who I suspicion of swarm trolling me to be rather lazy when it comes to organization.

Some of them can get organized because they have something in common: mental illness.

Another no shit moment: the trolls that are active know they aren't as good or as intellegent as the people they troll. Your trolls are wannabes. They think their memes are a real hoot, but forget the basics of most humor: set up then punch line. make humor that reflects a large audience. So what if a home room teacher licks between his toes during study hall or that Denise has cooties. they could be funny if they weren't second grade taunts. I know you could pull off those scenarios with humor. but your trolls couldn't deliver a funny joke if their lives depended on it. my trolls? on humor posts, are rarely humorous. on comments, they just blindly repeat the BS their parents tell them. Notice a trend? school children. There are a few school age people here that are good and intellegent. but they are in the minority. (tigerlegend comes to mind)

I've seen and been through enough bullshit in real life that very little bothers me on the internet so they are already fighting a losing battle when they mess with me...I'm smart enough to know that they can only bother me it I want to be bothered...which is hardly ever.

I've got a hide of leather so insults from knobs don't bother me. It's when they go mass-downvote in secret that I get my irish up. And I didn't start this campaign so much to help me as much as I got peeved when I saw some semi-political statements Octavia_Melody made that got downvoted to 'low rated comment' status despite them being polite and innocuous, while the bile continued to fly around him. It's utter bullsquirt. If sh!theads won't be courageous enough to accuse in person then maybe we can force 'em to, or f#ck off.

If you argue politics or religion, you deserve whatever you get in my opinion.

Person-to-person. If one has to go behind one's back to wreak revenge over an issue then it isn't politics, it's mental illness.

Lol typed in flattered and that was all that came up. Seriously, thanks a lot! :)

My cat missed me and is trying to help me type. wiped out my original reply. Your intelligence will take you far. in fact, by the time you're my age, you have a chance of taking the number one spot. I just turned 60.

Lol! Thanks! I just want to reach a million points, but obviously I'd love to get even higher. I'll keep going! :)

I'm getting close, but don't think I'll hit my goal by Labor Day. That week in the hospital hurt.

:)

Or the 'adult' ones blindly repeat the BS they find on some extreme website. :P

That could be its own meme, lol

True, true. Maybe you should make something like that?

Yeah, one of mine is very manipulative. I can see some self-absorbed and compulsive tendencies there. Another is so bipolar it just screams off the page.

Since Imgflip relies on advertising dollars, perhaps a letter of complaint to some of the advertisers might get response. Mention how many of the actual posters here have left the site because imgflip refuses to police the site and eliminate trolls.

That probably would work. I'm going to see how this campaign goes first. I haven't received a reply to my feedback, though they have you leave your e-mail address to receive one. Me thinks they are a little too secretive at times.

I'm sure there'd be a way around it with alt accounts, but I just wanted to throw it out there, as another idea. Possibly with assistance to try and control the trolling.

That's an idea to chew on. I just want to see some limits. That goes against my very nature of free expression at all costs, but as this functions more or less as a public forum but in a private setting, some rules are agreed to and thus some limits are allowable. Or else those who object can always go elsewhere; it isn't as if the 'net is hurting for places where opinions can be expressed passionately. Yeah, whether hourly or daily is fine with me. Hourly might stop mass attacks more efficiently, but daily would do as you said, make those thinking of downvoting perhaps wait until a better use might come up.

the problem is, we can't really be a productive community if there are constantly time constraints like we're playing a damn f2p mobile game. lmao

The comment timer needs to be loosened up I agree, if not dispensed with all together, but a fair downvote timer might actually build a better community.

Just trying to help...

You have. Not only by commenting here but by being decent and friendly on imgflip. :)

I try to treat people as I would like to be treated. I joined under the impression that this was for fun and to make others smile. Not for confrontational chaos. I prefer to see people smile as I do. :)
Thank you again for your compliment! :)

People drag their issues with them everywhere. I'm guilty too. But there's 100 incidences of fun on imgflip for every incident of annoyance, so I stay. :)

:)

:)

Cheers :)

:)

Yeah, exactly. When I point out that I'm using my free speech to call them on the carpet for talking sh!t, that's when the secretive downvoting usually comes. Free speech is being able to say what you want, not say what you want without repercussions.

Thanks. :)

If you've been on here for literally any length of time and voiced anything at all, pretty much guaranteed you have a personal troll squad following you. Incredibly frustrating and easily abused.

I don't know if mine follow just me around, I think they f#ck over a lot of people. Thanks for your input. :)