I've always been confused by hot linking views. In the past, I've linked some of my memes to FB and views go through the roof but, non-members can't upvote and IMGFLIP does not really do anything to encourage them to join. People look. They laugh. But, none of the recognition passes to the memer. Now, I just share the actual pic. I don't bother hot linking anymore. Right now, the meme that I just had on the front page must have gotten hot linked by someone and, it's showing 9500 views but, the same number of upvotes as when it had 312 views. Especially if they are going to have a more stringent view policy, views need to matter more in scoring and, IMGFLIP should probably want to convert these viewers into users.