I talked with clinkster. The views of Black Star Alliance do not always reflect the views of those who hijack the Black Star

28r9rj.gif (click to show)

I don't know man. I hope this doesn't turn into two sides, with one side keeping on making memes against reposts, and one side keeping on making memes against people complaining about reposts (though I can guess which side I'll be on if it does).

Or at least, if it does turn into that, hopefully there's a funny side to it, and it doesn't drag on too long. People are just going to do what they want anyway. Nobody's going to change their behavior just because someone else made a meme against it.

I honestly think people should just use downvotes. If people don't like to see reposts doing well on the site, they should downvote when they see them (stopping to put a comment pointing out that a meme is a repost can actually help that meme's standing on the site). And if we don't like seeing complaints about reposts, we can just downvote those complaints.

Anyway, I know this peace-seeking type of comment probably sounds strange coming from me, since I hate repost whiners and have a lot of vitriol against them, but on the other hand, I don't like spending time on feuds. Hope you don't mind the comment!

Thanks, I needed that. No I don't mind, I'm glad you stopped by and happy to read your comments. I'm ready to get back to meme'n and having fun.

Actually my comment has an element of contradiction to it - it's a comment about how people can't really influence other people's behavior, but the comment itself sounds like it's hoping to influence other people's behavior (into using downvotes). So I really don't know.

I love the gif, I gotta repost it! :)

Why not? That's what I did (I got it from Craziness).

Ok! :)

An new machine learning feature for imgflip maybe?

Future of memes! Put Calculon in charge of finding reposts :)

Currently, I don't think it's so though. From what I can tell, if it has valid captions (not a period or de minimis text) and/or extra added images, it will most likely feature. From there, it's up to the users. I don't have an overall objection to reposts like some users do, so if a repost make it to and then through Latest and then on to the Hot pages, I will either upvote/comment or keep scrolling to the next.

Just click create!!! (He also never creates reposts so Calculon is already obsolete) lol

I think you just jinxed your spelling in comments by commenting on it XD

ROFL, no I've been doing it a LOT lately!!!!

Reminds me of the time IBM Watson was on Jeopardy. Some funny off the wall answers but beat the pants off Jennings and Rutter.

There are meme bots out there. I've poked around the internet looking for them, but never built or used one. Still needs a human's input though, from what I know about some of the better meme bots.

When computers develop a sense of humor, that's when I'll be impressed.

Funniest people I know get me laughing so hard I can't breathe. Thoretically it wouldn't take much to push that to the point of unconciousness. Maybe that's how Skynet will get us :)

halfway there...
imgflip.com/ai-meme

I'm was just too far ahead of my time!

I think it wouldn’t be that hard for imgflip to do a quick image search, for an exact match (that is AFTER the user “generates “ the meme, so if you set text size to 0, which is quite common, the resulting image will match one on the internet. But is it what we want to happen? To never see a meme, we may have never seen before, because we “missed” it? Even sometimes I want to repost my own because it featured at a time that got few views.

I hadn't thought about that and its a good point. My latest meme is a resubmission, from something I created about a year ago. The original was created before imgflip had the option to rotate captions. I definitely wouldn't have wanted imgflip to hold it back from featuring again because it had been done before.

Take one down, pass it around, unlimited number of memes on the wall :)

Nice! I had to go outside imgflip to do this before...

Can you explain the black star thing to me, please? I'm not clear on that. Are there two groups using the black star?

Black star (originally black Square) actually had more to do with rejecting the points system. Icons are a status symbol, so instead of focusing on good original content, users are reposting content to collect more points and get to the next Icon. So users chose the black star to take a stand against the points system. We don’t need a weekly leaderboard or top 250 users, or an icon. The idea is that if points system was abolished, users would focus on creating good content. It’s a revolutionary idea, I know imgflip mentioned it once, that they considered removing the points system, but to be honest it might not change anything. Points are a distraction, but if they removed points, we would find something else to complain about. And reposting would still continue to happen. There is a group of users who are have more radical views, that we should only have original content. I am not of that view.

OK, thanks for explaining. That might be a good idea - removing the points (at least, as far as users accumulating them - I think even if points were removed it would be good to keep a system of upvotes & downvotes as a way of determining the order of memes in Hot). It's true that some people would still complain about something else, but I think it could take the "edge" off a lot of interactions if there were no points. And if the motivation of accumulating points and getting icons were taken away, then people would just post things they want to see, or that they think are funny, without regard to whether they would "score" well (whether reposts or not).

Hahaha, Passenger 57! Basically a Die Hard "repost," if you want to call it that.

Blatant reposts are irritating. I mean, reusing a template is one thing. You know, make an original caption (and hope that someone else some other time in history didn't think of one similar). But to flat out save, upload, and repost same template, same caption is just lame. I do not up vote those. There was one recently that made the front page the first time around, the exact repost of the same one came back around not even a week later. Front page. All kinds of slaps on the back given in comments. All kinds of undeserved credit taken. Re use a template, but for the love of toasted marshmallows, just think up a new caption.

That's cool with me, we all have our own opinion on the definition of repost and hopefully a philosophy on reposts. For me, I either like a meme or I don't. Usually I either upvote a meme or scroll by, I only have time to comment on about the best ten percent or so of what I upvote. How users vote on memes is up to them.

I don't usually go through the Hot and Latest pages with repost glasses on looking for what may or may not be a repost. Some users seem to do that though and feel the need to point it out when they see something they don't like.

What I don't like most of all is users who call repost on others but have reposted stuff themselves. I dont see users who do that very often, but there have been a few. This meme is mostly about the hypocricy of users that call repost on others but have reposted themselves.

The Black Star Alliance is about working together to make imgflip better. I won't speak for imgflip.com/user/clinkster but I think the Black Star Alliance came first and is inclusive, the Black Star Project seems to be exclusive (Original Content only) and something else. Click the Black Star Project tag for more info on that.

I'm just thinking that on a site with thousands of templates for the users to play with that reusing templates is acceptable. However, on a site in which templates are not provided and the user is expected to create one that would unacceptable. Just a little clarity behind my reasoning.

F**K!!!

A point I think the repost whiners are missing is this: they're not mad at the people reposting. They're mad that people are upvoting the reposts. If reposts disappeared in Latest and didn't get seen, I doubt repost whiners would get that upset about them.

And that should tell them something. If other people are enjoying them, who are the whiners to say they shouldn't be? We all have types of memes we find irritating. So why go around trying to make sure everyone agrees with our tastes?

I think repost whiners need to get off their sanctimonious, self-righteous high horse and realize that a) not everyone may have seen every meme before, so there's plenty of room for people to enjoy good reposts, and b) reposts are here to stay, whether they like it or not.

That's my take on it, and that's why I roll my eyes when I see people repost whining, even if the people whining have never reposted themselves.

Another reason I roll my eyes is that they just seem so stupid to me. Reposts are an essential part of what memes are all about (the point of memes is that they're meant to be copied and spread around), so when they criticize someone for reposting, it comes across like they're criticizing someone for just doing what you're supposed to do with memes anyway. Maybe that's just me, though.