Good Ratios should retain visibility

A big factor in what posts remain on the Hot page, is the stream the post is in.
If the stream has consistent new posts, you might need a little bit of luck to get your post approved at a more favorable time. The Fun stream is an example of that.
For most streams that allow limited posts per day, your ratio is a winning one.

Exactly, thanks for confirming that we "need a little luck", which is not a good algorithm.

A good algorithm, would know the fussy upvoters compared to the generous ones, and would expose every meme to 20 fussy upvoters, and 20 generous upvoters, and based on those 40 initial views, accelerate the good ones into more exposure. This way it's less luck, straightforward stats. That algorithm is possible with a clever coder.

Of course everything could be improved, but this particular plan would require profiling every user's upvoting habits, which isn't the most efficient plan we can come up with.
Every user is created equal. An upvote from one user cannot count as a different value than another user's.

Sure but then if you are assessed over the first 40 views, then you could just have bad luck that day, and get 30 fussier voters. But it's so easy for a computer to calculate each individuals average upvote per view ratio.

But regardless of profiling, the current algorithm doesn't seem to make sense. I wish someone could explain the math behind the decision making.

Look at it as a ratio of upvotes and time since featuring.
Views only increment when a user visits the image page, upvotes are counted independent of views.
Images that gather most upvotes in the least time since featuring show up in Hot, not images that gather the most upvotes as a percentage of views.

Aah makes sense in understanding the current system. Does not however make sense as a fair method of screening out the best memes. Time shouldn't be a factor, upvotes per view should be the dominant factor.

In addition I suspect that the timing starts from the moment of submission, not from the moment of featuring. So if moderators are slow to feature your meme, then this ruins your upvote per time ratio. Correct?

This is new knowledge for me too.
No, Imgflip considers the time since the image features on the stream, not the time since image creation.
Better put: the time is calculated since the image became 'upvoteable'.

There's no way to know the details of this algorithm, but something interesting you can do with this information is link your unsubmitted meme to users who upvote it before submitting it and see if you get an ungodly boost in your journey to the Hot page.
I've seen users do it, and I've seen those images get to the front page, but it's still hard to say if it works.

I think that does work. I've shared some memes with a few followers just after submitting it, and that can send it to front page.

I'm just trying to help, it's not a complaint. I know that you gather members and viewers through easy access to top quality memes. So the best memes should get to the top, it's in everyone's interest.

Of course, of course.
There's no harm in complaining too, as long as it's a complaint to the right people.

Okay well I was hoping those in influence look at the imgflip stream. Upvotes per view would be a far better algorithm than upvotes per time.

They do usually. Just don't expect to get a response every time.

I find for me that my fun stream images always have a 10-1 view to upvote ratio after about 2 days or so.
So is I get 600 upvotes it’ll likely have around 60k views.

That's actually 100-1, that's why I was saying 6-1 is a pretty good ratio. Lack of exposure during the first few hours can cause a good meme to drift away into anonymity. You guys with a large following get a good boost of upfront upvotes because you also get nice upfront exposure in "followed users". Although the following is deserved, if you get two memes of equal quality, the more popular user will get more upvotes/exposure.