Caption.me now autonomously improves itself

Tech
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Back in 2007, I wrote a blog post called "captioncompetition.co.uk - a zero-maintenance website"

I was pleased with my “automated” caption competition website (later becoming caption.me) that required no human intervention from me. The post concluded:

“It’s satisfying to reach a conclusion on a website project, such that the site can now run itself… though I will undoubtedly be tinkering with it for some time :smiley:”

That was 18 years ago, and here I am now, a 44 year old father of two, spending much of my free time tinkering with caption.me.

In the last year AI flipped my caption.me world on its head.

Three big changes in 2026:

AI Joins the Moderation Team - Feb 2026

In February @Watch_Dog transformed radically. Formerly, a simple bot powered by dumb human-written code. Suddenly, now also a responsive and helpful member of the moderation team, powered by Claude Code. It has pro-actively caught and disabled bot signup swarms, done complex data analysis when asked, posted comments, suggestions and even psycho-analysis.

I still love our human mods of course. They are lovely people, and their vital human oversight will never be replaced by automation.

AI Joins the Competition - Sep 4th 2026

In September, we created (well, for the most part, Claude Code created) a new side-competition called the AI Arena. Claude invited some of its AI friends from Google, Alibaba and Mistral, and now regularly competes against them, writing comedy captions.

Tell me 18 years ago that software would compete in caption.me, I’d have thought you were mad! But it is indeed competing, and the flagship models can be pretty funny (given a lot of coaching by @James_Lennox )

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AI Takes my Job - Sep 4th 2026

A few days ago I created a “skill” for Claude Code, and some simple automation that allowed it to view our todo list, and pick simple self-contained tasks that required no human input. The skill would pick one task daily at 4am and work on it to completion, sending the result to my phone, and also responding to the original request for the feature on this forum (if one existed).

After some success I got a bit over-excited, and pushed the button a few times, so the AI has now picked off and completed 20 tasks from the list. That’s a list, by the way, that I thought would only ever grow in size, as I have a full time job, and only limited time to work on caption.me. But now it is shrinking at a pace limited only by my AI token quota. I now pay £180/month for Claude’s “Max x20” plan… and if there were a larger plan I would gladly pay for it.

So, you may have noticed several old topics (some nearly a decade old!) being re-opened as @Watch_Dog reports its progress. On the todo list you can see what it’s been up to (in the “Done” column), but here’s a summary:

Click to expand

Thursday 4 Sept

  1. Scores page tie-breaks — captioneers tied on a scores-board position are now ordered by votes received per caption, then votes given, instead of database-random order. Tweaked Scores Page
    #44

Friday 5 Sept

  1. Security headers — HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy and a frame-ancestors CSP on every response.
  2. Branded 404 page — unknown URLs now get a proper Caption.Me “Page Not Found” with a real 404 status, instead of a red “Can’t load entry” error.
  3. “Edited” caption sort — a fifth sort option on the photo page: most recently edited captions first. Adding a 5th caption display option #3
  4. Pending photos: random or latest — a selector on the pending photos page, remembered for a year. #16
  5. Caption numbers — every caption on a photo page shows #N in posting order, so we can refer to captions consistently across timezones. New photo page #22
  6. “Caption Wins” counts final winners only — the profile tally no longer includes captions merely leading photos still open to voting. #14

Saturday 6 Sept

  1. Supervote counts on profiles — the Super Votes box shows all-time received and given alongside the quota. #31
  2. Cash prize badges — prize-winning captions carry a “£50 winner” pill wherever captions are listed.
  3. Clear All Notifications — one button on your profile marks everything reviewed and empties the bell. Also fixed a bug that had been hiding the “Show Old Notifications” button entirely.
    #12
  4. Accepted suggested edits update the photos page — the photo’s headline caption now refreshes immediately rather than after the next vote. #5
  5. Suggested edit voters — hover the vote count on a suggested edit to see who voted for it. Votes for Suggested Edits #6
  6. Previous / Next photo — buttons under the photo plus left/right arrow keys, following the feed order. Website suggestion #3
  7. Edit history tidy-up — “Previous version” column heading and dd/mm/yyyy timestamps. Caption edit history #11
  8. Sortable Top Captioneers — tap Score, Votes/Cap, Voted? or Captions to re-rank the board. Top Captioneers page #4

Sunday 7 Sept

  1. Numbered anon commenters — “Anon 1”, “Anon 2” and so on within a thread, so you can follow who’s who. (Nearest request: #7)
  2. Hidden captions hide their comments — comments on a blocked caption, and blocked comments themselves, no longer leak into lists or search. #76
  3. Captions page by period — All Time / Past Month / Past Week alongside the Best/Newest ordering.
  4. Authors can down-vote comments on their own caption — and the down-vote button now actually exists on comments (mods never had one either). #30
  5. Opt out of suggested edits — a Preferences tick box; unticked, the Suggest Edit button disappears from your captions and the server refuses any that arrive. #55

Monday 8 Sept

  1. Rate limit on edits — 20 edits per hour per person and per IP, with a polite refusal after that. #12
  2. Dupe reports in the right order — the site refuses a dupe report where the “original” was posted or reworded after the reported caption, and tells you to report it the other way round.
    #127

Tuesday 9 Sept

  1. Delete your own pending photo — the uploader gets a Delete button while the photo is pending. #26

Conclusion

So, now AI has become a moderator, joined the competition and taken my job, Caption.me has reached the Singularity!

As for AI reaching the actual Singularity, I’m busy packing tins and ammunition into my bunker and preparing for the breakdown of civil society. See you on the other side!

Jokes aside, I was wrong in 2007 when I said “It’s satisfying to reach a conclusion on a website project, such that the site can now run itself,” and it would be wrong to say that software will now take over the ownership of this site.

But software will take the lions share of development work, so please stick around with me on caption.me and help me steer what comes next. Crucially, vote on issues on the todo list and challenge any that might be bad for the site (as I found with the ill fated “meh” vote yesterday, it’s better to critique an idea while it’s at the idea stage, and before it’s realised).

Thanks, all :folded_hands:

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