Come on James, things will be better.
I had 3 weeks of hardly any points and doing better this week…the only thing it takes is that ONE caption that can come up in your head at any time. The time you give up is often the time that a good caption was about to arise.
Hey! I just returned to this forum, I forgot I posted on this! Well thanks for the Happy Birthdays!
@James, the scores go back to zero every week so there’s always the chance of being top again…so c’mon keep them coming! I’m having a slow week myself…and I’ve run out of quota 
Thanks guys (and girls of course).
I just haven’t got the timing to get these 20+ megacaptions. I’ve had 1 hit and only 2 #1 captions and they were in the days LONG before prizes. As soon as it means something I’ve basically lost all bottle.
I’m gonna have start finding my own pictures to put up so I can think it up before hand (a la my 8 point winner on snooker which is my own snooker table).
I’ll keep trying but confidence is low.
156 captions liked this week! Beat that!!!
grrr. It’s only Tuesday and I’m already 8 voted behind a top 10 place!!! And the 2 photos I have good captions for are sliding furter down the ladder! Had one of them for 4 months (the lizard on the guys shoulder) but it just wont come up and this current few (no offence intented) have been either predictable, 1st come 1st win or just plain poor.
Try not to get too focused on the league table James, it will cloud your ability to think of good captions. Relax, enjoy it and you will be back on track in no time. You can sometimes over think a caption, use the Maption tool, its very useful for allowing your thoughts to move in other directions rather than focusing on the obvious puns.
I love sunday mornings. The only time all week I tend to be top 10 
Edited a load of my old but recent enough to be allowed captions to improve them however also thrown few experiments in there.
Now to see if anyone picks up.
I think you finally put in the caption you wanted…funny…my vote!
Might make double figures before thursday for a change 
Still no supercaption though.
Noticing a lot of things recently and most of them working against me. Gathering a little data every now and again and it’s interesting but bad news for students.
Best week in a long time 
Getting a load of midfield captions but not close to winning any for a while it seems.
Although I logged in at 2am thinking “clean slate, let’s see my quota”. And went to the leaderboard and saw my name on top 1 vote and no captions posted. Ratio of infinity WIN!
Quota of 26 and my last caption (you wont know which it is obviously but however) is my 500th since joining the site according to my profile 271 likes in that time so ratio over 0.5 thankfully.
Still, just want 1 killer caption and a week where I end in the top 10 or so and I will be seriously happy!
Let’s break the 30 barrier I’m yet to pass.
Hi James, had to smile when I saw you on spot #1 this morning.
Having a bit of a celebration myself…got my 300th vote today 
Thanks Guido Congratulations on the milestone
Right time to explain the tests.
I changed 2 of my captions to the “Please comment if you read this but don’t vote”.
The first one I did at midnight and it was about halfway down page 1.
Not 1 person spotted it so proof is if a caption is posted within a few hours if it has no vote it wont get read.
The 2nd time I did it earlier in the day and still no takers until just now but once it was spotted once it got spotted mutliple times which proves comments getting publicity is a very fruitful tactic which I now understand why people do it although I would not condone it and still consider it sneaky, coniving and cheating.
Also been doing a little note to myself about time of caption posting. Anything posted after 11pm will very rarely get any votes no matter how good it is. So in short my 1am captions when my head is working are 95% of the time, pointless and the other 5% of the time I know they are just so poor that even if they get read nobody would in their right mind vote
But yeah. A lot of psychology but in short. I can’t even work out a way to get more votes in a fair way and my lifestyle and timescale of when I work best and can get on the site does leave me at a disadvantage from the start.
All this does make me feel slightly better in that I’m maybe not as useless as I think I am.
Nice experiment!
Firstly I’ve just altered the display of anon comments from caption authors to show “[caption author]” rather than “[anon]”, to avoid people hiding sneaky tactics.
Secondly, regarding optimum times, I know this is a problem and it’s a pity there are blackspots during the day that have reduced visibility. Two ways of improving this situation: getting more international visitors, and loading more photos per day. As the site grows, we ought to see the situation improve.
Thanks Chris.
Not entirely scientific but does highligh those points as said. Liking the author anon idea a lot.
The blackspot thing is the reason for about 3 of my posts in this thread where I moan that I just don’t get enough votes and am always in the top 5 voters but only in the top 10 of votes received on a Sunday or Monday and by Friday I am never higher than 12th. Timing has never been my forte and if I don;t get swamped out by other captions I get ignorred and sometimes both at once in the competative 11am/8pm window.
Mind you. If I ever need inspiration at that time I look at one of my all time best comments “…but dupe detector once again reminding me that I either have to be quick or come up with a different sense of humour because mine is already taken…”
Still, hope it doesn’t seen fishy or “not the done thing” with these experiments but just wanted to boost my confidence more than anything and it has And it’s also brought up some interesting facts and issues as raised which I had suspected for a while so was worthwhile doing.
Just commented on my original now that the voting for it has shut. Almost makes me want to do a caption change treasure hunt but as you can tell, being online at 00:45 doesn’t always bode well for intelligence. Comedy on the other hand…
Anyway hope this helps clear things up and glad to hear everything being so proactive to solving the issues Chris. One thing I love about this site. Always striving to improve constantly and it’s far from slow at doing just that
Hi James, since there is no incentive to find new captions or changed ones in older photos and with 2 photos a day I have to admit that I also don’t always take the time anymore to search for new captions in old photos. More photos a day would mean lesser quality captions without an improvement of voting. So a possibility of highlighting a changed or older caption might work better. I think Grant Amy checks the oldest 3 photos everyday for new or changed captions…so atleast a few people surf to find new brilliance.
Yeah.
Editing captions without votes gets you nowhere and adding captions to old ones only works if people are online.
The same technicaly for newer photos too. The fact I only seem to come up with good stuff at midnight means my audience is so minimal that I have no chance.
Might be an idea to show who’s online Chris… if that’s possible James, you would know whether to post a caption at 1am or not:) I must admit, I sometimes have a peek late at night, like now… it’s twenty past two where I am… am