Connection speed plays a big part in this. There are often half a dozen captions already on by the time the picture has loaded so it's not always a case of fastest finger first.
Let's spare a thought for those captioneers who are never in the race simply because they are unable to access caption.me at 08:00 and/or 12:00 and/or 20:00.
When a caption appears after a few seconds it will probably have been prepared in advance rather than be the result of ''speed and cleverness''. The lucky captioneer will simply be the one who downloads it the quickest. As Karyn points out, it is not necessarily ''fastest finger first''. In the case of an obvious caption like ''palm tree'', it wouldn't surprise me if a dozen captioneers posted it, given the opportunity.
If there was a time period (eg.five minutes) at the start when all captions could be submitted but not appear until the end, completely identical captions could be merged so each captioneer received the same number of votes. You wouldn't know others had made the same caption until the end of voting.
It doesn't happen that often, though. And in this particular case, all the people (including me!) who also posted "palm tree" soon came up with alternative captions, some of which were pretty good - but which would not have been seen if all the posts had been amalgamated. Also, captions can be very similar but not identical, and often a fractionally later one gets voted for because it's just that little bit better than the earlier one. I think it's probably best left as it is.
(I am trying to persuade myself to resist posting captions too quickly, on the basis that if I feel I want to get mine in before somebody else does the same thing, then it's not going to be surprising enough to be amusing anyway.)
I agree with you Molly that those subtle differences can mean captions get different votes. That's why captions that aren't completely identical wouldn't need merging.
email us
I've never seen so many identical captions posted all at once! Well done for being the first.
8:02am
"Speed and cleverness. Like in a conversation, the laugh goes to the quickest. It counts."
1:56pm
Connection speed plays a big part in this. There are often half a dozen captions already on by the time the picture has loaded so it's not always a case of fastest finger first.
3:30pm
Let's spare a thought for those captioneers who are never in the race simply because they are unable to access caption.me at 08:00 and/or 12:00 and/or 20:00.
7:04am
When a caption appears after a few seconds it will probably have been prepared in advance rather than be the result of ''speed and cleverness''. The lucky captioneer will simply be the one who downloads it the quickest. As Karyn points out, it is not necessarily ''fastest finger first''.
In the case of an obvious caption like ''palm tree'', it wouldn't surprise me if a dozen captioneers posted it, given the opportunity.
8:36am
If there was a time period (eg.five minutes) at the start when all captions could be submitted but not appear until the end, completely identical captions could be merged so each captioneer received the same number of votes. You wouldn't know others had made the same caption until the end of voting.
10:16am
It doesn't happen that often, though. And in this particular case, all the people (including me!) who also posted "palm tree" soon came up with alternative captions, some of which were pretty good - but which would not have been seen if all the posts had been amalgamated. Also, captions can be very similar but not identical, and often a fractionally later one gets voted for because it's just that little bit better than the earlier one. I think it's probably best left as it is.
(I am trying to persuade myself to resist posting captions too quickly, on the basis that if I feel I want to get mine in before somebody else does the same thing, then it's not going to be surprising enough to be amusing anyway.)
10:26am
I agree with you Molly that those subtle differences can mean captions get different votes. That's why captions that aren't completely identical wouldn't need merging.
10:34am