Caption Competition

[RedDwarfian]

You know, I've noticed something.
Mister Kennedy seems to favor a certain group of people for winners. Granted, some of this is just going to happen inevitably, but still, you almost never see a new winner, and it's not for lack of funny entries in the competition. It almost seems like he doesn't bother to read the other captions, and instead just goes for the ones with familiar names on them first. I'm not complaining that *I* never win, because I've actually even gotten a couple of honorable mentions. Hell, I started up the whole "Tamarian metaphor talking" trend with a post of Tamarian pickup lines, but I am complaining that it's astoundingly rare for anybody new to win these competitions. I've read a lot of full lists of the captions and found some that were from people whose names are unfamiliar to me, were very, very funny, and didn't win.
It kinda gets to me a little bit, because there's all this great funny stuff going on, but the winner sems to be a constant pick from one of maybe, at most, about a dozen people, if that, with occasionally a truly hilarious caption from somebody else.
That's all the complaining I have to do. We now return you to your regularly scheduled contest, already in progress.

Posted in the caption competition.

I do have a question: I understand that it takes a long time to go through all the captions, but this does bring up a good question: Does Mr. Kennedy go through the caption entries individually, or does he just browse through the "good names"? Does he look at the captions with the names covered up? (I don't know if it's possible to do this through some greasemonkey script, but it can easily be accomplished with a well positioned sheet of paper.)

Of course, I do understand that everybody has a different opinion on what is funny and what they like. I know that a webcomic posted a graph positioning types of fruit on an x-y graph, or rather a tastiness-difficulty graph. This comic turned out to be the most controversial work in the artist's career, and that was saying something. (His mailbox was flooded with contrary opinions within 15 minutes)

[Teaos]

I would guess that those people who always win are just... you know, funny.

Also I think it would be rather hard to just go through the same old names since they are randomly entered.

[IanKennedy]

The process is quite simple:

• Graham and I take turns to go through the list in the order in which they are posted, selecting a short list of potential good ones.
• Once that process is complete we then turn it over to the other one to whittle it down to a smaller number.
• We then discuss which will be the winner.
• Once the winner is chosen the we select the next caption picture and we start again.

Speaking for myself I never look a the names of the people who entered the competition, I simply mark those that I find funny, or at least mildly amusing. If you don't get picked then you probably don't match my sense of humour. There's not a lot I can do about that, except try to be funnier, in a way that is funny to the judges. We've given pointers in the past as to what we find funny and what we don't, look them us in the what's new (available via the search facility).

[IanKennedy]

Oh and another thing. Irritable please do not use the caption competition for things like this, if you want to talk to us simply join the forum.

[Graham Kennedy]

As Ian said, one of us takes the list of captions and just works down it, marking off those he likes. That generally cuts it down to between 20 and 40 entries. He then hands that list over to the other, who removes any he doesn't like. Then we suggest possible winners to one another.

I for one don't rule anybody in or out on the basis of who they are. I do rule captions out on a few simple criteria; here's a thing I posted in the what's new a while back.

I thought it might be instructive to give a few hints on what to do and what not to do to win the caption competition...

What to do

In-jokes referencing other sci-fi shows that I like amuse me.
Clever puns or plays on words amuse me.
Funny limericks, poems or other such that make it look like you really thought about it.
Get in early. If two people post the same (or essentially same) winning caption, the first one gets in.
Check your spelling. Typos are very likely to eliminate your entry.

What not to do...

Whilst I'm a fan of Monty Python, and found Biggus Dickus jokes amusing for quite some time, they lose their appeal somewhat after you have read about ten thousand of them. Really people, look back - when was the last time a BD joke made the short list, let alone the winner?

References and/or flattery directed at me, whilst they tickled my ego for a while, also grow stale after the first few hundred! (But hey, nobody has ever directed anything at my brother and DITL co-creator Ian and he picks half the winners you know!)

Don't make them too long. Ten lines is a paragraph, not a caption!

And lastly, remember... to every rule there are exceptions

Beyond that, neither Ian nor I ever really even discuss the name of the person involved. We certainly don't have some list of people who are the only allowed winners. I mean, what would be the point? "Well Smith has a really good caption here, very funny stuff, but he's just not one of 'us', you know? No way is he getting in!" Does anybody seriously think either one of us would be that petty and silly?

[IanKennedy]

Also, you think that the same people win all the time, the stats don't bear you out. Looking at the Honour role there have been 117 different winners and the highest number of wins by any one person is 7.

[kostmayer]

btw, what episode of Voyager does this weeks picture come from?

[Graham Kennedy]

I don't know!

[Tsukiyumi]

[stitch626]

Its the one where Janeway is... dreaming, I think. She thinks she is dead, see's her father, some other stuff. Early episode... still can't remember the ep name.

[Sonic Glitch]

Its the one where Janeway is... dreaming, I think. She thinks she is dead, see's her father, some other stuff. Early episode... still can't remember the ep name.

Coda I believe.

[thelordharry]

I take it that it's likely to be Blackstar posting as <ahem> 'c*nty f*ck' in the caption competition???

[Sionnach Glic]

Actualy we believe it to be Weyoun, or whoever hijacked his account.

[thelordharry]

Actualy we believe it to be Weyoun, or whoever hijacked his account.

Curse you Jeffrey Combs!

What to do about that. Has this been discussed? Probably. You could make the CC a login thing which would cut down on the rogue entries but it would also cut down on entries, fullstop (or 'period' to Americans) and of course, you want to encourage as many entries as possible.

Alternatively, just ban all Vorta and problem solved.

[Mark]

Or any character played by Jeffrey Combs