Fark

"Fark" redirects here. For other uses, see FARK.

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Fark.com is a community website created by Drew Curtis allowing users to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. Most links are submitted by Fark readers, which are then approved for posting on the main page by admins. Fark is one of the more widely read community sites of its type on the internet.

TotalFark.com is a premium version of Fark. Members are able to see, and comment on, all submitted articles (not just "greenlighted" articles on the main page). TotalFark requires a monthly fee to join, unlike "regular fark", or "Fark lite," which is free. Members of TotalFark have established an online community and frequently participate in "TotalFark discussions", which are submitted links not meant to be greenlighted, but rather commented and discussed by TotalFark members only. Members of TotalFark often refer to themselves as "TFers" (male) or "TFettes" (female), while members of regular Fark refer to themselves as "Farkers" or "Farkettes". Often TotalFarkers refer to regular Farkers as "liters" (pronounced "lighters") because they only participate on "Fark lite". Some have gone as far to call TotalFark the "center of the Internet Universe" due to its large and active community.

History

Originally, the web server on Drew Curtis' fark.com domain (Fark being a euphemism for fuck) contained no content, except for an image of a squirrel with large testicles. Later, in 1999, the site introduced what would evolve into its current format, as a way for Curtis to share what he considered interesting news postings with his friends rather than sending them numerous emails. Features such as link submission and forums have slowly been added over the years, as popularity and participation grew.

Farkisms

Like many online communities, Fark.com has developed its own in-jokes known as "Farkisms" or "Fark.com clichés" which appear in submitted headlines and discussions.

A few examples: "Fb- is the father" was an early Farkism appended to any report involving birth or pregnancy.

"Duke sucks" is added after many sports headlines.

"find Sarah Connor" (from the Terminator movies) is appended to many technology news headlines (Example: "New robot will explore the surface of Mars, find Sarah Connor").

"Glass parking lot" is a term often refering to a solution for Middle Eastern conflicts based on the assumed result of a nuclear bomb there.

"Minnow references" a term coined by a Totalfarker when he was forced to photoshop someone's wang.

"Still no cure for cancer" is a cliche often used for scientific stories claiming a recent discovery or scientific conclusion which is usually already quite obvious to the average reader (in lieu of say, being productive and actually "curing cancer").

One of the newest, clichés is "Pray for Omarion", a reference to the R&B singer's request for fans to pray for his safe return from London after the 2005 bombings (which, while he was in London, he was nowhere near). It is now used as a reference to any disaster to which the rapper has no connection, for example: "Nuclear Reactor in North Korea melts down: Pray for Omarion".

As of late, the obscure TV anchorman Ric Romero has developed into a Fark.com cliché, being incorperated into threads sporting a headshot under which a very behind-the-times or obvious remark is placed.

Other examples include Admiral Ackbar's quote "It's a Trap," the dreaded Christmas gift of a "Hot Cocoa Sampler Box," or the new questionable favorite automatic threadjack "I work for..." started in [1].

Fark is also notable for "slashies" in user comments. Tangential / Post-script(P.S.) comments are often added to the end of a user's post in the forums with a slash ("/") preceding it. Sometimes these comments are an attempt at a one-liner joke. The comment following a slash is almost always a single line. Users who would wish to make a second tangential / Post-script comment after the first one will do so in a new line, preceded by one more slash then was used in the prior line. In this fasion, double ("//") and triple ("///") slashes are not uncommon (denoting a post-post-script (P.P.S) and post-post-post-script (P.P.P.S)). This has been taken to somewhat of a competition by certain users, who attempt to use as many of these as possible. 3 or 4 slashes seems to be the upper limit for most users, while the very rare comment attempting to maximize them might reach 9 or 10. The origin of the slash fad comes from the "/" used in web page code to close an HTML tag - i.e., the poster is 'closing' their comments with a final thought.

One Farkism also serves another purpose, a clever way of preventing "first post" messages: if a message contains the words "first post", its time stamp is changed twelve hours into the future (making it one of the later posts), and the words "First Post" become "Boobies." The phrase "Last Post" is moved back 12 hours and is replaced with "Weeners". New users are prone to fall victim to this, and post a message that ends up saying something like: "This is my Boobies on Fark". The filter also censors out certain swear words and replaces them with workplace-appropriate versions.

Farkisms are ever-evolving. Numerous headlines describing events that led to hilarity have spawned a variety of cliches, whereby headlines end in "hilarity ensues" for funny outcomes, or "jailarity ensues" for outcomes involving law enforcement (Example: "Woman makes joke about bomb in her suitcase to airport security screeners, jailarity ensues"). Farkers are constantly coining new forms of "larity". Sometimes something becomes a Farkism for a few months and then dies out, other Farkisms are currently no longer used such as "fb- the father". There are some Farkisms which are specific to TotalFark, which are discussed in the Fark n00b guide. Other farkisms include adding "DIT" to the end of a submission which means "Details in Thread" or "LGN" which means "Link Goes Nowhere". If a submitter writes # at the end of a link, it means that the link goes nowhere and there are details in the thread.

Farking

The term "farking" is also used as a verb; many smaller websites referenced by Fark headlines have been "farked", meaning they have received so much traffic that they have stopped responding completely. This is also known in some internet circles as the Slashdot effect.

Photoshop contests

Fark.com also features regular "Photoshop contests" where users use a graphical editing program (such as Adobe Photoshop, from which the contest draws its name or Gimp) to create various funny pictures derived from an image provided by the creator of the contest, or less commonly, according to a set theme as set out in written form.

Clichés (really, in-jokes) are common in the resulting works; some of the most common recurring clichés include: the "HA! HA! guy", an engraving of an 18th-century Quaker or Anglican minister, used in an advertisement in an unknown 19th-century newspaper (along with the words "HA! HA!"), which is excessively submitted with custom remarks, Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars yelling "It's a trap!", the killing of kittens, Bat Boy, the Mustard Man, Bubb Rubb, the aforementioned large-testicled squirrel, and Domo-kun, a squarish toothy brown monster from Japan (who also originated the kitten-killing cliché). Often in entries that are offensive or sacrilegious (or, especially, entries involving the September 11th terrorist attacks) the submitter will kiddingly ask for a "one way ticket to hell, please". This is often abbreviated, so a poster with an obviously disrespectful topic may just say "one ticket, please" or even simply "aisle seat".

Criticisms

Fark is often criticized for running headlines and articles that are politically biased. However, they are accused of having both a conservative and a liberal bias. Drew has stated that rather than trying to keep it in the middle, admins enjoy running both far-left and far-right articles.[2] The top four hated "groups" on Fark.com are (in no particular order) PETA, Catholic priests, the French, and Duke, according to founder Drew Curtis.[3]

Fark has been accused of selling preferential placement of story links on the main page.[4] Drew responded to this by saying he had considered selling links he was already going to post to servers that could handle the bandwidth, such as CNN or ABC. He claims the only type of links that are paid are some of the adult content (usually "boobies") links, and are clearly labelled as being sponsored. He also claims that thus far all sponsored links have been clearly labelled adult content links to ensure the links are trojan-free, spam-free, and spyware-free. Adult content links that aren't labelled as sponsored links are not paid for and were submitted by individual users. According to Drew, there is currently nothing in the works to sell links to sites such as AP, CNN, or anyone else.

Many people also complain that Fark will not publish their link to their main page or "greenlight" their articles. All of the links submitted on Fark.com are submitted by individual users and are approved based on content by administrators. Articles that are posted to the main page are selected based on the content of the article, how funny the headline is, and sometimes how much bandwidth usage the site can handle [5]. All sites wishing to be posted on the main page of Fark.com are advised to submit links through the Fark queue and follow the posting guidelines instead of emailing the administrators. The administrators will never greenlight an article because they were emailed and asked to do so.

Some Farkers complain because they receive a timeout for a reason not stated in the Farq. Farkers may be given a short "timeout" (sometimes called a "bannination") from Fark and TotalFark for reasons that are not stated in the FarQ if they are doing something which interrupts other users' enjoyment of the website. A timeout does not stop a user from accessing the site, it merely stops them from posting in the forums temporarily. Generally, warnings are given to users before a timeout is issued, but a warning may be skipped dependent upon how severe the breach was. Such things not listed in the Farq which a user may receive a timeout for include "queue abuse", abuse of the "newsflash" tag, posting surveys asking for "medical advice" or describing graphic content in the queue, soliciting through the queue without permission, or anything else which may detract from other users' browsing experience. Permanant bans, or "Perma-bans", are very rarely used and reserved only for users who repeatedly, intentionally, and maliciously post on the site, and whose only purpose is to interfere with other users.

Refunds are not offered for TotalFark accounts which are given "timeouts". Most timeouts are very short in duration, therefore the administrators assume you will return to TotalFark once it expires rather than cancel your account. If a user wishes to cancel a TotalFark account because of a timeout, it is the user's duty to notify the administrators. [6]. Because TotalFark accounts are charged on a periodic basis, a user who receives a "perma-ban" will not receive a refund on a TotalFark account, per the terms of agreement [7].

Sites not linked to

There are certain sites which Fark.com will not link to such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, or Ananova.com. The reason for not linking to the New York Times and Washington Post is that these sites require a user registration, something which annoys most readers of Fark. Submitting any link which requires registration is frowned upon by the Fark community. Members can post links to the New York Times or the Washington Post in the forums during a discussion, but may not submit these links directly through the queue.

Fark does not link to Ananova because the website was posting Fark's headlines without giving credit in addition to posting many inaccurate articles. Ananova was receiving a great deal of traffic due to Fark's links while refusing to acknowledge Fark and reciprocate the gesture. While Ananova denied using Fark's headlines, Drew specifically put a few "fake" links on the main page which Ananova then posted. Drew decided to not accept links from their website.

Similar sites

Fark and Something Awful have long been alleged rivals of sorts, culminating in a Photoshop Contest between the two sites, judged by celebrity Wil Wheaton. Contrary to popular belief, there actually is no real rivalry between Fark.com and Something Awful. This rivalry was propagated mostly as an inside joke by Lowtax, the owner of Something Awful. The joke comes from the fact that Drew and Lowtax are close friends, and that Fark.com and Something Awful share about 90% of the same readership, thus making the readers rivals with themselves.

Another website, Fazed.net, is a rival despite members sharing both sites' cliches and Farkisms. Also, Fazed has a Fark counter in the sidebar which contains an RSS feed of Fark.com links. Fazed is built like Fark in that visitors may submit links, but these links generally go to games, logs and various other stuff that Fark does not usually run. Fazed also has different tags for its links, such as "Owned," "WTmotherF," and "Oh Snap!"

Fark.ru is a Russian version of Fark run by Pravda.ru with Drew's permission. The stories are different and it's not a word-for-word translation of Fark.com, as the links on Fark.ru go to other Russian sites. Drew has been told that it is the #1 website in Russia but there is no way to actually confirm this.

The Fark Travel Guide is a database of places to go that is run by, maintained by, and contributed to by Fark's readers. The guide is unabashedly geared toward FARK's readers, who, when travelling, typically want to know the following: 1. Where's the beer? 2. How much is the beer? 3. Can I get a beer? 4. Can I get another beer? 5. Where's the bathroom?

TF Kitchen is a site archiving recipes and other miscellaneous information from the weekly food-and-recipe discussion threads, generally posted on Thursday nights, on Totalfark.com. (Note: the archived threads on Fark's servers are only accessible to TotalFark members.)

Farktography is a website that lets Farkers/TFers submit themed pictures for a contest, each week a theme is picked and users submit photographs for review.

References

The 'official history of Fark' can be found at the Fark Farq.

External links

Fark.com
Farquently Asked Questions
Farkisms
Farkit download and FAQ Farkit is a plugin for Mozilla Firefox which makes replying to comments on Fark easier.
Fark RSS Feed