Slashdot Mirror
Interviews: Ask Fark Founder Drew Curtis a Question
For many, the day would not be complete without checking Fark.com for the latest funny or weird news. Inspired by the numerous links to interesting news stories he'd send to friends every morning, Drew Curtis created Fark in 1999. By 2009 it was one of the top 100 English language websites with 3-4 million unique visitors, and 60 million page views per month. Recently Drew has been in the news after he announced that he was running for governor in his home state of Kentucky with his wife Heather as his running mate. Calling himself an independent "citizen candidate," the campaign website says: "We have a theory that we’re about to see a huge change in how elections and politics work. Across the country, we have seen regular citizens stepping up and challenging the status quo built by political parties and career politicians. They have been getting closer and closer to victory and, here in Kentucky, we believe we have a chance to win and break the political party stronghold for good." We'll be checking back in with Drew as the race heats up, but for now he's agreed to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
We all know that Duke sucks, but would you please elaborate?
How effective would you say the filters have been for Fark?
It used to be huge, but then it died. Do you blame yourself? Whose fault was it?
How much longer can a site that's largely based around the same handful of tired old memes remain relevant?
You say you don't like business as usual. Your Issues page is exactly business as usual.
are you leaving out the hope?
Drew,
Fark used to have some of the best Photoshop contests, both in terms of what people came up with (thinking of the Lukket fake Rand Corporation computer as an example), and in the way that the in-line display and voting for the entries worked. What would you like to do with these going forward to get more involvement for these contests?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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For many, the day would not be complete without checking Fark.com for the latest funny or weird news. Inspired by the numerous links to interesting news stories he'd send to friends every morning, Drew Curtis created Fark in 1999. By 2009 it was one of the top 100 English language websites with 3-4 million unique visitors, and 60 million page views per month. Recently Drew has been in the news after he announced that he was running for governor in his home state of Kentucky with his wife Heather as his running mate. Calling himself an independent "citizen candidate," the campaign website says: "We have a theory that we’re about to see a huge change in how elections and politics work. Across the country, we have seen regular citizens stepping up and challenging the status quo built by political parties and career politicians. They have been getting closer and closer to victory and, here in Kentucky, we believe we have a chance to win and break the political party stronghold for good." We'll be checking back in with Drew as the race heats up, but for now he's agreed to answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Mr. Curtis, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I had no idea.
With how popular your website has become, can you share your opinion on where Slashdot went wrong?
Drew, what is the worst possible thing that a political opponent could dig up on you - what don't you want people to know?
Who is responsible for the new mobile layout? Can I have their address? I'd like to send a strongly worded letter of protest over how shitty it is. /Seriously, did you even use it before it went live? //Beta was better ///slashies come in threes, even on /.
Say your political campaign is successful. Do you have a plan in place to stop one of the "two" parties from co-opting your message and claiming to be a part of the same movement? I'm thinking Tea Party -> GOP and 'Occupy' -> Democrats. Both only 'sorta' worked (TheTea Party was much more successfully assimilated IMO), yet ultimately were co-opted.
Given you and your Fark mods' predilection for censoring speech (and outright "shadowbanning" users, some of which paid for your service) on your website that you think could possibly make a negative impact on your advertising revenue, do you plan on incorporating the same kind of speech inhibiting mechanisms as governor?
Any word on when the Guiness bar towels are due to be delivered?
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
why every villager thinks he is famous
Are you ashamed or merely embarrassed about how your mods have failed the Politics tab? Will you choose to do better in the future?
Hi Drew, what was the closest you ever came to shutting down FARK, due to litigation, threats from idiots you made famous, boredom, $$$ shortage etc?
My question for the fark guy, erm Drew so-and-whatever.. How much did you pay slashdot for this 'interview'?
PlanetVulkan.com
Drew,
First off, thanks for Fark. Has killed many a hour of dull work! On to my question...
For those of us techies immersed in the web, and those who have run across Fark on a given day, most of us will presumably know your background and to a point, your ideological leanings. How do you branch the divide with the public not versed on your background, with you being well versed on the tech. side of things, and translate that to Kentucky's highest elected position? And moreso, likely in the face of skeptics who might see you as an obscure 'Internet' site winner, and not someone who is versed in public policy, legalise, and politics in Kentucky?
Disclaimer: Best of luck in your endeavour for Kentucky!
What the fark?
You and Ms. Curtis deserve tremendous credit for such a worthy effort. Thanks on behalf of US citizens eager for change -- or at least a demonstration that change is possible. Although some ambiguity remains, your site shows transparency, the application of sound business principles, a close examination of successful policies incorporated elsewhere, creativity, and an open ear for discussion from all sides. -- Which of the following is your greatest challenge to getting elected and how do you surmount it: (a) voter apathy, (b) lack of campaign funds, (c) misrepresentation or lack of presence in the media, (d) a self-described lack of political qualifications, (e) a lack of political experience, (f) lack of voter confidence, and (g) lack of voter advocacy?
Mods killed it
Why bother?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Drew,
There was a time when Fark Boobies links were mixed in with news links. Then it became its own tab. Then it was reborn as "Foobies"-- a wholly separate site. More recently, a strict "Anti-Misogyny" standard on Fark discussions was implemented which included the dis-allowance of the use of the word "rape" except in the academic sense, dis-allowing the use of demeaning terms in describing women, and suggesting that a female victim of a crime was somehow asking to be victimized.
Examples of dis-allowed uses include the meme "40 lbs. Box of Rape" (http://goo.gl/XipVh1), references to the Whoopi Goldberg differentiation between "rape" and "rape rape" (http://goo.gl/u3YDuW), and Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" gaffe (http://goo.gl/dyxpy).
To say that the change was met with disdain would be an understatement. The ensuing threads were filled with battles back and forth between those who assert that such references and jocularity is proof a genuine hatred of women (misogyny) while others assert that lumping together edgy attempts at comedy with the genuine hatred of women is prejudicial and incredibly offensive.
Given Fark's historic culture of pushing/punching the boundaries of political correctness (see: "Welcome to Fark" memes) where almost nothing is so sacred that it cannot be joked about (see: "Window seat, please" memes), why was this decision made? Why were so many genuinely non-misogynistic actions/comments/memes lumped in with that term?
My partner and I have discussed the change at length. We're both fans of audacity humor, so we actually "get a kick out of the replies" (http://goo.gl/a6xyao). Together, we came up with the following potential rationales. Which did we get right? Which didn't we?
1. I got older and my tastes have changed. I don't want to run a site that goes counter to my own sensibilities.
2. I received pressure from external organizations (other sites, special interests, advertisers).
3. I want to grow the site to be more inclusive of people who would be offended by such jokes.
4. I'm running for public office and Fark.com, if not cleaned up, would destroy my campaign.
5. I've received overwhelming negative feedback regarding the state of Fark comments and the numbers supporting a change greatly outnumber those who didn't like the change.
6. I actually believe that everyone who jokes about women hates women and they should be stopped.
How much longer can a site that's largely based around the same handful of tired old memes remain relevant?
Well it all depends on how much longer Florida is around.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
--- Discussions on Fark don't go to infinity and beyond anymore. Is the attempt to make Fark more PC a response to that or a consequence?
--- You're HTML 2.0 compliant, it seems. Ever planning on updating the back end?
--- A few times a year there's a post to TFD asking for ideas on how to improve things. Nothing changes: why?
--- The ethos of Fark used to be say anything --- smash any idols ---just be funny doing it. Has moving away from that basically made Fark no different from a lot of other discussion/aggregation sites?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
I am a former farker, paid for myself and several others and gifted many months to folks over the years.
Drew, how can you possibly say there is no problem with you taking you wife into the running for a position as a "ride-along"?
Does your conscience not scream at you like a banshee (or at least like Bathia in a bad mood)?
You lost me, the folks I gifted to, and worst of all, my respect. I am serious about that.
And I know you likely give a rats' ass about that, but you should because it took TREMENDOUS effort to alienate me since I have know you since the squirrel was your only content.
> Do you realize no on cares anymore?
Says the trolling AC. Get a life son.
Is the real reason you're running for office because you can pay yourself and family members salaries out of the campaign funds hoping to cash in on your popularity?
You have in the past (and probably still do) ban people from posting from you website, including paying customers, in a fashion that makes the users not aware of their status. Given that this is fraud, do you plan on implementing any sort of Shadowbanning as governor? Perhaps billing constituents for state services without providing them?
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
I stopped going there when it became clear it was another establishment-controlled site that will censor unpopular speech and kowtow to the uber-PC "up on a pedestal" crowd. I like having all (and I mean ALL) kinds of speech and opinions represented, whether they support a given agenda or not. Back when it was something real, it was one of the best places for open discourse on the internet. Nowadays, you might as well be in the comments section on Gawker.
Drew was instrumental in raising awareness that television news is designed to scare people into watching it with teasers that are titillating, BREAKING NEWS (when it's not) scrolls, and far more. Quite a stunt to pull off some years back and I respect him for it. FARK was built with humor in mind and early on was mined by late night talk shows for content. My question is: what will you do to get a skeptical, and possibly hostile, media to present you as a serious candidate?
Are you still shadowbanning users while happily taking their money thereby defrauding them?
When are you going to get rid of your SJW mods and go back to what made Fark worth a FUCK in the first place?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I was a regular Fark user for some time, and hopped on TotalFark. However, over time I got annoyed with the "cafes" and other social cliques, and found 4chan much more to my liking because moderation was lax (at the time), focusing on spam and obvious trolls, with little censorship.
While I haven't used Fark regularly for years now, I do have some friends from my time there that are active participants, and my understanding from them and other sources is that the posting standards on Fark have gotten even stricter. How much of the moderation standards are due to your personal views (or views of your moderators), how much due to legal concerns, and how much due to member concerns (trolling/stalking/aggravation, keeping various wordfilters to make it more SFW, etc.).
As a followup question, have you ever considered a moderation system like of Slashdot?
(As an unrelated question, if you won your bid for governor but a candidate came along with a better name, would you resign and have them take your place?)
Why no more gorgor :'(
1. Why do you hate America? 2. Why do you hate white people so much? 3. Why do you hate men so much? 4. Why do you hate the 1st amendment? 5. How does your site spawn libtard SJWs? 6. Why so many of them? 7. Do you realize your site is not that funny anymore? 8. Do you realize no on cares anymore? 9. Do you realize you're not relevant anymore? 10. Will you please stop spawning libtard SJWs?
No shit. When I skimmed the summary here I was a bit floored he isn't running as some leftist party or just as a democrat.
The mods there are clearly leftist female, gay, or some wound up race baiter if not all of them in one and then turned loose to enforce their personal ideals rather than run a site that's worthwhile.My bets are they are all very young... they lack the judgement that comes with age.
Sorry Mr Curtis. You had a good site at one point. But, it's gone, and it's going to taint (read, reaveal a lot of lies) your claim to be anything but a leftist politically. Just admit that and you'll do much better in politics.
Dear Drew,
HELP I'M STUCK IN SOMETHING CALLED HUNCH HOUSE AND I CAN'T FIND MY WAY OUT i killed the hunch but theres no exits and i need to be in class in 15 minutes and im out of sp from all of this shouting will somebody pleeeeease help me?
Sincerely,
Confused in Chaos
"...but Republicans plan to come back with a new plan, where they just slash the tires on all the ambulances."
Like anything would change the status quo.
The most important question, why would anyone be stupid enough to think running a government like a business works. In small business under capitalism, only 1 in 10 succeed, by far the majority go bankrupt 90%. So what, try out new government services only to have the majority fail is somehow sound. That some how trial and error are preferable to careful but admittedly expensive research. Perhaps government needs to set up multiple branches of the same service so they can compete and one wins while the rest go bankrupt. So why exactly, not empty PR=B$ platitudes but actually data, is government run like a for profit business better, especially as a monopoly (taking into account how bad private monopolies have proven to be over the centuries).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Mr Curtis, your website recently took a stand against misogyny and claimed you would be enforcing rules and banning people if necessary to make a safe environment for women. If this is the direction your site wants to go, why are your moderators so tolerant of racism and homophobia? Why won't you take an equally vigorous stance against jokes and comments of these types?
The First Amendment doesn't protect your right to have your comments published in someone else's forum, and privately owned publishers can censor anything and anything they want.
I'm not fond of censorship (to put it mildly), but Drew has no responsibility or duty (or authority) to "enforce the 1st Amendment."
Why do you appease individuals of the SJW crowd, namely Chelsea van Valkenberg (you know who she is, but I can't mention that on Fark), by strictly enforcing their narratives, even in the light of truth?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I work for Drew Curtis. So I am really getting a kick out of most of these replies. Some of you guys are very good at making it sound like you know what you are talking about. But trust me.... You don't. I think you just want to make yourself sound smart, when in reality you dont know what you are talking about. This is how bad info gets passed around. If you dont know about the topic....Dont make yourself sound like you do. Cuz some Farkers belive anything they hear.
Were the changes to the way the site was run really just an appropriate 'changing with the times'? The same way we don't act the way they do on 'Mad Men' anymore, Fark has become a more tolerant, less sexist/racist/crude/enter-your-term-here place to interact.. has it changed? Yes. Is it better? depends on who you ask. Was it the right move to make? Definitely. I was one of the ones ready to get all up in arms over not being able to post Lootie and Boobies anymore - and I was miffed,. for a while. We don't tolerate bullying anymore either. And we're all better off for it.
tl,dr? Yeah, I'm over it.
who is fb- the father of?
No, my actual question is "can you elaborate on the reason why freep-impact was asked to stop posting in politics threads?"
Free gorgor with every pageview! You know you don't want to see it, but you have to click it anyways. (Seriously, just letting him post links without the HREF tag was more than a good enough compromise. I miss that crazy bastard.)
I'm not fond of censorship (to put it mildly), but...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've all heard that before. 'But' nothing! If he wants to run for office he sure as hell does have the responsibility or duty (or authority) to "enforce the 1st Amendment.", or he is unfit for the job.
Whatever happened with Darrell Phillips?
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.