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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?
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)
Drew, what is the worst possible thing that a political opponent could dig up on you - what don't you want people to know?
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.
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
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
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.
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
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?
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.
" Nowadays, you might as well be in the comments section on Gawker."
Given one of the Fark mods is a Jezebel shill/SJW, that's EXACTLY what the site has become.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"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"?"
Check how the site has changed. Misogyny is no bueno but misandry is a-okay.
Drew sold out to the likes of Gawker/Jezebel and other media sites.
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?)
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.
This is a good question.
Another good question.
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
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.
I wonder if they're also doing extra duty in Reddit. Given the willingness for them to go between
By the way, since Slashdot has no rule against naming them, what's the name of the shill?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
On Fark? Handle is Genevive (ieve?) Marie.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yup. Fark is getting less fun ever day because Drew sold out. The very reason we go to fark is for the outrage and silliness. But all too often a moderator obviously born a Puritan steps in and ruins the fun.
Also, their moderators are idiots. When I called out someone who said something extremely racist and offensive, I got a 24 hour ban. When I complained the fucking moron of a moderator insisted the statement I referred to wasn't racist. Yes it was. It was extremely offensive to Filipino women. I know, because I asked my Filipino niece. Fark either needs to get moderators who aren't racist morons.
-- Will program for bandwidth
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?"
I have been a member of Fark (and most of the time a paying member of Total Fark) for almost 12 years now, and apparently I was "shadowbanned" recently. I have been banned for a day or two once before, for good reason. This time, I have no idea why this happened. Last week I tried repeatedly to post comments and they quit showing up. No reason given. I sent feedback, and never got a response. I agree with and can verify personally most of the negative comments on here about the site. Fortunately, my TF subscription ran out a couple of days ago, and I'm never going back. You, Mr. Curtis, are a fucking piece of shit asshole. Sincerely, show me, former TFer.
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
Whatever happened with Darrell Phillips?
We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion.
But all too often a moderator obviously born a Puritan steps in and ruins the fun.
A Puritan? Hardly. The social justice warriors enforcing political correctness everywhere aren't, and have never been, from the Right, let alone the Christian Right.
Evangelicals haven't had serious sway in this country for 75-175 years (depending on your specific issues in question and threshold). It's all about the left wing and grievance-mongering. Reminds me of the mid-90's, before South Park made being politically incorrect palatable to the masses again.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,