Fark Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): About Fark

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• About Fark
  • What is Fark?
  • What is TotalFark?
  • What is Foobies?
  • Fark, the Book

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About Fark

What is Fark?

The first thing you should know is that Fark.com isn't a Weblog. Fark.com, the Web site, is a news aggregator and an edited social networking news site. Every day Fark receives 2,000 or so news submissions from its readership, from which we hand-pick the funny and weird notable news -- and not-news -- of the day.

Fark isn't an acronym. It doesn't mean anything. The idea was to have the word Fark come to symbolize news that is really Not News. Hence the slogan "It's not news, it's Fark." Fark was originally a word Drew became known for using online back in the early 1990s. He can't remember why, but his guess is that it was either to replace another F-word or that he was just drunk and mistyped something. He tells everyone it was the former since it's a better story that way.

Four letter domain names were getting snapped up quickly, so on a whim in the summer of 1997 Drew checked to see if Fark.com was available. It was, and he grabbed it. At the time the only thing you could do with a Web site was put up what was then called a vanity site. This was almost all the Internet consisted of back in 1997. Think of vanity sites as poorly coded MySpace pages. Yes, MySpace pages look pretty bad, but these were worse. Drew didn't want to use the Fark.com domain name for a vanity site, so he decided to wait until he had a better idea.

For the first two years of Fark.com's existence (1997-1999), all you got was this picture of a squirrel with big nuts:

He spent the next couple of years drinking and promptly forgot all about the domain. One day in February 1999 he had an epiphany - or a really good buzz - who knows.... He was sitting in his living room, thinking long and hard about starting Fark. He decided that if he was going to do it, he would have to do it every single day. He took a deep breath, grabbed a fresh beer, and jumped in. His friends evidently told other people about Fark and it caught on like a house on fire (or that weird ass rash you don't want to tell anyone about) and that's how it all started.

The first year Fark received 50,000 page views. That's a respectable number for a site started from scratch. The second year it was a million. The number one highest-traffic corporate Internet hitting Fark's servers was CNN. Number two: Fox News.

What is Fark exactly? Fark is what fills space when mass media runs out of news. Fark is supposed to look like news... but it's not news. It's Fark.

What is TotalFark?

For only $5 a month ($25 for 6 months or $50 per year) you get all the links submitted to Fark in real time.

That's about 1800 - 2000 links per day.

We only post roughly 50 hand-picked links per day to each of the tabs Fark's Main page, so there's a lot more to see here. With TotalFark - you can:

• See everything instantly - you see every thread submitted in real time, so you get to see the trends and get the news, even if it doesn't make it to the main page of Fark. Check the Upcoming Links to see what's coming up, or Greenlit Links to see all of the upcoming links as well as what's already been greenlit on all of the other tabs over the last day. See everything on Main as well as all of the subtabs in real time. Particularly useful if you're an information junkie or a regular submitter.
• Move to the top of the thread - Comment on whichever thread you want whenever you want at the beginning of the thread, rather than getting buried in the multitude. Raise your own visibility and drive the conversation. Put your voice first.
• See contests and participation threads earlier - whether you're a Photoshopper, or like the caption contests, or even just enjoy participating with the Farktography and Caturday threads, put your entry at the front of the line.
• TotalFarkers can comment on Foobies.com.
• TotalFark is archived in its entirety.
• Spiffy TotalFark tag next to your name.
• Your +1 actually counts - Now you can vote for great headlines and put admin and moderator eyes on overlooked links.
• TotalFark Discussion - The truth is, most TotalFarkers aren't found in mainpage threads. Most of them are on the TotalFark Discussion (TFD) tab, which is a completely different way of participating. Back here, the threads are more freeform and discussions are about anything and everything. Cafe threads started here. So did TorD. Nearly everything that ends up on mainpage threads starts on TF first.
• Smaller community - With fewer TotalFarkers, it's easier to meet people and be known. It's a smaller community that's tremendously more active as a community. If threads on Fark are like a giant house party, threads on TF are like hanging out with your smartassed friends at a bar.
• No duplicate link blocking for TotalFarkers - There's nothing more frustrating than having a great headline and finding out that someone already submitted the link, which was redlit. TotalFarkers get the benefit of bypassing that block.
• If you sign up for a 6- or 12-month subscription to TotalFark, you automatically receive a spiffy [your-username]@ultrafark.com email address (see the section on UltraFark Email Questions).
• TotalFarkers get to see major changes to the site before anyone else. For example, when we changed the layout of the site in June 2011, TotalFarkers got to see the new layout a full month before anyone else. We listened to feedback from TotalFarkers and made adjustments based on what you said you liked and didn't like.

So pound for pound, it's the best value for you to lord over the untagged masses. And don't forget, when you're a TotalFarker, you're directly supporting our community, and in a small but important way, you're helping Fark thrive.

For more info on these features, see the TotalFark Questions section.

Click here to sign up for TotalFark!

What is Foobies?

Foobies is where all of the adult-oriented links go. Posting Rules for Fark and TotalFark apply to posts on Foobies as well. To post comments, you must be a TotalFark subscriber.

Foobies Submission Rules

The linked site and its content, goods, and/or services offered via the web site can NOT contain or promote:

• content violating any law, statute, ordinance or regulation or promote illegal activities.
• any material depicting bestiality, rape, torture, or slaughter/murder
• harmful and/or indecent matter to minors
• depictions of persons under the age of 18 in actual, simulated, or suggestive sexual situations
• material which constitutes child pornography or matter which involved depictions of nudity or sexuality by an age inappropriate-looking, made-up, or costumed performer
• material that infringes upon or violates intellectual property rights, copyrights, trademark rights, privacy rights or any other rights not specifically mentioned in this FAQ
• discriminates against race, religion, gender, or is defamatory, slanderous/libelous
• contains malware, spyware, or other programs designed to compromise the computer/s of site visitors

Fark, the Book

Fark has a book called "It's Not News It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News". Click for details on the Fark Book.