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Earthquakes, Bacon Lung and Twitter navelgazing: this week's Media Hype Power Rankings (and a couple of our favorite Headlines of the Week 5/10 - 5/16) Posted by Drew at 2009-05-18 12:39:04 PM, edited 2009-05-18 1:37:00 PM (15 comments) | Permalink In the tradition of ESPN's MLB Power Rankings, where the rankings are fairly arbitrary but they still get read, here are this week's Media Hype Power Rankings. 1. LA Earthquake Do quakes in California even rate as news? Everyone I've ever met there ignores them unless something tips over. This one will be out of the rankings tomorrow unless it causes a swine flu outbreak somehow. 2. Swine Flu Any time the words Swine Flu gets mentioned in a headline, people click the hell out of it. Combine this with MSM's desire to make their nonstop coverage of this overblown non-event look like it wasn't a horrendous mistake and we've got a resurgence of a story that was at the bottom of the rankings up until today. Some poor guy died of it over the weekend, EVERYBODY PANIC. Expect this one to drop way down tomorrow unless someone else dies of it. By the way, a daily average of 100 people died from the regular flu yesterday... 3. Tamil Tigers leader killed OMG some actual real news. This'll be gone tomorrow unless some topless photos of the rebel leader appear. God help us if that happens. 4. Bad economy Hey the economy sucks, didn't know if you noticed. Variations on people losing houses, jobs, etc. abound. 5. Space Shuttle Disaster? Anytime media covers the space shuttle, it's in anticipation of a disaster. Kind of like NASCAR and wrecks. Anyhow, media's keeping an eye on this one as the Hubble Telescope gets repaired. Don't expect massive coverage unless someone drops a bag of tools like last time. Speaking of which, there's an iPhone app that tracks the orbiting toolbag. Nifty. 6. Death of newspapers This story's not going anywhere. The only area of expertise MSM has is all about journalism and news media. They love talking about it. Variations of this include "hey let's charge for content" and "you'll miss us when we're gone!" 7. Twitter navelgazing Media is fascinated with Twitter. It's a combination of how Twitter breaks news (assuming you can spot it in the vast mass of mundane twattings) and "wow look at me I'm a media person and I have a thousand Twitter followers." This may have come full circle now that there's been an article on how Sockington the Cat amassed 500,000+ followers. I would say it's the Jump the Shark moment for Twitter, except that if Ashton Kutcher hitting a million didn't do it, I don't know what will. 8. Miss California She's got BOOBS, man, and anytime she opens her mouth she says something dumb. She's a walking, taking media soundbite generator. With BOOBS, man. She dropped down the list this weekend due to a lack of new topless photos. Here's hoping, though. 9. Slumdog stars living in poverty Yes it's a tragedy but for some reason this keeps getting flogged in MSM about once a week. It started when slumdog kid's dad attempted to sell her to an undercover London tabloid reporter. Latest update: they're still living in poverty, but now they don't even have a house--that got knocked down by bulldozers. 10. Pirates Pirates? No idea what you're talking about. This is so two weeks ago. But they're still really cool. ARRRR. Up and coming 11. Obama's a racist At the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner, President Obama made a joke about permanently fake-tanned GOP leader John Boehner saying he was a "person of color". Conservative media ought to get a day or two of traction out of this one. It'll go the entire week if Obama apologizes for it. 12. Pakistan's adding more nukes EVERYBODY PANIC. Expect this to jump into the top 10 shortly if nothing else happens, it's a good panic button issue. 13. Maureen Dowd plagiarism Maureen Dowd admitted to copying from another blogger - actually she admitted to hearing a friend repeat a paragraph that she didn't know was from another blogger and somehow managed to remember it word for word with only one subtle change. I call bullshiat. Nonetheless, no one gives a shiat about plagiarism but media does. Media loves taking about bad media, it's like blood in the water, And she's liberal, so slamming her should be a good way to appear to be impartial. Headlines Of The Week for Sun 2009-05-10 to Sat 2009-05-16: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sports: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Geek: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Showbiz: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Politics: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Business: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() · · ·
Bi little ponies, Happy Ending Meals and ABBA rebjorn: Headlines of the Week 5/3 - 5/9 Posted by Drew at 2009-05-11 11:26:22 AM (32 comments) | Permalink Nothing new to report on media stuff this week, so instead I'll go on for a bit about what I spent this past weekend doing: hanging out in Vegas strip clubs at bachelor parties. Two of my friends had bachelor parties in Vegas this weekend, which was a completely random yet welcome coincidence. One of the guys I've played soccer with for years, the other was a friend of Alexis Ohanian who founded Reddit.com. Alexis and I have accidentally been ending up in the same place at the same time at least once a month since January this year, and this weekend it happened again. The short version was too much alcohol, lots of fun. The slightly longer version is I often joke that eventually I'm going to be involved in something that lands me as an article on Fark. It almost happened Thursday night. For years I've been reading articles about people who sue strip clubs because they get injured by the strippers. Thursday night I actually witnessed it. The bachelor was brought up on stage for the requisite boobie-smacking to the face ritual that all bachelors must go through. Initially there were going to be two girls participating but at the last minute someone decided to add a third one. She was nice and hot but also kinda crazy. Crazier than the usual stripper continuum. The third stripper decided she wasn't getting enough face-time (so to speak), so she stood up on the bachelor's lap, shimmied up the pole, flipped upside down, and slid down on him from above - damn near ripping his arms off in the process. Of course it was hilarious. Only later did it occur to me that we were a shoulder-dislocation away from becoming a Fark article. At any rate that's what I did this weekend. Drank too much, had fun. Pretty much the plan for every weekend now that I think about it. Headlines Of The Week for Sun 2009-05-03 to Sat 2009-05-09: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sports: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Geek: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Showbiz: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Politics: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Business: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() · · ·
Hey guys Been working on trying to get another book up and running. After the last experience it's become apparent that making fun of the media, while interesting, is great for killing free publicity. And that book's been written now, so it's time to take a different approach. The book folks want to do another kinda best of fark thing, which I think isn't very exciting. I do like the idea of using Fark articles to prove a point. The problem is, what point? I figure this book needs a subset of articles to concentrate on and a point. For example, one idea I've had that got shot down is the Fark guide to Florida and how it will Kill Us All, publisher said it was of limitted scope. Or maybe they're afraid of pissing off Florida, I'm certainly not. A more recent idea was something like Drew Curtis' Guide to Not Getting Farked, a how-to book on not ending up as a Fark article for politicians, entertainers, criminals, Floridians, etc. That's probably my default idea atm but I was wondering if anyone had any better ideas? If I use your idea I'll come hang out with you for a day (or weekend) and buy you all the beer you can drink. · · ·
Swine flu coverage was sensational because Media thought it was crap too... OMG SWINE FLU WILL KILL US ALL IN THE FALL. Plus Headlines of the Week Posted by Drew at 2009-05-04 12:14:56 PM, edited 2009-05-04 12:26:39 PM (167 comments) | Permalink One week after writing my original article on how the swine flu isn't going to kill us all, the numbers bear it out: ONE new death since last Monday, compared to around 700 people (on average) who will die of the regular flu in a seven-day period. The vast majority of people get over the swine flu on their own with no hospitalization necessary. Do we get an apology for MSM sending droves of people to hospitals who aren't sick? Driving down the stock market several hundred points on panic selling? Scaring people into cancelling air travel because they might end up in an enclosed space? Causing a run on ammunition and guns by people expecting the apocalypse? No, we get another load of hysteria: swine flu will kill us all next fall. See, it's going to go on summer vacation and come back as Spanish Influenza and wipe out the entire human race. It's happened before. Doubters will be the first to die. No apology for you. Compare swine flu coverage to the way suspicious explosions in New York City are covered. Almost immediately, MSM reassures us that there is no evidence of terrorism. Do we know what caused the explosion? No, but there's no evidence of terrorism. From the getgo, MSM takes a calmer approach: let's not get crazy here, be calm, wait for the facts. Next time there's a flu outbreak I'd love to see similar coverage. Please don't go to hospitals unless you really have to because they're busy. Don't fret about the stock market, it's a buying opportunity. No need to cancel air travel, wash your hands a lot and don't stick your fingers in your nose. This is not the apocalypse, we'll get through this. Don't panic. Here's why we didn't see media coverage aimed at calming people: MSM never believed this was a real threat in the first place. Notice how coverage tone changes when something serious really is going on. "Be calm, don't panic, wait awhile, see what happens." As opposed to pure media-fueled hysteria like shark attacks, bacteria on doorknobs, killer bees, kudzu, white sugar, and so on. Headlines Of The Week for Sun 2009-04-26 to Sat 2009-05-02: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sports: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Geek: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Showbiz: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Politics: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Business: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() · · ·
Why Swine Flu Isn't Going to Kill Us All, Part II Posted by Drew at 2009-04-30 3:09:13 PM, edited 2009-05-01 9:40:31 AM (484 comments) | Permalink Here's what's happened since I wrote my original article, "Why Swine Flu Isn't Going to Kill Us All". - A toddler in Texas has died of the swine flu - Mexico's infection and death estimates continue to climb - The World Health Organization has raised it's pandemic warning from 5 to 6, the top of the scale These three items have ruled headlines for the past 24 hours. However here are a few other things that are going on that you may not have heard. - 36,000 people die every year from the regular flu. - Since I wrote my article on Monday, 1 person in the United States has died from swine flu. - The tally in the last three days: Swine Flu: 1, Real Flu: 295. I mentioned in my last update that only 18 deaths had been confirmed to have been from Swine Flu, and that the other figures were estimates. That confirmed total has since been revised downward to 7. To quote Stratfor's reaction to this data: "There is still a lack of information regarding the particulars about this new pathogen; but if it has killed only seven people after two months of spreading in a country with somewhat limited health care services, perhaps its virulence is not so harsh after all, even if its communicability is impressive." The WHO's alert level reflects communicability not lethality also The incubation period for swine flu is thought to be 2-3 days. And since Monday there has been 1 death. There are hundreds of interviews with people who have Swine Flu. They all have the following things in common: generally the symptoms are mild, no one needs hospitalization, and recovers on their own in a few days. Once again, I have to say it: Don't Panic. · · ·
Why we're not all going to die from Mexican Flu, by Drew Curtis age 7. Bonus: Headlines of the Week 4/19 to 4/25 Posted by Drew at 2009-04-27 2:28:07 PM, edited 2009-04-27 2:41:54 PM (170 comments) | Permalink Finally, something of substance has appeared in the news. Swine Flu will kill us all. EVERYBODY PANIC. First off, I mentioned this in my book in the chapter on Media Fearmongering (which, if you read it, you're already recognizing the signs in MSM today). The problem with being the guy telling everyone not to panic is that if you're wrong, you're an idiot. As opposed to being wrong when predicting the apocalypse, in which case everyone just laughs at how silly you were for predicting the apocalypse. If you want to win every argument with no danger of coming down with "Long Term Idiot Stigma", be a consummate pessimist. If you think about it, probably every argumentative asshole you've ever met is one. Here's why you shouldn't panic: - The Mexican Government estimates that 86 people (or more) have died from Swine Flu. Okay, that's tragic. But why the hell are we taking their numbers at face value? For starters, if you read the fine print the death numbers being tossed around are estimates. There are 18 confirmed deaths so far. Which ain't awesome, but it's a damn sight better than a hundred. - In quite a few articles I've read, I've seen statements to the effect of researchers aren't sure why the cases in the US and Canada appear to be milder than the ones in Mexico and none have resulted in death. I know we'd all like to pretend that Mexico has its act together, but last time I checked Mexico was a third world country with third world healthcare. Do the math. - Speaking of no one having died in the US and Canada, not only has no one in a first world country died from Swine Flu yet, but so far no one's even rumored to be in danger of dying. And most of the confirmed cases got better on their own after a few days at home. EVERYBODY PANIC - It is no doubt a source of great disappointment to MSM that they can't add that Swine Flu is "drug resistant" or "there's no known cure". Because it's neither, it responds to Tamiflu and other treatments. Yes, I realize there are distribution hurdles in the event of a huge outbreak, but currently it's not an issue and I don't expect it will become one. PS: if anyone is offended by my portrayal of the Mexican Government and their suckasstic healthcare system as a bunch of 3rd world incompetent boobs, which they are, you'll get over it You won't see this discussion in MSM because, as humans, we're primed to act on fear. It's human nature. MSM is a reflection of what people are reacting to, not a reflection of what's actually going on in the world. People click the hell out of fearmongering articles, so MSM keeps running them. That, and no MSM outlet wants to be the guys who "didn't see it coming". Buncha pansies. The problem with making fun of MSM pandemic reporting is that eventually there's going to be a pandemic. You don't have to be Nostradamus to make that call, it's as likely as War, Famine, Taxes, and me drinking beer after dinner (or during). So, although I put myself at risk of contracting "Long Term Idiot Stigma" by saying it, let me be the first to tell you this ain't the big one. Don't Panic. Headlines Of The Week for Sun 2009-04-19 to Sat 2009-04-25: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sports: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Geek: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Showbiz: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Politics: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Business: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() · · ·
A world without ant sex, layoff greeting cards and a crotch glove for sale: Headlines of the Week 4/12 to 4/18 Posted by Drew at 2009-04-20 1:50:39 PM, edited 2009-04-20 3:07:03 PM (41 comments) | Permalink Anyone else tired of pirates? Me too Here's what happened: media ran the initial pirates capture Alabama story (which no doubt scared some residents of Mobile into nearby grocery stores to stock up on milk and eggs). They were shocked at the extra traffic it got. To keep the momentum going, they ran even more stories about pirates. Pirates are cool! Here's hoping it's beaten to death by now. It's already April and we haven't gotten to the shark stories yet. And don't get me started on the The Pirate Bay verdict... Fark was at Notacon this weekend, and it was terrific. Great talks, great tech, good times all around. Thanks to everyone who came to the Fark Party on Friday night - who knew there was an actual drink called a Blue Screen of Death? Headlines Of The Week for Sun 2009-04-12 to Sat 2009-04-18: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sports: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Geek: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Showbiz: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Politics: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Business: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() · · ·
Anyone wanna play Warcraft on my server? Deathwing (horde) Posted by Drew at 2009-04-14 12:58:58 PM (80 comments) | Permalink Sup all A friend of mine and I have a tiny guild on Deathwing (Horde) server, we're looking to try to get more folks into it. If anyone would like to xfer on over there, contact LarryObama in-game (named after the president's lesser-known brother) about joining. He should be on the rest of the day. I should be on later too, got a soccer game in the evening if the rain holds off which will keep me offline through tomorrow probably · · ·
Long awaited continuation of Fark's moderator policies pt II Posted by Drew at 2009-04-14 11:44:14 AM (475 comments) | Permalink So here's the long overdue followup to the previous moderation discussion thread. It took awhile because I wanted to wait til I had a ton of time to talk about stuff in thread etc and so on but I realize now that's not going to happen This is actually parts II and III, I figure I better dump the whole thing before another year goes by between installments Part II intro A lot of people find it surprising that I'm not really big on participating in online communities. Not that I dislike it, I just prefer socializing offline. It's probably helps though, I don't consider myself to have a vested interest in the community so I don't get overly-involved and tilt things out of whack in the process. Along those lines, it hadn't really occurred to me that on occasions where other sites have posted discussions about moderating, there was some reason for it. Either because they're having "community drama" or there's some upcoming huge change. I forget who mentioned it in the previous thread but the thought hadn't occurred to me. So for the record, the timing of this discussion has nothing to do with anything. This discussion is going on mainly because 1) it's not really dealt with anywhere else on the site and 2) I said I'd do it back in August on a previous unrelated post. There's no ulterior motive for it, other than helping you (and us) get our heads wrapped around what we're doing and how it's different from other places. A lot of people get tripped up in the differences, for example falling back on free speech as a defense to posting something truly horrific in a thread. We don't go for that here. And there are other differences as well. So that's the main reason, just clarifying how Fark is different. A couple points from the previous thread before we continue with the discussion: Free so-and-so: we'll be discussing this later and why this is unhelpful. In general, people who are in need of a campaign to bring them back are likely not coming back. Keep those out of this post (and any other thread). We cut some slack in the last thread in the spirit of what we're discussing, but not in this one. Inconsistency: One of the things moderators do is clean out what we call the narc queue. It's a listing of all the narced comments that have stacked up since the last time the queue was emptied. Odds are what happened in both cases is moderators never actually entered the threads in question. There was one or a few narcs in the queue that got cleared out and that was it. This brings up a couple issues on our end. One of which is TF threads for the most part should be left alone. The other is context, which a few folks have mentioned above. We'll work on that. I'm not 100% sure what the solution is offhand but we'll see what we come up with. However, the expectation should be that we will never be 100% accurate or 100% consistent. We don't have enough resources to do it to that extent. We are however trying to be as accurate and consistent as possible, but realistically we will never be perfect. And now, the new stuff. Checks and balances There are two separate groups of moderators. One group hands out the actual bans, the other reviews them (when contacted via Farkback email). The moderator that hands out penalties cannot instruct the review group to leave an individual on permanent ban status. They can request it, but they can't mandate it. The final call lies with the review moderator. I have seen some instances where people write in to Farkback claiming that a particular mod has it out for them. We don't rule out the possibility, but the system we have in place makes this highly unlikely. I will not say that it hasn't ever happened, however I will say that some moderators have been removed from mod status for this, and currently no mod is under review. In some cases, the mod in question had an accidental bias. In some cases, it was intentional. The result was the same - the mods were replaced. Regarding the Farkback review mods, if you ever find yourself in contact with them, behave the same as you would in traffic court arguing a speeding ticket. Here are the main arguments you should never make. 1) Do not argue that everyone else was doing it. Cops don't catch every speeder either. Or even most of them. 2) Do not insult the review mod. It's not a good idea to insult a traffic court judge either. 3) Do not attempt to use loopholes to escape a ban. This isn't court, mods are instructed to call out BS when they see it. No technicality in the world will work if original intent was clear. Explaining what happened is a great idea however, there's a subtle but important difference there. Additionally, it's a really good idea to contact Farkback first to make sure that the issue at hand isn't just a misunderstanding. Time and time again, we've had accidental bans handed down on people who haven't done anything wrong who decide to start the conversation via the nuclear option by blowing the hell up. In these cases, the individual would have been returned to normal status with our apologies. Always try the path of least resistance first. Moderating is not all manual. Often what appears to be manual moderating from the reader level is actually automated. I'm not going to go into detail as to what's actually being done, but it's more complex than anyone suspects. It's everything you can think of and a few things that wouldn't occur to anyone. What can you do to get booted permanently It's actually pretty hard. Many Farkers can attest to this, you really have to try. Here's a list of things that will close the door. Threatening physical harm. All threats are taken seriously and law enforcement is contacted whenever this happens. If the threat was issued from a work computer, employers are contacted as well. Hacking other accounts. This includes creating new accounts to evade bans on existing accounts. The gray area for most people is accounts with passwords that are easy to guess, or in some cases accounts where people actually give out their own passwords for others to use. For us this is not a gray area. It's bad. Just because some people are dumb enough to leave their houses unlocked does not mean anyone can or should just go in there. Posting truly disgusting content. There's a gray area here somewhere without a doubt (the famous picture of the soldier holding a gun to Vietnamese guy's head comes to mind), but some stuff is without a doubt over the line. We're not talking stuff people might accidentally think was ok, we're talking stuff posted with the intention to be as disruptive as possible to the greater community. Like posting flashing images on epileptic sites, there's no mistaking what the intent was there. You can't always know when the line is crossed, but sometimes you _definitely_ know the line was crossed. Stay far away from the line if possible. Indicate to a mod (through either word or action) that previous repeated unacceptable behavior is likely to continue. We covered this one already in part one. Our system is designed to ding these people, if they voluntarily offer up evidence that they were pegged correctly then out they go. Amazingly telling a mod to go to hell isn't on this list, but it really doesn't help. I don't recommend it. Why do TF threads get moderated more than regular threads A bunch of people asked me this at the Chicago and DC parties. Two responses here. First, stats for July last year (no distinction made here between manual and automated deletions btw) Total main page comments: 535724 Total deleted comments: 12951 - 2.42% Total TF-only comments: 369553 Total TF-only deleted comments: 3227 - 0.87% Second, TFers are probably not aware that the mods have actually been instructed to leave TF threads alone for the most part. However they still check out anything that arrives in the narc queue. Only TFers can narc. The vast majority of TF comments are deleted due to a narc notification from other TFers. Why we don't allow talking about bans in comments In a recent Chicago Fark Party announcement thread, a guy popped up complaining that one day wasn't enough notice for him to be able to attend. It turns out that there had been half a dozen notices posted already, but this guy hadn't seen any of them. That'll happen, not everyone reads Fark every day. Most people don't, in fact. They come once every few days, check out a few links, then leave. People don't read everything that appears on Fark. And neither do I for that matter. One of the side-effects of this is that complaints about bans posted in comments will likely not be seen by me or any mods - the very people who can solve the issues. We instituted this policy years ago, probably back in 2000 when comments first came out. Pretty early on, a well-known Farker caught a ban. Friends of his got organized and began protesting via threads to bring him back. Mass hysterial ensued, there was a mini-revolt. In the meantime, unbeknownst to any of the well-intending protestors, the individual contacted Farkback, worked out a solution, and was unbanned within about 15 minutes. No one else knew this, and the only way of letting people know was via the comments (which we have already established not everyone reads all the time). The protests continued for more than two weeks after the person was back on Fark, because there was no way to notify everyone what had happened. It was a huge pain in the ass. When people complain about moderating in a thread, they're generally trying to do one of two things. One of them is to rectify a problem and/or get some clarification on a matter. This can be better handled by contacting Farkback (or emailing me). The other goal is to kick up a fuss, have a drama llama moment. This doesn't help anything and doesn't leads to a solution for all the reasons cited above. Some people aren't interested in a solution, they would prefer to go out in a blaze of self-sabotaging glory. The non-existent new boobies policy Years ago, we used to run boobies links on the main page of Fark. Not too many, only about 2-3 a day usually. We made the decision for a couple reasons, one was to make Fark more work friendly. Fark was ending up in workplace web filters, making it unavailable to some. We don't want anyone getting fired for reading our site. The second reason was objection from advertisers, who didn't want their ads being displayed next to questionable content. I argued like crazy on this one, but apparently advertisers never saw ads for strip clubs and escorts in newspapers or phone books. If we could ignore advertisers I'd be all for it, it's not like I suddenly like ads just because I'm running a site that relies on them. So we moved boobies links over to their own site and now there are 5x the number of links each day. Hooray. So we had an issue where in protest, people started posting more inline pics of chicks in bikinis etc in threads than usual. Previous to that happening, we were at a reasonable number of inline pics per thread (just a few here and there) and there was no mandate to crack down on boobie pics. Thanks to the sudden influx of boobies pics from people protesting against our nonexistent boobies policy, we actually had to establish one. Fark is much larger than most people think. Fark mods don't know most people. Fark is freakin huge. Fark has over 400,000 active accounts, and over four million individual readers in a given month. I've had people email me asking me to personally intervene in clique spats, which I'd be happy to do if I had any idea who was involved and what it was about. I never do, Fark is too huge. Problems with our ban system This system isn't perfect, and we're constantly retooling it. Here are a few of the problems that we're already aware of. No sarcasm detector This is probably the number one weakness of our system. Sarcasm is often difficult to detect in text communication. A moderator will see a sarcastic comment and with not much else to guide them will have to determine if it's an actual statement or not. Combine this with our mantra of anything can be undone, and you end up with a disproportionate number of accidental bans handed out for harmless sarcasm. I'm definitely not saying don't be sarcastic, but be aware that tone does not come across in text. If you get dinged for sarcasm be sure to use Farkback and let them know. They'll have you back on as soon as they can. No method for handing out individual warnings Fark's ban system is great at getting rid of habitual trolls, but not so good in dealing with people who are only trolls some of the time (or rarely). We all have our hot-button issues that get us bent out of shape. Occasionally one of these will come up (pit bulls, net neutrality, Florida) and people lose their cool. One of the more common requests we get is that warnings be issued instead of immediate timeouts and bans for infractions. We're currently working on a change to the system that will allow this. The issue has more nuances than most people would think. It's on deck however. As in later next month or the following one. · · ·
Television orgasms, exploding pie factories and Swedish transexual philosophers: Headlines of the Week 4/5 to 4/11 Posted by Drew at 2009-04-13 12:16:27 PM (17 comments) | Permalink This has been a pretty busy week, what with Somalian pirates being killed by SEALs and Italian earthquakes (they're like American earthquakes, but more caffeinated and much smokier), and Obama visiting Iraq. For that story, we ran the headline Hussein back in Baghdad, which seemed in very poor taste, which is why we liked it. Of course, the big news this week is about the Somali pirates. It's too early to tell if Obama pulling out his junk and slapping some pirates with it will have an effect on international perceptions. It won't put anybody's preconceived ideas to bed, but it can't be a bad thing to let some people who hear America speaking softly to be reminded that it still has a big stick (bigger than any previous sticks, if the rumors are to be believed...). Also, do not mess with SEALs. Anybody who can snipe three pirates simultaneously in total darkness, win a Grammy and marry Heidi Klum is someone you definitely don't mess with. Also in the news, we're starting to wonder if Thailand celebrates every new election of a prime minister with either a coup or threat of open revolt, much the same way that American cities celebrate sports championships by rioting and setting fire to everything that isn't lootable. The Thai red-shirts appear to be just as violent and out of control as last year's yellow-shirts were. If there's one thing that Star Trek has taught us, though, it's not to invest too heavily in the long-term prospects of red-shirts. It's just a matter of time. Headlines Of The Week for Sun 2009-04-05 to Sat 2009-04-11: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Sports: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Geek: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Showbiz: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Politics: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Music: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Business: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() · · ·
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