seanbonner: Fark is NOT a blog

August 06, 2004

Fark is NOT a blog

FARK is not a blog. It does not have an author and all content is submitted by users. It's closer to a big message board than a blog. Drew, who runs the site does not "write" the site. The opinions expressed are the readers. It's not a blog - it's a news filter. A totally different animal. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to start calling it a blog should get kicked in the nuts.

Posted by sean on August 6, 2004 10:17 AM | View blog reactions
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Comments

I think Jason deserves a good slap in the head for making such a big deal out of this. It's like the Janet Jackson tit thing. Who gives a fuck? There are shitloads of mags, zines, movies and TV shows that used paid placement and don't tell you and you go about your life just the same. In "Unbreakable" when the kid pours his OJ and turns the carton to the screen then sits there enjoying it for a second. Or the "Mountain Dew' machine they lugged all over "Fight Club". Shitloads and shitloads of stories on zines like Lockergnome are paid for and read by the audience with no knowledge whatsoever of it's origins as an advertisement. No harm no foul. Jason would have never known any different if he hadn't had stumbled on this by accident and would have lived the rest of his life in ignorant bliss but now we have to hear about it all over the goddamn place. I repeat, who gives a FUCK?

I do agree that whoever started calling Fark a blog should get a swift kick in the nuts though :-)

Posted by: Jason D- on August 6, 2004 10:33 AM

External links (with commentary) organized in reverse-chronological order, updated throughout the day... It sure seems like a group blog to me. Does that mean Metafilter isn't a blog?

Posted by: Andy Baio on August 6, 2004 10:55 AM

Metafilter is a massive greyarea on this, but no, I don't consider metafilter a blog, I consider it a filter. I think for something to be a group blog, it has to have a set, or at least a fairly set group of authors - "everyone on the internet" is a bit too big for that. 100% of the content on fark comes from people who are not involved with fark. If the editors on fark added comentary to the posts that would be one thing, but just republishing submitted links is not blogging.

Posted by: Sean Bonner on August 6, 2004 11:18 AM

Hmm, seems sketchy. Fark has a set number of moderators that can approve links. What's the difference between that model and Slashdot or Boing Boing? People submit links to Slashdot and Boing Boing, and a set number of moderators approve and post them.

And I'd argue that Fark users *are* adding commentary... In the descriptions of the links, the category it's placed in, and the ensuing discussion.

Then again, I consider WaxyLinks to be a blog too. (Link lists like mine are a direct descendent of Robot Wisdom, one of the first weblogs.)

Posted by: Andy Baio on August 6, 2004 11:57 AM

The difference between slashdot and boingboing is pretty huge, but both are different. Let's see..

Slashdot - I don't think slashdot is a blog either. There's very blog-like features built in, and People's individual journals on slashdot could be considered blogs, and some of the posts that include comentary by the moderators are bloglike, but overall it's a group of news links, not a blog.

BoingBoing - Boing Boing is a blog because it's not just links, the set bloggers on there add their thoughts on everything they posts - "this is cool because... " "here's this great product I'm using..." "here's why this situation is messed up..." etc. You know very well the personalities of the people who write for the site, I don't think there's any question that BB is a blog.

With Fark I 100% agree that the users are adding the commentary, which backs up my claim that the moderators aren't, which means it's not a blog. If it's a blog then every message board on the internet should be considered blogs because those are basically the same thing - anyone who signs up for a username can submit storys and talk about them in threads. There's no voice of the site - it's only the people who visit the site.

I consider WaxyLinks a blog as well (and wrote about that earlier this morning) and the difference is that is your voice. It's links you are interested in. If 10 million people were all putting in there own links as well it wouldn't be, it would just be a collection of links, but the fact that there's a clear personality involved keeps it in the world of blogs.

But of course, I'm just some dude with a blog so my opinions on the matter don't hold any more weight than yours. =)

Posted by: Sean Bonner on August 6, 2004 02:37 PM

FWIW, Drew @ FARK posted his response:
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1069846

Posted by: Koganuts on August 6, 2004 04:47 PM

I think the key point here is that the idea that there is one narrow definition of the word "blog" is sort of silly. It is a broad term and becoming broader. At one time, I would only consider a blog to be a collection of links, maybe there wasn commentary, maybe there wasn't. It was a true log of the web, and what a person found out there. Sites filled with personal narrative were considered online journals, not weblogs, or blogs.

Blog is just a short term for a site that has new content on the front page, I think you will run out of breath if you want to argue whether or not a site is a blog. Maybe the only reason that you couldn't consider the front page of LATimes.com a blog is that the links only go to their site.

Posted by: jonah on August 6, 2004 04:50 PM

Perhaps, but I don't think the content is the question so much as who is providing it.

IMHO, someone has to be behind it for it to be a blog. That's the key. Somone or several someone's. Not everyone. I don't know where you would draw the line, and maybe that is what this discussion is about, but if you can't make a list of the people who contribute to the site, it's not a blog.

Jonah - givin that LAT example would you consider google.news a blog since the links go to other sites?

Posted by: Sean Bonner on August 6, 2004 04:56 PM

JD: It is important for publishers to have a code of behavior--aka best practices--because if they don't then it sends a bad message to the marketplace.

First Fark.com sells editorial, then the advertisers start leaning on other blogs (or whatever you want to call Fark) to sell their editorial placement. Then readers get wind of all blogs/sites doing it and loose faith in the medium.

Trust me this will happen if we let pay-for-play go on... I saw it in the conference and email newsletter space. Back at Silicon Alley Reporter Advertisers would come to me and ask for a speaking slot if they advertised, or a story in the email newsletter if they advertised. I had to hold the line while other people sold out... in other words the good folks have to retrain the market while the bad folks get the profits.

I'm not going to stand for that... and no one else should stand for publishers being dishonest to thir readers. Fark.com should have just put "Advertisement" by the links... or better yet "Advertisement: Please support our sponsors who keep fark farking free!"

Drew would get 2-10x the clicks if he put a message like that. Being good is better than bing evil--bottom line.

Posted by: Jason McCabe Calacanis on August 6, 2004 05:01 PM

=== givin that LAT example would you consider google.news a blog since the links go to other sites? ===

fair question. First, I don't really think that LAtimes.com counts as a blog, and it would be a big stretch to apply the label to google news.

What my point is, I think, is that the word "blog" has been watered down so much that I think it will eventually be nearly useless as a label. Already, people qualify their sites as a photoblog, a link blog (who would have thought that would need a label), a gadget blog, a food blog, the list will ever expand.

I tend to be of the opinion, as well, that I would like to use the word "blog" as a reference to a personal, non commercial site. But that would eliminate all of the weblogs inc sites right off the bat since they are there for profit, right?

I would probably have had the same reaction that Fark is not a blog a few years ago, but now I almost think that it is more blog-like in format than a lot of "blogs" out there. (and my argument comes around full circle)

Posted by: jonah on August 6, 2004 05:19 PM

No, metafilter is not a blog and neither is FARK. I pretty much buy this definition of what is and is not a blog: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary_archives/001959.html

Who provides the content is *very* significant. Would you say who provides the content for a magazine or book is not significant? Of course it is! That is where the whole character and credibility of a blog comes from!

Posted by: Argosy on August 8, 2004 04:04 PM

I think that Fark is a community weblog because there is a community voice with community standards. Any headline with "France surrenders," "Your dog wants steak" or the quintessential "Hilarity ensues" is evidence, let alone every comment in a Boobies thread that finds some new way to say "I'd hit it." Hell, that's a more consistent voice than I have on my own blog.

Some people claim that all bloggers are online diarists, ignoring the pundits and linklogs. I think that virtually every definition of a blog is too narrow, and opt for the definition of obscenity: "I know it when I see it."

Posted by: George on August 9, 2004 11:59 AM

But what does 'community weblog' actually mean, George? A forum is certainly a 'community' but it sure ain't a blog. The essence of blogs is that they can be part of an 'ultra-URL' community (i.e. the community extends beyond the URL of the site).

If terms are not fairly narrowly defined, they lose any useful meaning and the words themselves become an actually impediment to understanding. Most definitions of blogs encompass the pundit, diarists and techs and increasingly the biz blogs... but I think the "I know it when I see it" test is quite mistaken: many sites *look* blog-like but lack the functionality to engage the blogosphere and hence have little potential to be part of a wider community. A blog is just a format, but the essence of 'blog' it that it can be part of a wider networked social phenomenon.

Posted by: Perry de Havilland on August 10, 2004 02:43 AM