Fark

It's safe to say, many of our reviewers have contrasting opinions of Fark.

On one hand, some "enjoy the short witticisms."

"This is the granddaddy of humor blogs," said one reviewer. "Literally millions of readers each day. It's also a notorious hangout for bloggers looking for something to write about when they can't think of original material."

On the other hand, some "didn't understand what this site was all about. Is it comedy? Is it a search engine? Is it advertising? Is it all of the above?"

"I don't care how many people visit this site," said another reviewer. "I don't care how funny some of the linked-stories are. Fark will never be as good as a blog where someone actually writes something funny. I wouldn't even consider this a blog."

CONTENT - 6.4
"I have been a longtime reader of Fark. I would always give Fark's content a 10."

"Very useful and entertaining site when you want to read news about something other than rape and robbery. The forums are great too, with lots of contributors on all topics. My favorites are the Photoshop contests - there's some fantastic work there, but they're also hilarious."

"Good content although I'm not always sure to trust the descriptors of the links."

DESIGN - 5.4
"I thought the appearance was rather industrial but did find it to be fairly neatly organized, with the icons down the left side to be helpful in identifying what kind of blurb was being linked to. The brief summaries were slightly helpful. However, I didn't come up with anything I found to be especially funny. I guess it's just not my type of humor."

"Layout is hard to figure out. Some of the Photoshop art is cheesy."

"Too busy. Eye catching for all the wrong reasons."

"I hate this site, but I kind of like the ease of this design."

"Clean design. Relatively few ads."

"The only thing that seems to lack is the layout, which can be a little confusing if you're new to the site. There's a lot more to offer than just links, but that's easy to miss upon first glance."

"I like the design, though sometimes, it can be a bit busy."

"Organized but corporate-looking."

"This site is too hard to navigate. Not my kind of blog."

QUALITY OF WRITING/GRAMMAR - 4.5
"Fark is not really written by any one person, it is a contributory site, with all readers getting their stories 'greenlighted' if you are a member of the Fark community. Therefore, the content varies, but for the most part, it is fresh and intelligent. Links go to both the newstory and bulletin board commentary."

"The quality of writing is moot, I think, because the stories are not written by the people who run Fark, but rather, the news outlets themselves. The quality of the comments in the bulletin board runs from extraordinarily creative and funny to the insipid and idiotic."

"The serious newspeak language about silly subjects adds a surreal touch. Plus this is from news organizations, so the writing/grammar has to be much better than random conversations by regular people."

"I gave this category a zero because there's no way these people should get as many points as someone who struggles to come up with a post every day. Anyone can post links."

INTANGIBLES - 7.0
"The only pet peeve that I once had with Fark has been done away with. They used to have very risque pictures on it in their banners and would have the 'boobie' links that would be quite graphic. Now those are reserved for members only."

"Extra clicks, definitely. Too much fluff also. Stick to basics, might be some good content there, if I could get to it. I don't like the ads."

"In general, I don't like this kind of website, where nothing is really displayed and you must click out to find everything (although a site like Ebaum's World would be an exception). If I hadn't been asked to review this, I wouldn't have spent more than a second or two viewing it."

"I didn't think many of the sites it linked to were funny, although if a person were to look around long enough, I'm sure they'd find something interesting."

FREQUENCY - 10
"Frequent updates, hard to run out of material. It's like a clearinghouse of the world's news of the weird."

WOULD YOU READ THIS BLOG REGULARLY - 25% Yes
"I do read Fark daily, for at least the past 3 years."

"No, not without a map."

"Hell no, too much shit going on. Too much to open. Too much to surf. It's like reading he fucking yellow pages!"

"I probably wouldn't read this blog regularly."

OVERALL - 70.8
Fark isn't necessarily a "love it or hate it" blog, but the ratings were all over the place. One person would give the blog high marks for content, then knock it down for design or quality of writing. The next would knock the content but like the simplicity of design.

"This is one of the old-line blogs out there. It is a very comprehensive source of offbeat news, but the pure amount can be overwhelming. When you go to the site, you feel like a kid with ADD, as your eyes go everywhere."