I am, full disclosure, not Drew Curtis. I do not envy him (except that he drinks Maker's Mark and I drink Evan Williams. Don't judge me.) and could never manage a website like he does. But I am going to take a moment to talk about FARK.

FARK is a website. On it, there is an aggregated list of "news" stories, with various tags, and comments next to each one. Some of these get no comments (very rare) but most don't get outside the teens. This is, of course, on the main page, the "Not news" page. Don't go to the "Politics" tab. It is a holocaust of reason and sanity.

But for some "Not news" stories, the comments continue to climb, sometimes well over the one thousand mark. The stories that interest me solely because of their comments are the ones that generally get between three hundred to seven hundred and fifty comments. I am drawn to see what the reason for controversy which generates that sort of dialogue could be.

You want to know, don't you?

Smoking. Bans, regulations, and taxes thereof. Anti-smokers, smokers, and non-smokers. You'll see that here on the Kansan too.

Bulldogs. Actually, most pet threads explode, though not just because people post pictures of their pets, some people go in and suggest that animals are not as important as people, which doesn't always go over so well.

Macs Vs PCs, 360 Vs PS3 Vs Wii, Car Brands. People who identify themselves in association with a brand (which I believe may be one of the main goals of a brand nowadays) go into battle for their corporate overlords, while Linux, Dreamcast, and bicycle people pop in to stir the flames.

Police activity. There are cop haters, cop apologists, cops, and people with anecdotes both good and bad relating to dealing with cops. Many of the stories prompting these threads are "Cops taser 90 year-old woman hanging from a tree branch. Don't taze me, son." type stories. Fascist pigs and filthy anarchists abound.

Lists. I know, that's vague. But people go in to complain that it's a list, to complain that the list is wrong, to add to the list, and the list just goes on and on. Everything from "Top 24 bowling balls from Tahiti" to "Sixteen reasons Luke should have just gone for it" generate ridiculous response.

Religion threads. Generally it's like SOMA Vs the Pope in there. Extremely militant atheists, various reasonable Christians, and a bunch of people who want better separation of church and state. Add to the mix people who post images of Thor vaguely threatening Jesus. Something about a hammer and being nailed to a cross.

There are probably more I can't think of right now, and this obviously excludes current events (Roman Polanski referenced in a headline recently generated more comments than before, mentions of some ex-senator from Chicago seem to bring out the buckethead brigade) but for the most part, this is how to generate controversy.

I would like to preemptively apologize to any buckethead readers.

Also any Buckethead fans.

Also my brother-in-law, who wore a plastic bucket on his head when he was much younger, until his family took it away because it was deforming his head.

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