Forkarium

What It Is

Forkarium: The Court of Petty Claims is a reading site that puts the small arguments of everyday life on trial. Each case has one question, a one- or two-sentence verdict, exhibits checked against official sources, and a short FAQ. The parties and their story are a dramatization made up for fun. The evidence and the verdict are facts checked against primary sources. It is available in English, Korean and Japanese, and each case also goes out as English cards on Instagram and Threads.

The Problem

Most everyday arguments end with "I read it somewhere." Searching brings up unsourced posts and conflicting claims first, while the document from the body that actually decides the answer is hard to find or too dry to finish. Fun content, on the other hand, is often too loose with facts to trust.

Forkarium leaves the fun to the dramatization and the facts to the sources, and keeps the two clearly apart on the page, so you can laugh while reading without getting a fact wrong.

Who It Is For

• People who need to settle something small: friends, family and coworkers stuck arguing about leftover pizza or a spelling
• People who read for sources: people who want everyday facts confirmed by official documents, not hearsay
• People who learn from social feeds: people who like picking up one fact a day from short, funny cards
• People curious about rules in Korea and Japan: travelers and residents who want to know the local rules before they need them

Core Flow

1. Arrive with a question: from search or a social card, a question like "How long does leftover pizza last in the fridge?" leads to a case page.
2. Read the verdict first: the first box shows the ruling stamp, a short answer, and how many official sources were checked and when.
3. Follow the evidence: every sentence in the exhibits and FAQ carries a source number that opens the original quote with its published and checked dates.
4. Enjoy the show: the dramatization zone below has the parties, the timeline, both sides' claims and the court's sentence.
5. End the argument: move on to another case on the same topic, or send the link to the other side.

Key Features

• Case of the day: a new case goes up every day. Cases people need to know now, like a rule taking effect within days or a product that just launched, skip the line and go up right away.
• Verdict-first case pages: the question people search for is the title, and the verdict and answer sit in the first box.
• Facts and fiction kept apart: the verified facts zone and the dramatization zone are drawn differently, down to the border, and each says in words what it is.
• Source list: every case lists each source's publisher, document title, address, published date, checked date and an original quote.
• Topics and the docket: find past cases by topic (food, home, travel, tech, manners, science, language) or in case-number order.
• Three languages: the same cases in English, Korean and Japanese. Country-specific cases cite that country's original sources.
• Share cards: each case has a preview image per language and goes out on Instagram and Threads as five English cards.

Product Decisions

• Make up the story, never the evidence: the dramatization borrows a courtroom for B-movie humor, and no joke goes into a verdict or evidence sentence. Every case page and this page state that split, so the site is never mistaken for fiction or rumor.
• Only sources that were opened and read: a source goes in only after its original page has been opened and the quote read, never from a search summary. Every number in an English sentence must appear in the quote. Encyclopedias anyone can edit are not used as sources.
• Recent material first: rules and guidance change, so the newest version from the same body is used, and every source shows its published and checked dates.
• Only arguments a source can settle: cases are picked only when a primary source decides the answer, such as food safety guidance, standards, laws, manufacturer instructions or dictionaries. Politics, religion, attacks on real people, and medical or investment advice are out of scope.
• Mistakes are corrected in public: the editorial standards and corrections policy are published, and a corrected case keeps the date and content of the fix.
• Read-only by design: there are no member records, votes or comments, which keeps pages about facts light and clean.

Revenue Model

• Every case is free to read. There are no subscriptions or paid features.

Next Hypotheses

• Whether people who see a social card go on to the case page, often enough to justify publishing every day.
• Whether search and answer engines quote the first sentence of the verdict and bring in visits from question searches.
• Whether timely cases people need to know now or evergreen everyday cases get shared more.