Flaming: Encyclopedia II - Flaming - Flame wars

Flaming - Flame wars

A flame war is a series of flaming messages in electronic discussion groups such as usenet, mailing lists or internet forums. There are a number of characteristics of electronic communication which have been cited as being conducive to flame wars. Electronic communications do not easily transmit facial expressions or voice intonations which may serve to moderate the tone of a message. Also, there is typically a lag time between the time a message is transmitted and the time a reply is read. These two characteristics can cause a "positive feedback loop" in which the emotional intensity of an electronic exchange increases to extremely high levels.

Alternatively, flame wars may be instigated deliberately by Internet trolls. Not all trolls are successful, though.

Jay W. Forrester described a phenomenon that often happens in flamewars whereby participants talk past each other. Each participant employs a different mental model (i.e. due to fundamental differences in their assumptions about what a particular word or concept means, they are actually discussing two different things).

Flaming - Interforum flame wars

While most flame wars occur within a single message board, forum, or community, sometimes flame wars will erupt between two separate forums (especially when both forums are centered around similar subjects). This may happen in a variety of ways:

• A member of Forum A leaves on bad terms, joins Forum B and flames Forum A. Members of Forum B side with their new member, then proceed to also bash Forum A (regardless of any personal knowledge of the workings of that forum). Members from Forum A may then begin to flame Forum B, et cetera.
• A member (or members) of Forum A join(s) Forum B with the intent of "spamming" their board or generally being a nuisance. This is typically unprovoked. Members of Forum B become frustrated and begin flaming Forum A.
• Members or administrators of Forum A may accuse members or administrators of Forum B of "hacking" accounts or the board itself.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Flame wars", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki