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Flaming is the act of sending or posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board on the Internet. Such messages are called flames, and are sometimes posted in response to flamebait. Flaming is said by some to be one of a class of economic problems known as The Tragedy of the Commons, when a group holds a resource (in this case, communal attention), but each of the individual members has an incentive to overuse it. Flamers usually call their flames justified attacks.

Although the trading of insults is as old as human speech, flaming on the Internet, like many other online 'actions', started in the Usenet hierarchies (although it was known to occur in the WWIVnet and FidoNet computer networks as well). A flame may have elements of a normal message, but is distinguished by its intent. A flame is typically not intended to be constructive, to further clarify a discussion, or to persuade other people. The motive for flaming is often not dialectic, but rather social or psychological. Sometimes, flamers are attempting to assert their authority, or establish a position of superiority. Other times, the flamer is simply closed-minded or biased, and is simply shocked and appaled that anybody would dare to have an opinion that isn't the same as that of the flamer, so he/she personally attacks the "dissenter." Occasionally, flamers wish to upset and offend other members of the forum, in which case they are trolls. Most often however, flames are angry or insulting messages transmitted by people who have strong feelings about a subject. Finally, some consider flaming to be a great way to let off steam, though the receiving party may be less than pleased.

Similarly, a normal, non-flame message may have elements of a flame -- it may be hostile, for example -- but it is not a flame if it is seriously intended to advance the discussion.

The word flaming is also sometimes used for long, intensive and heated discussions, even though insults do not occur.

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. (However, some users may add on 'smileys' (e.g. ;) ) to lessen the sting of a negative post, or to clarify the meaning behind a post.) 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. Many times, the intent of a message is misunderstood, causing an unintentional flame war. These tend to escalate and worsen very quickly, sometimes causing the topic in which the reply is submitted to be closed, or "locked".

Alternatively, flame wars may be instigated deliberately by Internet trolls.

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).

Pie fights

A pie fight is a type of discourse specific to bulletin boards, blogs and other types of Internet forums. Pie fights are characterized by heated, emotional argumentation about a marginal issue that has little or nothing to do with the regular subject matter of the forum in question, but comes to be so vehement that it overshadows any other topic of dialogue. Pie fights are typically of short duration, but can have a devastating effect on an online community. Pie fights can be started by Internet trolls who use baiting techniques to enrage Internet forum users so much that they post inappropriate and/or offensive messages. Unfortunately, this often results in disruption of the forum more than anything else.

The term "pie fight" is derived from a June, 2005 event on Daily Kos, a liberal and progressive issues web site, in which site administrators accepted an advertisement that showed two scantily-clad women throwing pies and smearing each other with whipped cream and pie filling. This advertisement was for the TBS reality series The Real Gilligan's Island.

Despite the fact that the advertisement was only marginally related to the regular subject matter discussed on Daily Kos, it dominated the user diary entries and blog comments for several days. The animosity generated by the acceptance of this advertisement caused some established members of the Daily Kos community to cease participation in the forum that it provides.

Extended use of the term "flame war"

Sometimes, serious academic or technical disagreements online are described casually as "flame wars" even when the major participants are making useful and informative points and, largely, not flaming. This may have to do with the degree to which observers identify emotionally with the sides of the debate, or see esteemed leaders or role-models representing their own points of view powerfully.

For example, the Usenet discussion between Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds on microkernel versus monolithic kernel operating system design (Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate) has been described as a famous "flame war". Despite being designated a "flame war", the debate is quite informative: it has been studied by serious computer scientists and researchers, and continues to remain recommended and even required reading in courses on OS design and implementation.

Partly, terming such a discussion a "flame war" seems to be due to faulty or distorted memory of the discussion itself: it is easier to remember the (relatively few) insulting asides made -- such as Tanenbaum's comment that he would give Torvalds a poor grade for Linux's design -- than it is to remember the technical points. To continue the above example, Torvalds and Tanenbaum have both made it clear that they consider their famous discussion to have been mischaracterized.

Technical "advocacy" discussions, concerning the merits or flaws of a technology -- or especially of rival technologies -- can often seem "flamy" simply from the emotional intensity of hobbyists or professionals involved. Some have called the debates about the relative merits of Intel Pentium versus PowerPC, or Pentium 4 versus Athlon XP, or Microsoft Windows versus Mac OS X, or Microsoft Windows versus Linux, or Apple Computer's decision to go with NeXT over BeOS as "flame wars", even though the discussions are often highly technical and non-inflammatory.

Also, the debates on certain topics in theoretical physics, such as loop quantum gravity versus string theory between Lubos Motl and John Baez and Steve Carlip has been described by string theorist and Harvard professor of physics Lubos Motl as a "flame war" -- despite the fact that they were a source of fruitful articles on quasinormal modes of black hole physics.

It is also possible that the use of the term "flame war" for heated debates be used in anticipation of the debate becoming an actual flame war.

Holy wars

A holy war, in the sense used in hacker slang, is a protracted, sometimes heated, conflict or argument usually based upon personal preferences of one technology over another. Famous holy wars of hackerdom have included the Unix vs. ITS disagreement (which spawned the UNIX-HATERS Handbook), the eternal war between vBulletin and phpBB forum script users and the perennial editor wars between Unix programmers who use vi to edit source code and those who use emacs.

Whereas a flame war is usually a particular spate of flaming against a non-flamy background, a holy war is a drawn-out disagreement that may last years or even span careers. For instance, younger Linux programmers who today have strong opinions on vi and emacs may not even have been born in 1976 when these editors were released.

Use of the term "Holy War" implies that the root of the disagreement is a clash of values, and intractable of resolution except by agreeing to disagree.

Causes of flaming

There is no general agreement on the causes of flaming, although a recent study has led to somewhat conclusive evidence. Some common hypotheses are:

1. Egocentrism causes us to think we know a writer's tone 90% of the time, although we only are correct about 56% of the time. This leads us to misinterpretation of the writer's intended meaning, causing flame wars.
2. The lack of body language and voice inflection make it difficult to show emotions in a nuanced way, and the relative anonymity means that it is felt less dangerous to use heated language.
3. In forums and chats, there is usually no other way to express your opinion than by writing. Not writing can be interpreted as "giving up". And opinions and ideas stated a long time ago can be forgotten, causing a need to repeat them. According to this view, a good system for Computer Supported Argument Visualisation (CSAV) might help to clarify the issues without repetition. Sometimes, however, there is a disagreement on so fundamental criteria, that it is not even possible to agree on a structure of the issues and arguments.
4. It is reasonable to consider that some forms of flaming can be attributed to deeper social or psychological weaknesses, probably from lack of exposure to a broader spectrum of disciplines that result in self-control issues.

Wired News: The Secret Cause of Flame Wars http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70179-0.html?tw=rss.index

A reference on CSAV: "Visualizing Argumentation", by Paul A. Kirschner et al (ed), Springer-Verlag, ISBN 1-85233-664-1.

External links

• A compilation of several guides to flaming
• Andrew Heenan's Guide to Flaming
• Netizen's Guide to Flame Warriors
• Devious Tyrant A small forum with a highly skilled and dedicated flaming community.
• Brawl Hall Flaming Community
• FlameChamps Flame Forum Matches
• Original pie fight posting on Daily Kos
• MediaDailyNews article on the pie fight phenomenon
• dKosopedia entry on pie fight
• Flamewar! a free videogame that mocks flaming behavior
• Flame, Flame on!, Flame bait, Flamage, and Flamer on Ursine's Jargon Wiki.
• Email Etiquette Guide
• Email Etiquette
• Etiquette: Why is it important?
• Quick Facts About Internet Flaming

• Internet culture
• Internet forum terminology