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Rants and Raves of Eric Brooks. Low-tech whining in cyberspace…

Web Skirmishes 101

In this day and age of worldwide dektop publishing, various temperaments, political views, and viewpoints… I find you can just about offend ANYONE with a minimum of effort. What causes flame wars on the web? What makes them worse? What is the best way to resolve them? I offer my 2¢ on the matter as somewhat of an “expert” in online warfare.

It’s a more homogenized version of a post I made on WHUZZUP, as apparently a lot of people missed the point the first time around. The ceilings are pretty low in SoApBox… so those coming in riding your high horses may experience neck and back problems later…

As I planned to resurrect this site over the summer, I VOWED that this kind of stuff was not going to happen here anymore.
I wanted to come back and be a POSITIVE force in the community. At a time where people are being polarized and torn apart over a war that affected the entire planet… I wanted to help bring the web community back together, torn apart from all the debate and harsh words, and I wanted to work with the same people with the same mindset.

Consider me somewhat of an “expert” on flame wars…
Here are your common elements of a flame war (see if this looks familiar in over a thousand different Web Dramas.)

Someone says something.

Someone takes offense and goes public

Everyone takes sides (because, well, it’s a public issue now, right?)

Everyone loses their temper, they do and say stuff they regret later…

NO ONE wants to admit any wrongdoing directly (“I know what I said/did was wrong… BUT he/she didn’t have to…”).

The real issue gets buried, as everyone spends hours trying to convince the spectators that, in reality, they are actually good people deep down inside (and they are.)… but their opponent will eat your children if you turn your back on them.

POP QUIZ: (This is based on…)

It’s counterproductive, petty, childish, bullshit.
And Gawd… I am so FUCKING TIRED of it.

I guess a guy’s got to grow up sometime?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2003 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Old Skewl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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