Let's not forget the rules for a good flamewar, reposted here from (yes!)
rec.humor ...
| From: rolleston_c@ix.wcc.govt.nz (Chris Rolleston)
| Subject: The Twelve Commandments of Flaming
| Date: 19 Sep 1994 13:03:33 GMT
|
| 1. Make things up about your opponent: It's important to make your lies
| sound true. Preface your argument with the word "clearly." "Clearly,
| Brian Hillis is a racist, and a dirtball to boot."
|
| 2. Be an armchair psychologist: You're a smart person. You've heard of
| Freud. You took a psychology course in college. Clearly, you're qualified
| to psychoanalyze your opponent. "Peach Pshawski (God Bless You!), by using
| the word 'zucchini' in her posting, shows she has a bad case of .........."
|
| 3. Cross-post your flames: Everyone on the net is just waiting for the next
| literary masterpiece to leave your terminal. From OPINION to EZ-READER to
| PETS to CHIT-CHAT, they're all holding their breaths until your next flame.
| Therefore, post everywhere.
|
| 4. Conspiracies abound: If everyone's against you, the reason can't
| *possibly* be that you're a #anatomypart@. There's obviously a conspiracy
| against you, and you will be doing the entire net a favor by exposing it.
|
| 5. Lawsuit threats: This is the reverse of Rule #4 (sort of like the Yin &
| Yang of flaming). Threatening a lawsuit is always considered to be in good
| form. "By saying that I've posted to the wrong group, |Didley has libelled
| me, slandered me, and sodomized me. See you in court, |Didley."
|
| 6. Force them to document their claims: Even if Ralph Gagliano states
| outright that he likes tomato sauce on his pasta, you should demand
| documentation. If Newsweek hasn't written an article on Ralph's pasta
| preferences, then Ralph's obviously lying.
|
| 7. Use foreign phrases: French is good, but Latin is the lingua franca of
| flaming. You should use the words "ad hominem" at least three times per
| article. Other favorite Latin phrases are "ad nauseum", "vini, vidi, vici",
| "fetuccini alfredo".
|
| 8. Tell 'em how smart you are: Why use intelligent arguments to convince
| them you're smart when all you have to do is tell them? State that you're a
| member of Mensa or Mega or Dorks of America. Tell them the scores you
| received on every exam since high school. "I got an 800 on my SATs, LSATs,
| GREs, MCATs, and I can also spell the word 'premeiotic'".
|
| 9. Accuse your opponent of censorship. It is your right as an American
| citizen to post whatever the hell you want to the net (as guaranteed by the
| 37th Amendment, I think). Anyone who tries to limit your cross-posting or
| move a flame war to Netusers is either a communist, a fascist, or both.
|
| 10. Doubt their existence: You've never actually seen your opponent, have
| you? And since you're the center of the universe, you should have seen them
| by now, shouldn't you? Therefore, THEY DON'T EXIST! This is the beauty of
| flamers' logic.
|
| 11. Lie, cheat, steal, leave the toilet seat up.
|
| 12. When in doubt, insult: If you forget the other 11 rules, remember this
| one. At some point during your wonderful career as a flamer you will
| undoubtedly end up in a flame war with someone who is better than you. This
| person will expose your lies, tear apart your arguments, make you look
| generally like a bozo. At this point, there's only one thing to do: insult
| the dirtbag!!! "Oh yeah? Well, your mother does strange things with
| ..........."
Which brings us to The Golden Rule of Flaming:
| My flames will be witty, insulting, interesting, funny, caustic, or
| sarcastic, but never, ever, will they be boring.
Now, all we need is a good flame form. Anyone have a better one than this?
} Dear [ ] sir [ ] twit [X] clueless one [ ] great man on campus
} [ ] madam [ ] dweeb [ ] twerp [ ] comrade
} [ ] moon beam [ ] boor [ ] Elvis [ ] Obergruppenfuehrer
} [ ] citoyen [ ] Geek [ ] grad student [ ] Commie
} [ ] Republican [ ] Democrat [ ] Liberal [ ] Conservative
} [ ] Dilbert [ ] Dogbert [ ] Ratbert [ ] cur
}
} You are being gently flamed because:
} [ ] you sent a remove-me-from-the-list message to the list
} (rather than the list-sever)
} [X] you continued a boring, useless, stupid thread
} [X] you repeatedly posted to the same thread that you just posted to
} [ ] you repeatedly initiated incoherent, flaky, and mindless threads
} [ ] you posted a piece riddled with profanities
} [ ] you advocated Net censorship
} [ ] you SCREAMED! (used all caps)
} [X] you posted some sort of crap that doesn't belong in this group
} [ ] you posted the inanely stupid "Make Money Fast" article
} [ ] you posted the inanely stupid "$250 Cookie Recipe" article
} [ ] you posted the inanely stupid "Good Time Virus" warning
} [ ] you posted an inanely stupid magic-weight loss article
} [ ] you posted an inanely stupid cheap crap at high prices article
} [ ] you posted an inanely stupid "Fix Your Credit" article
} [ ] you threatened others with physical harm
} [ ] you made one or more bigoted statements
} [ ] you repeatedly assumed unwarranted moral or intellectual superiority
} [X] you are under the misapprehension that this group is your preserve
} [ ] you repeatedly showed a lack of humor
} [ ] you are apparently under compulsion to post to every thread
} [ ] you are posting an anonymous attack
} [ ] you posted an obvious troll
} [ ] you responded to an obvious troll
} [ ] you responded to your own obvious troll
} [ ] you have a sig that is more than 5 lines long
} [ ] you have a sig with more than 4 lines of ASCII graphics
} [ ] you assumed that AOL/CIS/Prodigy founded the Internet
} [ ] you neglected to do research on the chosen subject
} [ ] you asked a question that was covered in the available FAQ
> as well as at the bottom of EVERY FUCKING POST
} [X] you redundantly covered the same point over & over, again
} [ ] you assumed that the Internet is a U.S.-only phenomenon
} [ ] you crossposted excessively
} [ ] you, in any way, sense, shape, or form, agreed with Senator Exon
} [ ] you used long lines, i.e. you didn't break up your lines after 60-70 characters, thereby making it hard to read or quote your post
} [ ] You posted a request to send business/get well cards to a little
} boy with cancer who is trying to break the Guiness book record
} [ ] Over 97% of your post was quoted from a previous post
} [ ] Over 97% of your post was quoted from a previous post and your
} addition was "I agree" or "Me too"
} [ ] you barged into a quiet little news group/IRC channel/MUD/whatever and
} started stinking up the place just because you read an article about
} the news group/IRC channel/MUD/whatever in some magazine
} [ ] you repeatedly requested info on where to find XXX stuff
} [ ] you repeatedly harassed people with androgynous names like Chris,
} Jamie, or Rajhatmalhaban, with "Are you a girl?" or "M/F?" questions
}
} [ ] you, in any way, sense, shape, or form, used the term(s)
} [ ] "infobahn" [ ] "Neutopia" [ ] "information superhighway"
} [ ] "warez" [ ] "SUX" [ ] "ROOLZ" [ ] KEWL/KOOL/K0oL
} [ ] "wymyn" [ ] Other annoying term:
}
} [ ] you discussed the following in a non-nutcase newsgroup;
} [ ] hollow earth theory [ ] alien President theory
} [ ] orbital mind control frisbees [ ] faith healing
} [ ] government weather control [ ] Russian psychics
} [ ] Squeaky Fromme [ ] robot spy bees
} [ ] sexually promiscuous space aliens [ ] "Manos, the Hands of Fate"
} [ ] dieting [ ] dating [X] RC5-64 [ ] Other:
}
} [ ] you considered the following to be reliable reference sources;
} [ ] Golden Books' "Exploring Science", printed 1955
} [ ] Any program covered by Talk Soup [ ] SNL News
} [ ] Oliver Stone [ ] Hard Copy [ ] Inside Edition
} [ ] The National Enquirer [ ] The Sun [ ] NY Post
} [ ] The Union Leader [ ] Pravda [ ] OMNI Magazine
} [ ] Company Marketing Hype [ ] Microsoft [ ] The Simpsons
} [ ] An unidentified, but obviously stupid, person or publication
} [ ] Other:
}
} In the future, you may wish to;
} [X] read the "welcome to the list" message you received when you joined
} [X] allow boring and useless threads to die
} [X] remember that not all mailing list and newsreaders are threaded
} [ ] recall that there are academic and commercial users on the net
} [ ] remember that the Internet is multinational
} [ ] consider that others may know more about certain subjects than you
} [ ] exercise some humility
} [ ] be careful of where you are crossposting
} [ ] "lurk" without posting for a few days to learn the forum of a group
} [X] take personal discussions or stupid/boring threads to personal email
} [X] get used to being mocked
} [ ] stop volunteering for Armed Forces pharmeceutical experiments
} [X] rejoin your people on your planet of origin
} [X] remove the pipe from your nether regions
}
} I would like like to suggest that, for the common good, you;
} [X] wait at least two hours before responding to another post
} [ ] read the FAQ (frequently asked questions) list for the group
} [X] learn to use the "kill" command to eliminate erroneous posts
} [X] post and email only to alt.dev.null
} [ ] selectively respond to threads after reading all existing responses
} [ ] voluntarily apologize in a brief post
} [X] shop for clues at a better clue shop
} [ ] no longer contribute to this newsgroup/mailing list
} [ ] no longer contribute to any newsgroup/mailing list
} [X] no longer contribute to the gene pool
} [ ] look into the possibility of medication for the above problems
} [ ] familiarize yourself with the history of the Internet
} [X] familiarize yourself with the concept of:
} [ ] patience [ ] tolerance
} [X] common courtesy [ ] succinctness
} [ ] vocabulary [X] higher brain functions
} [ ] Other:
}
} Please save this message and review it occasionally to determine
} your progress toward being;
}
} [ ] a useful member of Internet society
} [ ] a less-annoying member of Internet society
} [ ] a human being
} [ ] a fully-functional human being
} [ ] a tolerable poster
} [ ] integrated into humanity
} [X] re-integrated into the wild
} [ ] Other:
}
} Thank you for taking the time to read this form flame.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine
medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently
view it as some kind of recreational activity.
-- Dave Barry