Flaming (Internet)

"Flamewar" redirects here. For the Transformers character, see Flamewar (Transformers).

Flaming is hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users. Flaming usually occurs in the social context of a discussion board, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), by e-mail or on Video-sharing websites. It is usually the result of the discussion of heated real-world issues like politics, religion, and philosophy, or of issues that polarise subpopulations (for example, the perennial debating between PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners). Internet trolls frequently set out to incite flamewars for the sole purpose of offending or irritating other posters.

Jay Forrester, in discussing participants' internal modelling of a discussion, says:

Mental models are fuzzy, incomplete, and imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within a single individual, mental models change with time, even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As debate shifts, so do the mental models. Even when only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. Goals are different but left unstated. It is little wonder that compromise takes so long. And even when consensus is reached, the underlying assumptions may be fallacies that lead to laws and programs that fail. The human mind is not adapted to understanding correctly the consequences implied by a mental model. A mental model may be correct in structure and assumptions but, even so, the human mind--either individually or as a group consensus--is apt to draw the wrong implications for the future.

Flaming on the Internet started in the Usenet hierarchies (although it was known to occur in the WWIVnet and FidoNet computer networks as well).^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Eristic
• Fisking
• Flamebait
• Godwin's Law
• Spiral of silence on the Internet
• Smack talk
• Wikipedia on incivility
• Wikipedia on incivility (more)

Further reading

• Kirschner, Paul A.; et al.. Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-making. London: Springer. ISBN 1852336641. 

External links

• An Interactional Reconceptualization of "Flaming" and Other Problematic Messages, by Patrick B. O'Sullivan and Andrew J. Flanagin