People will never agree on everything. There are those that can't leave something alone. Some people feel the need to try and attack other people. These things happen.

And there is a problem with this, but it does not lie in the flame warriors themselves. It lies in the people who try to solve them.

There are some that will flood a thread with spammy, repetitive posts along the lines of "WHY CAN'T WE BE FRIENDS?!" and "CAN'T YOU SEE THIS IS JUST WHAT TROLLING IS?" There are also those that try to play it smooth, and say stuff like: "I find the flamers more annoying than the troll lol so clever"

Then there are those that try to buck the trend. Those that are hardwired to think if so many people go along with one idea or trend, it's automatically evil. As such, they try to attack the trend, calling people bandwagoners and other mindless terms.

Finally, there are the fence straddlers. People who try to think they're clever by wearing a facade of neutrality while simultaneously insulting all parties and trying to solve the problem, praying their illusion holds up so that if any real trouble rears its head, they can plead neutrality and escape.

Here's the thing, friends: flames are going to happen. Flames are like war.

They aren't pretty, they aren't particularly desirable, and it'd be nice if we could remove them altogether. But that's never going to happen.

Like war, flames are a necessity. There are times when people come here solely to detriment others, and there comes a time when we need to fight back. Furthermore, the more we bottle up flames, the more they back up, like a sewage line, until they explode.

And also like war, flames breathe new life into the forums. How boring would it be if we had to read computer questions, RL troubles and my stories all the time? I mean...I'm good, but I can't carry them alone

So, in short, if you feel that flames are a bad and terrible thing, have the decency to keep you and your ignorant, blind peacenik opinions to yourselves. You know nothing but foolish idealism. It's time for you to start embracing reality.

The key to creating a successful board is learning how to control flames, not how to suppress them. Maybe once that's understood, you can start learning a little more.

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Cowboy Darius stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
EC was boring when it had a seperate section for flames

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It's largely still boring.

In any forum I go to, any argument I get into, even in RL, I feel more prepared.. thanks to EC. Reading flame after flame, I can see ways to attack people, and their opinions, and I use that in my own way to win arguments (But not here, heh..).

EC changed my life with flames. It can change yours, too!

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Nobody really understood why King Parcelan wrote:
We are a school of defense...and hard knocks.

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Exactly, sir!

When I first came here, I'd rise to every little stupid thing that came my way. All the cheesy remarks, and all that jazz.

Now, I'm a whole new guy! And while I do tend to slip up from time to time *coughomgigotb&cough*, I'm considerably more hard shelled then I was.

I owe it all to EC! Keep up the flames, people!

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Gydyon stopped staring at Deedlit long enough to write:
I'm getting damn tired of the influx of frigging trolls on the boards lately. I wish I could ban a whole bunch of people......

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You can thank N00B DRIVE 2K3!

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x--King ParcelanO-('-'Q) :
You can thank N00B DRIVE 2K3!

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The "noob drive" thing happened long before these folks showed up...

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King Parcelan said this about your mom:
You can thank N00B DRIVE 2K3!

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Aren't we due for another banfest soon?

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Ferret's fortune cookie read:
Aren't we due for another banfest soon?

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Indeed and I shall require several human shields. Care to make a few dollars?

Though I mystelf prefer to stay out of the whole business altogether.

without the occasional dimwitted or unsuspecting newbie the board would stagnate and become boring, you need people like me to bring flavor to your jaded little lives.

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Neeecole had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
While I do agree that flames are going to happen, and in a manner, are even beneficial things, I see no problem whatsoever in expressing an opinion that everything seems far too violent. If people get to flame, people also get to, well, anti-flame. Yay, I coined a term.

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The point is, however, that it's more detrimental than productive.

First of all, the views expressed are usually simple-minded and fairly stupid, with not much thought behind them apart from "FLAME = BADF!" This does nothing to help the flames, at all, and more often than not, the pleads for peace are as flame-ridden as the flames themselves.

Flames, however destructive they are, are ultimately beneficial. We shouldn't go out of our way to start them, but we shouldn't take extraordinary measures to quelch them, either.

...

Oh, and not in a good way!

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King Parcelan had this to say about Knight Rider:
There are also those that try to play it smooth, and say stuff like: "I find the flamers more annoying than the troll lol so clever"

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Sometimes this is said truthfully.

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First of all, the views expressed are usually simple-minded and fairly stupid...

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So is flaming.

Different strokes for different folks.

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Sentow, Maybe stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
So is flaming.

Different strokes for different folks.

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That's an ignorant conclusion to jump to. Oftentimes, peaceniks charge the flamers with what reasons they take to flaming for (ie: "Why do you guys feel the need to flame Somthor?")

The reasons are usually given in near-essays and are most often valid. We judge flamers more harshly than we judge anyone else, and those who mess up flaming are often chewed to bits (ie: Geeorn not some time ago); there is no room for error.

So, no. Your motion is denied.

Take Somthor, for instance. For about a week the vast majority of the boards' activity consisted of flaming him. It wasn't even for anything major - he just posted, or someone posted a thread about him, and bamf. Now what I don't see is: if the very sight of his name arouses such uncontrollable rage in some many, why not just ignore him? The 'because then he'll think this kind of behavior is acceptable' argument holds no water at all, because - so what? By ignoring him you have all but erased him from your existance on these boards, which is virtually the same result as you intended to get with your flame - driving him away. Indeed, if you so want it, that's really the only way it's gonna happen.

But flames that are issue-based are something completely different - they arise not from a dislike of a particular person, but from a particular matter in which you and they take opposite sides, and which often involves several different opponents whose views you may respect in other venues but are abhorrent to you in this one. But still, flames have become quite extreme lately. It seems like any dissenting opinion on any subject triggers a wave of fury and hatred...

Parcelan, I really disagree with your thesis there, however: extremely disruptive flames happen WITHOUT the intervention of peacenikers. Sometimes their intervention may exacerbate a war, but it does so to the same extent that anyone's intervention to a flame war does; in short, peacenikers become flame warriors themselves. So therefore, I submit that the fault does indeed lie with the flame warriors.

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Sentow, Maybe was listening to Cher while typing:
Not many people will be willing to admit they're wrong or acting like an ass after someone calls them a cockgoblin or whatever. Flaming is self-defeating. Of course some people won't do either of those things no matter what. That's why god made the ban function.

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Which is exactly why one of them must beat the other one. That is the only way flaming will be solved. A bunch of clowns screaming about how awful flames are won't help anything and will only serve to cause more flames.

Don't think of it as self-defeating, think of it as a fire. It is lit, it gains strength, it loses strength, it extinguishes itself.

And there's no real argument that can be applied to the general situation, I fear, becuase of how bloody different each specific scenario tends to be.

So I continue to hold the opinion that sometimes it's right, and sometimes it's wrong.

So until next time, my arch-nemesis and/or homosexual lover.

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Gunslinger Moogleing:
I'm willing to accept that flames can be productive...but in my opinion it's really gotten out of hand lately.

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Since EverCrest's inception, there has always - ALWAYS - been someone saying that that "the flames have gotten out of hand lately".

The flames are NEVER out of hand.

I'm not saying EverCrest has always had a lot of flames, I'm saying that no matter how much flames EverCrest has, someone will always try to say they're out of hand.

[ 02-16-2004: Message edited by: Maradon the Dumbleton ]

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Which is exactly why one of them must beat the other one

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This is the ultimate problem though. How do you decide who's won and who's lost? It's hard, if not impossible, to quantify a victory in a flamewar.
Argh, I can't believe I just used "quantify" in a sentence.

I could write the most ball-busting flame in the history of the Internet, followed by a chorus of, "SENTOWNED!" but none of that can make the other person stop. As long as both parties keep going, nobody wins.

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Maradon the Dumbleton had this to say about John Romero:
Since EverCrest's inception, there has always - ALWAYS - been someone saying that that "the flames have gotten out of hand lately".

The flames are NEVER out of hand.

I'm not saying EverCrest has always had a lot of flames, I'm saying that no matter how much flames EverCrest has, someone will always try to say they're out of hand.

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I agree with the first and last but not the second.

To counter my arguments, though, I must say that the anti-flamers (like myself) also suffer in part from the problem they charge the flamers with. They say, if it bothers you so much why respond, when in fact they are doing the same thing themselves.

with that in mind i really need to stop talking i mean jesus christ.

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Sentow, Maybe had this to say about Tron:
This is the ultimate problem though. How do you decide who's won and who's lost? It's hard, if not impossible, to quantify a victory in a flamewar.
Argh, I can't believe I just used "quantify" in a sentence.

I could write the most ball-busting flame in the history of the Internet, followed by a chorus of, "SENTOWNED!" but none of that can make the other person stop. As long as both parties keep going, nobody wins.

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It's scarcely a problem. The victor is decided by the society.

Just as when we consider someone KO'd in a fight to be the loser, we can clearly judge the victor by how easily they handle the flames. Such as when Callalron fought Somthor awhile back.

You really should give more thought to this.

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King Parcelan had this to say about pies:
It's scarcely a problem. The victor is decided by the society.

Just as when we consider someone KO'd in a fight to be the loser, we can clearly judge the victor by how easily they handle the flames. Such as when Callalron fought Somthor awhile back.

You really should give more thought to this.

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In a boxing match, when one person is KO'd, they can't fight anymore.

In a flamewar, no matter how hard the flame, no matter how many people say, "You lose," the other person can keep flaming. And since flamewars promote a psychological "fight or flight" response, it's not often that the proclaimed loser actually backs down.

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King Parcelan enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
It's scarcely a problem. The victor is decided by the society.

Just as when we consider someone KO'd in a fight to be the loser, we can clearly judge the victor by how easily they handle the flames. Such as when Callalron fought Somthor awhile back.

You really should give more thought to this.

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Unfortunately for your argument, society isn't uniform. I may think one thing whilst someone else thinks something else. Sure, sometimes there will be a majority, but more often than not its as fuzzy as the Simpson's Paradox.

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Sentow, Maybe was listening to Cher while typing:
In a boxing match, when one person is KO'd, they can't fight anymore.

In a flamewar, no matter how hard the flame, no matter how many people say, "You lose," the other person can keep flaming. And since flamewars promote a psychological "fight or flight" response, it's not often that the proclaimed loser actually backs down.

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They can keep flaming, but the society has accepted them as the loser. No matter how much they fight, it is pointless in the eyes of the real judge. At that point, the flame is usually left to die out.

And Alek, you are quite incorrect. While diversity thrives here, we are almost always in agreement with each other when it comes to who has won. In many cases, the victor is clear-cut (ie: Bloodsage vs. Zeke or something like that).

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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent King Parcelan said:
And Alek, you are quite incorrect. While diversity thrives here, we are almost always in agreement with each other when it comes to who has won. In many cases, the victor is clear-cut (ie: Bloodsage vs. Zeke or something like that).

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The thing is that both parties bring up valid points, so in that sense I don't think the victor is clear-cut. I mean sure, once one person starts with the, "OMG PARCELAN YOU SUCK HAIRY GOAT BALLS!" then the argument is over; which is the case with the EC vs. vampires and stuff like that. In my opinion flaming is silly, at least in the violent sense of flaming.

But in all seriousness, if you're meaning a flamewar begun for a reason other than Social Darwinism, which I'm coming to assume, then my points don't make any sense and I have no opinion on the matter except to offer you a cold brew

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Reynar attempted to be funny by writing:
*lights Parce on fire*

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I'm hairy and frequently soaked in alcohol. I would go up like a light

*Douses King Parcelan with water*

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Agent Shadow had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
So Technically this isn't really a flame, but more like an explanation on when, how, and why flames happen. Gotcha.

*Douses King Parcelan with water*

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STOP IT, PEACENIK!

*stabs Agent Shadow in the eye*

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This insanity brought to you by Delphi Aegis:
STOP IT, PEACENIK!

*stabs Agent Shadow in the eye*

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*runs around with a knife is his eye sreaming, "I can see clearly now the blood is there!!!"*
*Internally combusts from all the stress, and pain of being stabbed in the eye.*