The twelve commandments of flaming
1.Make things up about your opponent: It's important to make your lies
sound true. Preface your argument with the word "clearly." "Clearly,
Fred Flooney is a liar, 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. "Polly Purebread, by using
the word 'zucchini' in her posting, shows she has a bad case of penis
envy."
3.Cross-post your flames: Everyone on the net is just waiting for the
next literary masterpiece to leave your terminal. From
rec.arts.wobegon to alt.gourmand, 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 [dick]head. 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, Bertha has
libeled me, slandered me, and sodomized me. See you in court,
Bertha."
6.Force them to document their claims: Even if Harry Hoinkus states
outright that he likes tomato sauce on his pasta, you should demand
documentation. If Newsweek hasn't written an article on Harry's pasta
preferences, then Harry'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," and "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 email 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 vegetables."
it wasn't hard to find and steal this. there is almost as much ranting about flaming as there is flaming itself out there.
a fairy tale: once upon a time there was a BBS where flaming just didn't happen. then one day someone took offense at an innocent remark....
