Would you participate in a forum that allowed flaming?

I don’t mind flaming. I think everyone would do well to develop a tough skin.

Sensitivity and empathy are won by setting example. I don’t think censorship solves anything.

However, rules are rules. My Grampy told me “If you live long enough, you’ll understand why all the rules were there.” So if forum sets no flame policy, then it should be administered fairly to all.

I’d like to see what worked better for flamers. Official moderation, or crowd discipline.

What a waste of precious time. Never.

The way this site is modded is one of the reasons I stay.
If that kind of flaming were allowed on even part of this site, like a flaming section (the same way there is General or Social) I would leave.
Not because I don’t can’t go apeshit on some of the assholes who post here, or because I can’t take it, but because I want to have no part of it.

No.

No, I wouldn’t participate in a forum that allowed flaming, even on a separate forum. Flame inevitably devolves into trash, and that’s just boring.

I think Fluther has about the right balance. I’ve seen some fairly serious snark here, and I’m good with that. We’re allowed encouraged to disagree as much as we like, as long as we remain reasonably polite/respectful. The stuff that gets modded needs to just go away, not be shuffled off to outhouse where it festers and feeds the possums (one of the, if not the lowest form(s) of life).

When I was on the board, most of the flames were only directed to people who participated in the flame forum. Most of my flames were “Your argument sucks. Your logic is faulty. Your post sucks in general. You suck.” Towards the end of my stint on the boards, one particular poster got into taking pictures posted of thin teenage girls and circling all the “fat” parts on their body. He’d make fun of people’s religion or where they lived.

I thought flaming someone’s posts for being crap was all good fun. But this highly personal style of flaming anything someone posted about themselves, including pictures and stories about their kids or parents.

OK so it’s not just me. I thought I was being a wimp for not wanting to even be on a board that allowed it. It’s kind of sad. When the board came back, the general consensus was that there would be no flames allowed at all. But many people argued that the flames were the most popular part of the forum and they should be allowed. The compromise was that you had to ask for specific permission to have access to the flame board. If you don’t ask you won’t even see it.

This made me even more skittish. What if I am happily posting pics of my daughter and I find out a few weeks later that there are pictures of my kid’s head on pieces of poop or something? I don’t care so much if I’m flamed, but I’d go berserk if my kid was flamed. I know it’s just words, but that’s just what I’d do.

Sounds like an online version of high school. No thanks.

I would not. I stay here because that kind of behavior is not tolerated. And, the people are so nice.

Really!

No. I can only imagine that the ill-will from the flaming section would manage to bleed-through to the other areas to some degree; just as we sometimes see the fallout between the folks who don’t get along here – even with our rules.

No. I once saw a forum that had for purpose to be ALL about flaming. Basically, you just went in there and flamed each other. It seemed so stupid, and because of the purpose, even people who enjoy genuine flaming seemed turned off since the thing had a whole ’‘pretend’’ feel. Some guy who was a part of it asked me to sign up to help him flame somebody. So I did. A few minutes later, someone said they wanted me to die of AID’s, and I told them that when I had AID’s, I would go rape their brother in the ass.

I felt completely stupid. The experience was no fun. To each his own, I suppose.

There is a site I really like called ListVerse. It’s basically a top ten list site of everything and anything. However none of the comments are modded. I have not seen ONE list where the comments weren’t anything besides people flaming the list, the author, and the other people in the comments. I don’t even look at the comments anymore, it’s SO asinine. It’s worse than YouTube, which I never thought possible.

And I completely despise forums and message boards that have a special flaming section. So it’s like, respect the members in the place at all times. Oh, except in that section. So you have to respect a poster in the religion section, okay. But it seems so counterproductive when you can just call them out in the flaming section and go, UserX is a fat stupid motherfucker because…

Nice. I find it pointless, and VERY hard to take the founders and mods seriously when they say opinions and users should be respected when they have a special section that is the complete contrary. It’s like saying, I won’t murder you as long as you don’t go in my garage. What the hell. I’ve opted out of joining forums that have special flaming sections. Not for me. Either allow flaming everywhere, or not at all. At least then it’s more honest.

@Symbeline Psst, it’s AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), not AID’s. :)

maybe that’s why I got flamed

I used to, but not anymore. If somebody can’t discuss an issue in a civil manner than what’s the point of even being on the forum then? Personally I feel that many flamers, at least from my experience, have made comments that would warrant notifying the police in my opinion.

I came out and asked what was going to happen if people flamed those who didn’t participate in the flaming forum. They said there were no special protections. BUT they said when they created the flame forum, they made flaming people’s real life info—even if it was public and posted on the boards—off limits.

I don’t mind if people flame my arguments, logic, or grammar. I DON’T want people flaming pics of my daughter or making fun of me if I post that I’m feeling depressed or something.

When the board was last active, you couldn’t post RL info you knew about a person if you got it offline, but anything they posted was fair game. So people were posting pics of their wedding and this one guy would make fun of the bride’s fat ass. Someone would post that they lost their job and someone else would post something like “You’re such a loser. No wonder you lost your job!” I can’t deal with that anymore.

That kind of setup reminds me of ’‘war crimes’’. A war is when people shoot at each other, but there are certain things that you can’t do in the war, or you get arrested and shit. i mean wtf

Every website forum has some Flamers, the idea (I guess) is to find a website that isn’t totally out of control. I know exactly what you are talking about, probably more than you would imagine I do. The bad sites are the ones where the “flamers” bond together, form a pack and ruin the site for the majority of regular users.

The problem with websites that allow flaming or have lack of moderation is those sites are usually dominated by certain political, religious, sceptical or philosophical views. The flaming then tends to be very one-sided, and it then becomes politically incorrect to use the same level of flaming tactics against the dissenter’s opposition.

Many of these types of sites allow down voting options, which many times will take a comment out of visible view unless one clicks on it. The problem with flaming sites is that they’re havens for people who can’t debate or discuss topics in a civil manner, and are frequented by people who get their kicks off of hearing others agreeing with them and complimenting their ass kissing. Yeah, that was another reason I had forgot to mention.

That’s pretty much what happened. For several years, the flames were pretty generic and were directly related to posting or play style (It’s a gaming site) but people kept upping the ante. I admit I was one of them when I was young and callow. But it got really out of hand when this one guy came on the boards.

He flamed where nobody flamed before. If you posted a pic of yourself, he’d analyze it and circle the fat parts. He’d zoom in and blow up to show that there was a stain on your tie or your zipper was partially unzipped. He’d make fun of your kids, your wife and your pets. Nobody stood up to him. Half the people thought he was funny and I think the other half was afraid he’d lay into them if they said anything.

His posts started bleeding outside of the flame forum and he started going on the rampage in other forums. This was while the site was dying, so the moderation was sparse. Funny thing was—if anyone even slightly flamed him, he’d whine and demand immediate moderation of the post. He’d start complaining every hour or so and demand over and over that the post against him be taken down. While he was busy demanding someone be moderated, he’d be flaming people and trolling faster than ever on the other boards.

Once he was going, a few other people thought anything and everything was fair game. They weren’t as mean spirited as the one guy, but it got ugly. The boards got really really nasty. People would use loopholes in the system and hack each other’s account and post private messages on the boards. There were lots of other things but that was the worst of it.

Nope.

I never known any website that allowed flaming. But even if I do, I never participate. That experience with Yahoo! Answer is enough for me. Just because of my misusing a word, I got a ton of flaming there (although my user name there clearly indicated that I’m not a native English speaker).

I come to a forum for a friendly argument, fun and information, not for flaming. I respect everyone and I demand them to respect me back. Therefore I never flame and I don’t want anyone to flame me.

I don’t know if this is related to the fact that they allow flaming, but I posted that I wasn’t participating in the flame forum and someone baited me into responding. I reported it as flame bait but I was told that it technically wasn’t a flame. I could choose not to take the bait, so it was OK. I put the guy on ignore and I’m thinking hard about whether or not I want to post there anymore.

@keobooks Do you still go to that flaming site?

Im staying out of the flame forum. I am just a bit peeved that people are allowed to bait on the other boards because it’s not technically flaming.

I can imagine how disorganized that site could be…