Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!iuvax!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: The Dynamics of Debate on USENET
Message-ID: <22877@looking.on.ca>
Date: 27 Sep 89 18:31:59 GMT
References: <35033@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 27
Class: discussion

Chuq identifies types of pointless flamewars without pointing out their
cause.

That cause has become clear to me over the years.

That cause is answered by answering the question "why do we post to USENET?"
Naturally, the answer is, "to get a response."  Posters want to feel part
of a community -- posting into a vacuum would quickly bore people.

So we all tend to be just a little bit more outrageous and provocative in
our writings to the net than we would be in normal life.  We all write,
perhaps unconsciously, in a deliberate attempt to evoke a response.

But many times we become provocative rather than evocative simply because
it's easier.

The limitations of the medium also contribute.  We can't wave our arms or
use vocal expression, so we translate this into our words.


Of course, in my own personal case, it is ironic that even though I
noticed this in myself and others several years ago, and worked to tone down
what I saw in myself, I have recently had to endure several flame wars.
Those, however, have been about what I have done rather than they way I
wrote my postings.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473