Advice for those engaged in a cyberspace flame-war:
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 the Apple II RoundTable to X-10 Powerhouse RoundTable, they're all holding their breath until your next flame. Therefore, post everywhere.
4. Conspiracies abound: If everyones against you, the reason can't possibly be because you're a sh**head. Theres a conspiracy against you, and you will be doing the whole net a favour by exposing it.
5. Lawsuit threats: [one of my favourites] This is the reverse of Rule #4 (sort of like the ying and yang of flaming). Threatening a lawsuit is always considered to be in good form. "By saying I have 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 like tomato sauce on his pasta, you should demand documentation. If Newsweek hasn't written an article on Harry's pasta preference then Harry's obviously lying.
7. Use foriegn 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 favourite latin phrases are "ad nauseum", "veni, vidi, vici" and "fettuccini 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 you're a member of Mensa, or Mega, or Dorks of America. Tell them the scored you recieved on every exam since highschool. "I got an 800 on my SATs, LSATs, GREs, MCATs, and I can spell the word 'premeiotic'."
9. Accuse your opponent of ceonsorship. It is your right as an American citizen to post whatever the hell you want on the net (as garanteed by the 37th Amendment, I think). Anyone who tries to limit your cross-posting or move your flame war to e-mail is either a communist, a fascist, or both.
10. Doubt their existence: [other of my favourites] You've never actually seen your oppponent, 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 [*cough*]
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 that you. This person will expose your lies, tear apart your argument, 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."
I hope you have learnt something from this, if not, I hope you had a giggle
As an aside I got this from a book called "E-tales two"....if you're interested
