Forum Terms of Endearments

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:27 pm

I keep running across the term -Flame War!
What does it mean?
A heated discussion?

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:41 pm

It means a discussion where people are spending a lot of time insulting each other. It's not quite the same thing as a "heated discussion" -- sometimes those are intense, but still civil.

Also: usually, in a flamewar, the insults have nothing to do with the topic at hand. If we're talking about politics and someone talks smack about my mom, that's a flame -- but if we're talking about evolution and somebody talks smack about my scientific background, that might not be a flame (if it's relevant.)

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:48 pm

A couple of terms that might not seem so obvious to a non-Western-English-speaker:

flamewar: As Lothar described, a flamewar occurs when multiple parties throw insults at each other becuase they have different viewpoints. Usually a flamewar results because of "flamebait", or a flippant, off-topic and/or off-color remark from someone. Usually a flamewar devolves into short, venemous one-line posts meant to do nothing but demean the opposing side.

troll: Someone whose sole participation in a forum consists of irrelevant, meaningless posts. Trolls frequently post something like "heh" or "yeah" (and nothing more than that), but some are more elaborate in their posts. AceCombat is widely regarded as a troll on this board, but to his credit he doesn't completely deserve that title. Trolls are also prone to starting flamewars. Krom is also a frequent "Heh" man, but he's cool so nobody cares.

grammar/spelling nazi: In short, me.

People who notice every flaw in a person's post and correct them almost immediately. Usually used to refer to people whose posts just consist of grammatical or spelling corrections. I myself try to incorporate my demeaning spelling corrections into otherwise substantial posts.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 4:07 pm

To correct the grammar nazi, who clearly isn't an internet vocabulary nazi:

A troll is not someone who posts "irrelevant, meaningless posts". Rather, a troll is someone whose posts are intended to get an emotional response from others. Someone who posts "heh" "I agree" "I like cheeze" or "let's talk about something else" isn't a troll. Someone who posts cheap shots meant to make someone else angry is a troll. The word comes from the idea of a "troll" waiting underneath a bridge and waiting for someone to "take the bait" and then pouncing on them. Trolls try to "bait" people into making angry responses, and then pounce on their anger.

For example: back in the day, my dad knew a guy named "The Right Reverend J. Colin James III" who would show up in newsgroups or bulletin boards using other people's names and post stolen / hacked software. JCJ2 was a disbarred lawyer, so if my dad or anyone else suspected that someone was really JCJ3, they'd start trolling by telling lawyer jokes. Sure enough, JCJ3 took the bait every time -- he'd get really angry about the lawyer jokes, and blow his cover.

Another example: on another board I post on, one guy decided that Carmelo Anthony was the best basketball player ever, and that nobody else on the team had any impact whatsoever. So, I trolled him by talking about the worst players on the team and what great contributions they'd made, while ignoring what Carmelo Anthony had done (even though before he got there I'd talked a lot about 'melo's great contributions.) Pretty soon, he got so angry at just seeing my name that I could post something like "I like basketball" and he'd flame me. He got banned within a week.

A third example: on a Christian board I used to post on, one day we had 4 atheists come and make a coordinated assault on the board. They all started posting straw-man attacks of Christianity, and then they'd respond to each other with "amen brother!" and "jesus f***ing christ!" Clearly, they were trolling -- trying to make a mess of the board and make people angry. We started deleting their posts, and when they protested that we were "oppressing opposing viewpoints" I pointedly told them: "we have no problem allowing opposing viewpoints to be heard here -- look at

. But we do oppress trolls."

As my examples demonstrate, trolling isn't always a bad thing.

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 4:56 pm

Thanks!
You live and learn.

Robo · Post by **Robo** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 5:13 pm

Flame war.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 5:26 pm

/me apologizes to Lothar.

Lobber · Post by **Lobber** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 12:27 am

Just check out this Link and all will become clear.

Flabby Chick · Post by **Flabby Chick** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:03 am

That made me giggle that did!!

Lobber · Post by **Lobber** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:37 am

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 5:38 am

Question # 2.
"Cross-posting"?

Maybe it would be an idea to add a new section to the FAQ with stuff like this, for newcomers like me!

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 6:17 am

Peculiarly enough the term 'troll' is a bit of a misnomer, or at least the reason they are called that has little to do with trolls apart from the name.

From what I heard, it is an allusion to a fishing technique where baited hooks are dragged across the water by a boat... which was called 'trolling'. Because of the similarities between that and the act of baiting people into starting flamewars - which some people get quite a kick out of - it started to be referred to by that name; inevitably the perpetrators were soon referred to by the term 'trolls'.

Or Lothar's interpretation could be correct, if they are mutually exclusive. There are bound to be disagreements about where the term actually came from.

But what the hell, who cares about etymology anyway.

Cross-posting refers to posting topics in places other than the most relevant board. No-one cares much if the distinction is dubious, but if you advertise your new mod in the Ethics and Commentary forum, well, that's pretty blatantly cross-posting.

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:58 am

Okay, now it's my turn to correct someone.

Cross-posting is more than posting in the wrong forum. Cross-posting involves posting the same topic in multiple forums at the same time (or posting a topic in one forum and posting links to the topic in other forums). It originated back in the days of Usenet where people could just add the same post to tons of different groups -- coincidentally that was also the origin of "spam".

Arol: you might want to check out the Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC), which is basically an Internet-slang dictionary.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:14 am

Yean I do tend to say "heh" a lot in threads, typically that is all that really needs to be said in a thread however. Just how much of a comment does a link to some funny flash animation/video/Maddox page require? Not much in my opinion. So I will continue to post "HEH!" when I find something slightly amusing but do not feel a need to comment further.

BTW... HEH!

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:44 am

My education continues!:)
It doesn't take much to set you guy's off?
Does it?

Jagger · Post by **Jagger** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 11:48 am

Arol wrote:My education continues!:)
It doesn't take much to set you guy's off?
Does it?

Yeah, and you're ugly.

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 1:20 pm

Jagger wrote:Yeah, and you're ugly...

Sirius wrote:...which was called 'trolling'. Because of the similarities between that and the act of baiting people into starting flamewars.

You mean like this?

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 3:17 pm

Yep. Had he not included the wink at the end of the post, that's what that would be...

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 6:14 pm

Don't forget about me-tooing. A "me-tooer" is someone that posts something along the lines of "yeah, that happened to me too" or "Yeah, I agree!" as a response, while not really contributing to the discussion at hand. On some boards, thats really frowned upon. (For the record, I could care less if you do it here as long as you don't make a big habit out of it.)

Flabby Chick · Post by **Flabby Chick** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 8:54 pm

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 2:37 am

Others:

Sniper - a person who participates in a debate by taking cheap shots at others or pointing out flaws in others' arguments, without ever making their position known or subjecting their position to criticism

Straw Man - an argument that, on the surface, looks like the argument your opponent made, but is a lot weaker and easier to knock down.

Brick Wall - a person who never comprehends or acknowledges other people's arguments. Can get completely destroyed and think he's still winning an argument. "It's like arguing with a brick wall!"

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 3:15 am

Lothar wrote:Others:...Sniper...Straw Man...Brick Wall -

Met them all recently!

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 7:57 am

I tend to be snipy-trolly grammar-naziish.

But on occasion I have something to say...

Like "me too" and "I like cheeze".

Incidentally, on the origins of the term troll, I believe Sirius is etymologically more correct from what little I remember from my dial-up BBS days when 300 baud was pretty impressive, that is how the word was used then. The 3 billy goats gruff intrepretation came later.

I don't think they're mutually exclusive, and in fact I feel that the second interpretation adds color and depth to to an already interesting term.

Stryker · Post by **Stryker** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 9:04 am

Lothar wrote:Straw Man - an argument that, on the surface, looks like the argument your opponent made, but is a lot weaker and easier to knock down.

I'd like to revise that statement a little. A straw man is not a valid argument. The author of a straw man poses his opponents as doing/saying something that they didn't do/say, then attacks them for that. Either that, or they don't attack the person directly, they just say something like "I hate cats" if they are trying to aggrivate a cat-lover. It's attacking someone based on a false or non-relevant position instead of the topic at hand.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Sun Sep 05, 2004 5:53 pm

Curiously enough, I expected that DCrazy... wasn't quite sure whether I had the right idea or whether is actually referred to 'advertising' your post in other forums. (Which many people do, and unless the post is actually as cool as they think it is, makes me want to shoot them for it.)

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 1:32 am

Definition:

Flame War = Argumentum Ad Hominem.

And if you are SOOOOO stupid you don't know what the fusk that means, then use google, you ignorant fool!

^^^^ Example of Argumentum Ad Hominem.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 3:34 am

I like cheese.

Arol · Post by **Arol** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:08 pm

Next question

In this and other DBB forums it's the
moderator(s) who decide whether to lock a thread.
What criteria do they use?
Does personal bias ever plÃ y a role?

Are the decisions of the judges final?

No appeal?

Just for future reference!

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 7:36 pm

Arol wrote:Next question
In this and other DBB forums it's the
moderator(s) who decide whether to lock a thread.
What criteria do they use?

The rules of course.

Does personal bias ever plÃ y a role?

That depends on the moderator, but I oppress everyone equally.

Are the decisions of the judges final?

Most of the time, but there are exceptions to the rule.

[quote[No appeal?

[/quote]

Thats why we have administrators.

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:59 pm

Arol wrote:In this and other DBB forums it's the moderator(s) who decide whether to lock a thread. What criteria do they use?

There's a set of board-wide rules -- no porn (if you have to try to convince me it's not porn, it probably is), no warez (that is, stolen / hacked software), no Descent cheating programs, and no spamming. These are enforced by all the mods.

Within each specific forum, the moderators have their own set of guidelines, as well. Some of the mods post their rules when they first get a forum, and others just reveal them as needed.

Also, each mod enforces things a little differently. For example, one mod might consider posting an "I like cheeze" comment spamming, while another might not have a problem with it until you've posted it 3 or 4 times.

Does personal bias ever plÃ y a role?

Yes, but not nearly as much as you'd think from listening to the accusations. For the most part, personal bias only plays a significant role when somebody has been extremely disruptive or annoying in the past, and a mod decides that person simply isn't welcome any more. There are also times when one person gets a little more leeway than others -- if people start flaming each other, I'll give more leeway if they're normally civil and are just having a bad day than I will if they're always mean.

Are the decisions of the judges final? No appeal?

You can always appeal to the moderator who made the decision, but don't expect much. Some are more stubborn than others, and even the least stubborn usually stand by their actions. I generally require a lot of prodding before I'll reverse a past decision, but if you put forth a good argument and convince me the thread will be productive, I might re-open it.

On very rare occasions, the admins will reverse the decision of a moderator -- but only if you've already talked with the moderator about it. Usually the admin and the moderator will discuss it if it's serious. If you go straight to the admin without first asking the moderator why the thread was closed, they'll brush you off.

Also, if you seek too many appeals, you'll earn a reputation that will make it harder for you to actually get any of them.

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:21 am

A flame war is any conversation AceCombat is taking part in.