Help keep flame wars under control (Week 7)

Have you ever asked yourself why people enjoy conflicts so much? Unfortunately, I can't answer to this question properly, because I am not a psychologist. But what I can say for sure is that people are often intrigued by conflict and find the subject very entertaining. Conflict between two people often causes an interesting outcome, and the people are often quite interesting. Without conflict stories would be boring, drama would be boring and life would be boring. 

One of the reasons why people enjoy conflicts is that people enjoy arguing with each other.  Just imagine if you add an anonymity to all this. Actually... you don't need to imagine anything. It is already existent and called Internet. Of course, it is virtually impossible to remain 100% anonymous on the Internet, however, in most cases "criminals" don't have any consequences. 

In other words, online communication provides tons of possibilities to express yourself in an online message. Usually communication in the Internet stays quite civilized, but sometimes there are people who want to flame up the conversation. Usually flames can be lots of fun, both to write and to read. But in rare cases these conversations can grow into a series of angry letters, most of which are between two or three people directed into each other. 

Picture 1: "No u" meme [1]

The best source for the flame war can be a provocative post that is sometimes called as a flamebait. In this situation, a flame war result is when multiple users engage in a provocative response to an original post. If it is not for fun, never try to respond. It is like arguing with a drunk at a football game: you will never win. The good recommendation from Virginia Shea and one of her commandments would be: "Help keep flame wars under control".

Even though, there are many reasons why people enjoy conflicts, let's not forget to stay human in every situation.



References:

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1431904-tom-hanks-vs-tank [1]

http://www.albion.com/netiquette/rule7.html [2]


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