Week 7 - Netiquette

 Help keep flame wars under control

    This commandment looks great. Six words, all short and tidy-I mean.. The moral looks great. 'Flaming' - the act of getting excessively upset about something and starting to insult other(s) around oneself in frustration is very, very common on the internet and its several forms, be it on forums or in games. On one hand, it helps to relieve the pressure and stress of the person who is flaming - somewhat like a type of venting for the socially inept. On the other, it impacts the moods of everyone around the person to a very negative degree. More often than not, the person flaming ruins the moods of everyone around him without even managing to vent off their own frustration - therefore it is universally seen as an immensely harmful act by everyone other than the flamers themselves.

The good

    Helping calm down the person who is most frustrated (Or, at least, most publicly frustrated) can be a really difficult task, but managing to do it has a vast variety of benefits. At the very least, cooling off the flamer stops them from further diminishing the moods of others, at least for the short foreseeable future. It is also likely that, depending on the medium, some kind of trust or at least bond could be established with the person in question - maybe even opening up avenues to help them in a more permanent way. These types of people often have very deep issues of their own and are rather lonely at heart for one reason or another, and giving them company and a more controlled way of venting may be helpful. 
    Obviously, calming down does not go just for the original perpetrator. Flame wars are very rarely one-sided - even though one party might be the one to start it, others often make it so much worse than it has to be by interfering and trying to "win a flame war", not understanding that, much like in any other type of war, there are no winners. Therefore trying to calm the situation down can be very overwhelming - seeing as there are usually at least two parties, if not more, trying to insult each other to oblivion to win some kind of internet supremacy or make them feel better about themselves. When things have gotten so out of hand, it becomes very important to think if interfering is worth it or not - maybe the best course of action is to simply duck your head under the sand and not deal with it, especially if you have nothing to do with the argument. 

The bad

    Lightly mentioned in the previous section, interfering with a flame war can be a very dumb thing to do. Even though I myself can recall several times I have calmed down inters (Intentional feeders - people who try to lose the team the game as fast as possible because they did not get something they wanted), it is a double-edged sword. These people are often unreasonable and very hard to negotiate with, and poking one's nose into it can just lead to an even bigger flame war if one is not being cautious. It is very important to assess the situation and see if it is even worth it to interfere. One thing not mentioned a lot of the time about these situations is the effect it has on the person trying to resolve the conflict. It can be very, very emotionally draining to seek a solution for these situations, only to see it fail one after another. It is simply not worth it. Some people like to think about "the global average happiness" in these situations and whether something one does raises or lowers it - and I cannot help but feel that, unless you are a professional or very, very careful, it more often than not causes more harm than anything else. At best, destroying your own mental state. At worst, making the flaming so much worse and harming others' emotional state further. It is not worth it to interfere unless one is absolutely certain with a clear, rational mind.

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