Silencing a flamer...

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>So what to do in future?  There are a several options.  One is for
>everyone to remember that the easiest way to silence a flamer is to
>totally ignore him.

My problem with this suggestion is that the definition of a flamer vs. a 
person expressing valid but unconventional or unpopular opinions is 
subjective.  Also, are we labeling the individual or the occasional 
postings?  When Cliff expressed a valid opinion on using cheap viewers, 
this was for me a subject of valid discussion and I tried to contribute 
to it.  I don't understand certain listers who had to "explode" on this 
particular one.  I had no idea of personal mail exchanges but it seems 
to me that people are reacting to a person's overall perceived 
personality instead of specific and, apparently, valid opinions... and 
IMO it should not work this way.

I think the best suggestion is to react gently to perceived flames and 
try notto counter-flame...  Another suggestion is instead of replying
immediately and emotionally to wait and think it over and cool down.

At the end I am not really concerned because experience shows that true 
flamers and unstable/antisocial individuals like Cliff disappear while 
folks expressing occasionally unpopular opinions like Sam the Hacker 
(Dr. T too!) are still with us...

>Another option is to go back to heavier moderation.  We may want to
>reinstall some filtering (for Lenny Bruce's famous word list) since
>these words seem to cause us to go into flame wars and thereby 
>adversely affect the signal to noise ratio.

We have to create our very own 3d list, like having the words "hate" and 
"Realist" in the same sentence... (except for "I hate using any other 
camera than the Realist! - signed Dr. T")

Apologies for this very noisy and mostly flat signal!  -- George


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