Flame

For more than a decade, flame has been used to describe hostile or insulting online messages, and it has become an accepted word. Flaming has important image management implications for individuals and organizations.

“Sending abusive messages to one with whom one disagrees” is considered “an aggressive use of email, bulletin boards, or chat rooms” (Lister, Dovey, Giddings, Grant, & Kelly, 2003, p. 386) and often involves personal attacks. The New Hacker's Dictionary includes related terms:flamage (content), flame bait (message designed to solicit flames or provoke flame war), flame on (to begin or continue flaming), flame war (caustic altercation), and flamer (flame prone). Flaming also has been used to refer to speaking overzealously or unceasingly. Recent use dates back to 1969, and flame may have arisen from Chaucer's work. Flame on is a pun based on the Human Torch from Marvel Comics.

Flaming is the most famous and publicized online misconduct. Further, it is one of the most enduring problems for users of computer communication. Flaming is a breach of netiquette, Internet etiquette (accepted conventions for behavior online). Larry Scheuermann and Gary Taylor compiled netiquette suggestions: “don't flame,” use the Golden Rule, respond as if in person, recognize that flames detract from topics, and avoid taking offense. Other recommendations include avoiding quick responses to hostile messages, considering alternative interpretations and responses, stressing areas of agreement, softening language used to disagree, and recognizing tone and word choice. Many responses, especially if from a “rapid-fire reply key,” convey sentiments avoided in carefully crafted memos. Breaches in netiquette, such as flaming, may not result in retaliation. However, they often create negative images of the perpetrator and, if work related, of that individual's employer. Certainly, understanding group conventions and social politeness norms gives one an advantage.

Factors influencing flaming include the degree of anonymity and the likelihood of continued interaction (e.g., whether participants frequent a list or chat room, or otherwise know each other). Further, sometimes inhibition is evidenced in flames (e.g., dots inserted in curse words and variation by context), suggesting that group norms develop.