[Imc-sydney] What is Flame Bait?

[Andrew McNaughton]

diet simon wrote:
> Please note: this list is archived and searchable via the web.
> Hallo All,
>
> Maybe I'm naive, or haven't slept enough last night, or whatever, but
> the whole IndyMedia movement is driven by anger, our collective anger
> at the pigs that are fucking up our world, so what's wrong with "an
> angry response"?
The problem is that by repeatedly baiting such responses, the troll gets
to frame what is discussed, and it tends to drown out more thoughtful
discussion.
> Sometimes someone posts something that just gets your goat so badly
> you need to have a go at them personally.
>
> If someone wrote here that the Burmese junta were good blokes or that
> Bush was doing the right thing or that the Nazis were OK or that
> Howard and his gangsters were decent men and women I'd want to
> "flame-bait" the person writing that.
No, you'd be flaming, not flame-baiting.  The person posting in support
of the fascists would be the person posting flame bait.  ie they're
baiting you.

The problem is that you wind up expending a lot of mental energy and
filling up discussion pages with pretty obvious stuff on a topic that
the troll might not even care much about one way or another, but is able
to mess with you over by provoking predictable responses.  What tends to
happen is that you get pushed into repeating the obvious rather than
approaching more interesting topics, and your tone as much as theirs
winds up being off-putting to other readers.

Open forums are generally very vulnerable to such manipulation, and I'm
fairly sure that this has been identified as a way to attack a wide
range of left wing forums.  In tasmania I know of cases where the troll
is in the pay of the tasmanian government, and does this stuff on work time.

> I wouldn't want their  kind of writing appearing here, but where do
> you draw the censoring line? I can't stand censorship, either.
Our editors get seriously worn down by this stuff, regardless of exactly
where the line i put on censorship.  Educating users ("Don't feed the
trolls") is helpful, but a never-ending battle.

> Maybe we need some flaming in order to douse it.
If someone is trying to bait you to flame them, then flaming them isn't
exactly going to discourage them.

> Writing all this has just driven home to me what a dour, doom and
> bloom gig IndyMedia is. No laughs, no levity anywhere....pity.
>
> Welcoming a sunny spring day in my  house in Noosa, Mortgage Slave Diet.
>
>> Pyewacket Cat wrote:
>>> # A controversial message that is almost guaranteed to attract flaming.
>>> home.esn.net/support/glossarya.html
>>>
>>> # Flamebait or trollbait is a message posted to an Internet
>>> discussion group, such as a newsgroup or a mailing list, with the
>>> intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame"). Various motives
>>> or explanations can be sought for this puzzling behavior; the desire
>>> for attention and the desire for entertainment at others' expense
>>> are two leading motives.
>>> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_bait
>>>
>> Payment by PR firms, Govt departments, etc to disrupt a forum may also
>> occur, though it's rare that it's provably the case.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>
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