Netiquette: Flame Baiting and Flame Wars

This week the class was asked to read about net etiquette better known as Netiquette.  The class is comprised of professional people.  A few are teaching instructors at Lake Washington Technical College and Bellevue College.  But for those of us new to the scene of eLearning, we most probably needed to know or review the rules of etiquette online or in cyberspace.  Having taught third through twelfth grade Christian Doctrine classes for my local church for about 20 years, I thought I knew a bit about courtesy, ethics, religious values and professional behavior.  That was before I started to read the rules of internet etiquette written by Virginia Shea, in her book Netiquette.  

By the time I finished reading her ideas, I was totally paranoid and certain I have no common sense when it came to cyberspace.  Or, I learned I must think about most of what I say before hitting the keys.  I have lived my academic life being educated in an environment which allowed me to read the faces of my professors and classmates.  Now I find myself in a world where body language doesn’t apply, because as pure spirits in cyberspace we have no bodies to speak of.  We are technically spirits or minds journeying through cyberspace unaware that I our words could provoke a Flame War.

Okay you ask, what is the meaning of Flame Wars or better yet what is Flaming Baiting?   I suppose I could waste your time and mine trying to explain this terminology.  However, I think I can give you a better example of this rather interesting concept, which skirts the boundaries of illegal of prohibited internet behavior.  When I found myself weak and sick for about a year, I started trying to find family members on the internet.  Once I located them, I joined Facebook and You Tube. It wasn’t long before I stopped my membership in You Tube (another story there) and stayed with Facebook. 

Everything was fine for a while, until my newly found relative began a campaign on Facebook to discredit President Obama.  My relative is a man who has devoted much of his time to his church.  He deeply believes in a Higher Power and works to help others find their spirituality…that is, until his fingers hit a keyboard and he logged into Facebook.  That’s when his Flame Baiting comments began and their content would have make even the most seasoned sailor of old cringe.  Since he was accepted as a friend on my Facebook, his words showed up on my home page.  The first time it happened and I read what he wrote, I truly wondered if he was possessed.  Okay not really.  I have to admit I was shocked!

I was left wondering why a self-admitted Christian and successful business person and church going Christian was so shockingly unprofessional (in my naive opinion) regarding his online comments about our current President.  When I tried to intercede with a few positive comments on the head of our government and commander-in-chief, I was verbally attack and told to stay out of the conversation, even though his comments were appearing on my Facebook home page.

After the incident and since reading Netiquette, I think during the Holidays I am going to send him Virginia’s book (or, could it be possible he knows more about this subject then I did?)  After all, once he gets properly educated (or not) in internet etiquette, he may become a famous Flamer or maybe he already is working  on his technique of flaming.  Whatever the case may be, I will be watching his progress on my Facebook page, with “tongue in cheek” never daring to put fingers to the keyboard and feed the troll, again ( just in case your wondering, I am smiling with a calm, patient, tolerant interest in mind).