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Flame War results when multiple users engage in provocative responses to the originally Posted Flame Bait.

Flame Wars often draw in many users (including those trying to defuse the Flame War) and can overshadow regular Group discussions if left unchecked.

Resolving a Flame War can be difficult, as it is often hard to determine who is really responsible for the Degradation of a reasonable discussion into a Flame War. Someone who Posts a contrary opinion in a strongly focused discussion Group may be easily labeled a "Baiter", "Flamer", or "Troll". Therefore, it seems important to make the Rules and focus of a discussion Group public to avoid misconceptions about its accepted use.

An approach to resolving a Flame War or responding to Fʟᴀᴍɪɴɢ is to communicate openly with the offending users. Acknowledging mistakes, offering to help resolve the disagreement, making clear, reasoned arguments, and even self-deprecation have all been noted as worthwhile strategies to end such disputes. However, others prefer to simply ignore Fʟᴀᴍɪɴɢ, noting that, in many cases, if the Flame Bait receives no attention, it will quickly be forgotten as Group discussions carry on.
Unfortunately, this can motivate trolls to intensify their activities, creating additional distractions.

Taking the bait or feeding the troll refers to someone who responds to the original message regardless of whether they are aware the original message was intended to provoke a response. Often when someone takes the bait, others will point out to them YHBT for "You have been trolled", or reply with "don't feed the trolls." Forum users will never give the troll acknowledgement, that just "feeds the troll". Making the previous statement "forum users will rate the troll 1/10", contradictive.

Flame Wars are a modern interpretative dance version of the 1977 science fiction classic, "Star Wars", only with arsonists seeing who has better pottery or will make the company softball team.

Those involved all scramble to be the Internet's Alpha Male (or, the Alpha PMS Bitch).
Flame Wars will generally start at the slightest provocation or often none at all (i.e., U ghey fagz). There are also recorded cases of ignition arising from negative provocation, and usually involve Fʟᴀᴍɪɴɢ.
894 Flame War victims were hospitalized for burns in 2004.

Flame Wars destroyed 3.2 million square miles of farmland, according to a certain copyrighted bear with a hat who reminds us that only we can prevent Flame Wars.

Flame wars usually develop out of a normal discussion in these ways:

01. Someone offends people through arrogant behavior.

02. A Thread of discussion touches upon a land mine.

03. The Rules or values of the Group/Community are questioned.

04. An ad hominem argument results when a poorly qualified contributor Posts questionable material.

05. A participant tries to communicate with a chronic Flamer (it's difficult to stay cool and polite).

06. A vested Group Member tries to pull rank.

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There are also a minority of users (chronic Flamers) who take enjoyment in Flame Wars and carry them on deliberately.
Sometimes these are lumped together with Tʀᴏʟʟs, but there can be a difference. Chronic Flamers often have strong world views for which they have no constructive outlet. For example, an opponent of the use of pesticides on food might read a produce NewsGroup and Post repeated attacks on vegetable growers who use conventional growing practices with frequent use of pesticides.

In general, we term any text that incites a Flame War as Flame Bait. You will see this term frequently.

The purpose of the Flame War is to belittle one person while enabling yourself to feel better.

It is often practiced by Tʀᴏʟʟs, and Flamers.
Flame Wars tend to fall into two different categories: Dick Measuring and Battle Of Wits.

There are two different outcomes of Flame Wars, depending on the types of contestants who are competing (both of dem iz t3h suxx0rs).
Most Flames (the excretion of a Flamer) are produced in a Chat Room, a Group bulletin board or an MMORPG, usually as an interrup(ur ghey!)tion of another user's vaguely coherent thought.

The response to the original Flame Bait (i.e., "Flame"), which erupts as a Flame War, falls into one of the two following types:

01. Dick Measuring -

Usually carried out between any average person and a Flamer.
The Flamer initiates a situation, usually by making innocuous comments about the mother of the average person. The average person tries to retaliate, but is buried by an incomprehensible stream of ridiculous jargon.
The average person usually either disconnects or stops talking, leaving the Flamer to rant; often making the Flamer look irrational while giving him the impression that he is cool: "1 am cooler then u, d00d".

02. Battle Of Wits -

When a not-so-average person is provoked into a Flame War, the results are far more interesting.
Often, this is a person of higher intellect, and someone capable of forming rational arguments. The rational argument is the Flamer's worst enemy, as it's capable of eating their brain raw once spoken into existence: "U r 2 stoopid to ch4nge a litebulb, n00b".
The Flamer is often unaware of this at the time, and will provoke a Flame War in the same manner as above. The not-so-average individual will find some way to counter with an intelligent argument. The Flamer will attempt to counter with a half-formed opinion; which will be immediately disputed by facts and sources.

The Flamer's final words are usually "u all suxx", uttered at a guttural moan moments before the rational thought finishes devouring his medulla oblongata, turning him immediately into a vandal.

Incorrect spelling and grammatical mistakes are also very frequently the subject of Flames, particularly if a Flame War has already started.

In such a situation, the Flamers may try to impugn their opponents' intelligence by highlighting any errors in their adversaries' grammar or spelling.
This has given rise to the term, spelling "Flame for a Flame", that excoriates an earlier Poster over their spelling errors. Posters who censure the grammar of others are often called Grammar Nazis - this may cause great offense due to the association with Nazism, but this label is also used ironically and is occasionally proudly self-applied.

Your first interest must be not to get into a Flame War. That's easier than getting out of it.

Therefore:

01. Never insult people.

02. Always look at the problem, not at the person.

03. Declare the Flame Bait as Flame Bait, use humor instead of aggression.

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~ How To Get Out As A Person:

01. You have to actually recognize that you are in a Flame War and that you should get out of it.

02. You may have or think about an "exit strategy".

03. The NᴇᴛɪQᴜᴇᴛᴛᴇ has already mentioned the #1 Rule for getting out of a Flame War: dissuade reputation. Just ignore it.

04. Declare the conflict as a boring, often repeating process; explain its roots and its silliness.

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~ How To Get Out As A Community:

01. Realize that, in open communities, there often is no way to eliminate chronic Flamers without becoming a "Gated Community".

02. Act as a Community, don't look at two people fighting. The Group Members should defend each other, so they don't have to react on personal attacks themselves. This is much more effective and credible for the reader.

03. Create value for the audience. Always think about the reader, it is their opinion that counts. Create pages and arguments that you can reuse in the next similar conflict.

04. Don't overreact. A conflict is not 100% negative. It is also energy that can be used to strengthen the Group, to make values and Rules clearer, to improve arguments.

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I used to get into a lot of Flame Wars years ago with another guy who was an Associate Moderator of a Group with the same forum as me.
The problem, of course, came when he was offended by a remark of mine which was completely opposite to his worldly view (this was during a period of time when we had an absent Leader and no recourse).
Eventually, I learned that most could be taken care of by intelligence, politeness (excessive politeness by most standards), a lot of tact and the rest would have to be manually resolved (if you could call it that!) by mediation of a third party; and paying a lot of attention to where we were each coming from in the conflict.

The Associate Moderator there was very reluctant to use the "Ban Hammer", which rather negated this advantage.

~ Flame Wars:

A combination of varied personalities, along with the anonymity of the computer presence, will inevitably lead to online arguments between users.

While it is great to encourage healthy debates in your Group, an outright Flame War is a problem that spreads quickly. The easiest way to stop hurtful and personal attacks on discussion Threads is to delete the Thread or Post in question.
Secondly, registered users who are repeatedly causing problems should be permanently banned from the site.

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~ Please Do Not Feed The Tʀᴏʟʟs:

Someone who purposely joins an online Group to cause problems and to irritate other Group Members is a "Troll" - plain and simple, no bones about it.
The easiest way to get rid of a Troll is to not feed him. (i.e., do not encourage a trouble maker by responding. It is your heated response that fuels a Troll. They want you to notice them. They want you to be irritated).
If they don't go away, ban their ass from the Group!!!

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~ What To Do:

Don't give them the satisfaction.
Instead, if you are the Moderator, or an Associate Moderator, delete any Troll-like comments they Post, and if other Group Members are responding to the Troll, suggest to those users (in private, if possible) that they should ignore them as well.
Soon, the Troll will grow bored and move onto another Group.
If you are a Group Member, message the Moderator, or Associate Moderator, or the Website Owner (in this, Various, Inc.) and ask them to deal with the annoying, troublesome Troll.

Flame Wars, also known as, "Insult Wars", frequently break out on Internet discussion Groups.

Some people enjoy these Insult Wars and will start them intentionally.
But, many more Flame Wars exist than can easily be explained by intentional troublemakers. It seems that the psychology of E-Mail itself can start Flame Wars. E-Mail messages are "low bandwidth", meaning that the writing usually lacks critical information about how to interpret the message, and it lacks most of the emotional communication of face-to-face talks. As a result, we can usually interpret E-Mail messages in several different ways.
A person can send an innocent message which is "heard" as sarcasm or vile insults by the person who receives it. The reverse can also happen; intentional insults can mistakenly be "heard" as benign, but missed insults usually cause no problems!!! We hear what we want to hear, and unfortunately this is particularly true of E-Mail.

Flame Wars usually are triggered *NOT* when one person intentionally insults another, but when one person *takes* insult when reading messages having fairly innocent intent.
The offended reader then hurls a real insult in return. The first party feels unjustly attacked, since after all they did not send any horrible insults in the first place. Therefore, they respond with insults of their own.
And, so an Internet "war" has been triggered through misunderstandings. Same as with Nations. Same as with little kids. And like with kids, the Flame War participants will often end up saying, "Well he/she started it, I was just defending myself!", "No, he/she started it", "No, she did", "No, he did" .... and, then the Group Moderator steps in and says, "I don't care who started it, you both participated, both of you go stand in the corner!!!"

The solution?
Simple: Be nice. Don't hurl insults via the Internet, EVEN IF SOMEONE ELSE INSULTED YOU FIRST.
Avoid acting like a self-important boob; don't take insult at every little thing, and don't insist on public retaliation for every minor slight. Either ask if the insult was intentional, or if you must, send your responding attack directly to your target via private mail and *not* to the Group's bulletin board or the Thread Topic list.
If you feel that someone has unjustly attacked you, and if you feel justified in "defending" yourself in public by launching an attack of your own, then you have fallen for the Flame War psychology. People with a "tit for tat" philosophy who have a need to take retribution for
perceived attacks are no better than Nations who start wars for stupid reasons.

On the other hand, if all real (or imagined) insults go right past you with no effect, then you would make a good Group Moderator!!!