What are some topics that have caused "flame wars" in the past?

  • Seat-scamming at shows.
  • People yelling and acting obnoxious during songs.
  • "Miracle ticket" seekers.
  • Gate crashing at shows.
  • Personal rumors about GD band members.
  • Sexism in Dead lyrics.
  • Violence at Dead shows.
  • Security at given venues.
  • Vendors who are there to vend, and *not* to attend shows.
  • Police brutality and their anti-Deadhead prejudices.
  • Articles that unfairly bash the Dead and Deadheads.
  • Don't call us CHICKS! We are women.
  • Old Heads vs. Young Heads.
  • Donna.
  • Deader Than Thou.
  • Using "Touchhead" as a demeaning term.
  • Quoting X lines to say "me too" where X > 20.
  • Debates on the splitting of rec.music.gdead.
  • Telling Dead-Flames digest readers to just hit "n".
  • Anything that challenges the "Politically Correct Deadhead Thinking" as espoused on rec.music.gdead.
  • Forged postings.
  • Religion.
  • The "lot scene".
  • "All aol.com posters are clueless"
  • "All .edu posters are bratty college kids"
    • For all the general randomness on the Net, one of the more consistent things you see if you watch long enough is the annual Posting of the FlameBait. The way it usu. works is that somewhere around the time a new college semester starts, an inflammatory posting will appear on the net. It is usually (but not always) a hateful attack on one branch of the human race or another, and/or based on linking some undesirable trait or behavior with some outward appearance. It could simply be a statement designed to attack the icons of a given subculture. Or it can accuse the members of a subculture of a multitude of heinous acts. It is usually (but not always) cross posted to many different newsgroups.

    The posting can be recognized easily enough, but it generally engenders three types of response. The first is a plea to ignore the original posting. The second type is an outraged counter attack. The third an outraged counter argument. Usually each response quotes most of the text of the initial post. In the course of a couple weeks the original post will have been repeated dozens of times, wasting alot of time, energy and material. Uncountable thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software and net.bandwidth are sucked up and consumed.

    THE WAY TO HANDLE FLAMEBAIT: Ignore it! If for some reason the FlameBait is too horrible to stand, then use private Email. If you have to spend your time attacking or rebutting some fool, it is best done (like many things) in private. Email to postmaster@hostname and tell her about this horrible person abusing the tender ears in cyberspace. Some sys-admins are actually pretty good about these matters, and can get to the source of the problem efficiently.

    EXERCISE SOME CARE : Also remember, there are a large number of techno- freaks out there who spend hours figuring out how to crack accounts, and some percentage of them will then post some screed to a network from the cracked account. You may be spending hours of your life responding to these horrible mad ravings, to a person who *didn't* *do* *it* in the first place. Ask yourself if it is a worthwhile way to spend your time and energy.

    [contributed by Frank Caherty: caherty@wizard.nrl.navy.mil edited by John J. Wood: jojw@uhura.cc.rochester.edu]

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