Message Board Etiquette - the Flame War

If you're a doll collector, and you're reading this blog, you probably also subscribe to several message boards, Yahoo! groups or message forums. I'm sure you've at least seen (or possibly been involved in) flame wars, possibly even accidentally.

The accidental kind happened to me once, as a result of me posting a comment on a photo of mine, which I found insulting. I'm female, was in my PMS week, of course--the worst week to be reading negative-sounding comments on Flickr--and reposted it to a message board, griping about how it "hurt my feelings." Honestly, during PMS, everything hurts my feelings. Having to empty the litter boxes hurts my feelings. I shouldn't have posted the comment in the first place--in fact, I should mark the calendar and lock all doll message forums and Facebook during my PMS week. It just makes sense. Since everything totally blew up in my face. I didn't even know who posted the comment, but I soon found out. What a mess!

From my experience, the best way to stop a flame war is, really, eat crow right away. Even if you don't mean it, write a message or post that says you're sorry, you were mistaken, you were having a bad or mommy moment, and take it back. You took it out of comment. You were having a shitty day. Whatever you have to do. You apologize profusely. (Just do it.) And whatever you do, sound sincere. Don't try to have the last word, even if you feel like you still are right (if your goal is to stop the war).

If you know the board administrator, you may be able to get the message removed or locked, after your apology and the offended member's response is in place--or you can email both directly to the administrator and offended member--to put a stop to it all.

Why does it happen? Well, in the first place, it's so easy to be negative online because no one can see your face. So the negative comments fly. As a blog administrator, people leave negative comments at least three times more than positive ones (so discouraging!) because they can. Or maybe everyone who spends this much time on the internet is depressed and needs Prozac. It sure helped me.

Second, it's often hard to determine the tone of writing, especially for certain generations. Generation X-ers and younger have grown up with email, and use a very casual tone for email. They aren't like letters--they are like text messages, or post-it notes. We don't worry about grammar or anything else, for that matter. But older generations often don't realize the casual and glibness of replies on message boards and forums, and this can often seem very offensive.

And more often, writers often don't consider at all how their tone comes across. I honestly don't understand how a writer who writes, "I hate this doll," couldn't understand how an owner of that doll wouldn't be offended, but that's just me. Personally, I think there are many other ways to state what you like or dislike about a doll. And if no one asked you, well, do you have to comment? Like my mother always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Also, if you've already stated you dislike this type of doll, must you restate it every time? I don't know, but it seems like we know you don't like it, but others do. You might consider skipping that post, rather than posting a comment as to how terrible you think the doll is.

Or better yet, drink some Southern Comfort and take a Xanax before checking the message boards. Or even better--stick to the cocktail and Xanax, and watch the latest True Blood instead!