The lack of flame wars on WP: an Aspie trait?

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Over the years I have participated in many different forums on a wide range of subjects (from pregnancy to physics). One constant feature of all those forums was recurrent flaming. Someone would voice an opinion, someone else would disagree, and suddenly those two (and maybe more) would be engaged in a "and your momma wears combat boots" kind of argument, flinging nasty remarks left and right and losing all sight of the original topic.

Now, I know there have been disagreements on the WP forums, and some name-calling and getting huffy. But by and large, it seems much less common here. At least in the threads I've read where an argument began, it most often was resolved without any outright nastiness. Is our autism the reason?

I've marvelled at that myself. You'd think you throw a bunch of people whose social skills are subpar, and all kinds of crazy things would happen, but everybody seems to be pretty polite for the most part. As a matter of fact, now that I think back on all the groups I've been in over the years, this one IS the most polite. Wow.

Maybe it's because it's a place where we know we can be ourselves.

It's got nothing to do with AS.

I've been registered at 100's of boards and this sort of behaviour is more common than you think.

One was so extreme with keeping the place tranquil it sickened me to my stomach and I left. (an NT board)

And you are missing alot if you don't think sh*t goes on here, because it does, and it's more than a few name callings and disagreements.

Support sites in general also probably have less flack than an interest based board.

I won't say which site, but it is a well known Aspie forum (not here at Wrongplanet), but I posted a link to my site and people really tore into it. Except for a couple, I had to stand on my own really.

You are right. There are more peace-loving forums than many would think.

Steve,
it is unfair to blame the forum because people just said what you asked them to (say what people think of it/opinion,no flaming apart from one comment from you to another member on the 3rd page).
People were concerned about the viciousness of the site towards NTs.



Re.Original topic.
I see the same problems here as on other forums,only more subtle at times.

We are by nature more egocentric than NTs and have a more rigid thought pattern that can make reaching a compromise difficult. I think the forum avoids flame wars largely through will-power because we all know how easy it would be to start one. The mods are also there to back it up by reminding people when a thread starts to degenrate, and won't hesitate to lock a thread if a war breaks out.

I think it is because the moderators here do such an excellent job.

They are talented smokeaters (fire men/women) they put out fires with skill and authority.
I am actually amazed how much breathing room they give us to duke it out. I have done my best to find that imaginary line.

Basically, i think its the freedom that we are afforded to express ourselves. I for one have a difficult time, when i am told how to behave, i usually take that as a challenge to misbehave. But since we are given the freedom, i tend to not get down and even dirtier when i am chastized, since i figure, i probably had it coming.

Thanks moderators, you do a fine job.

What I've noticed is that even when a couple of people start duking it out in a thread, other people still chime in on the original topic, without jumping into the fray themselves. So the argument doesn't escalate as rapidly as it seems to on other forums I've been on.

Several times, one or the other party aplogizes for having been unclear, or for having misunderstood. I've also seen arguments die out without having to be resolved or having to have someone apologize. I'm sure I've also missed several threads where people who don't like each other continually butt heads in non-productive ways.

I was thinking it might be due to our general logical nature, in two ways: first, we tend to argue about our thoughts on ideas or subjects rather than our feelings, and second, we tend to focus on the logical issues in an argument rather than the feelings raised.

Naturally, this is an overgeneralization, but I was just wondering if it had any basic merit.

what a stupid post. Your momma is so fat ermm.... damn... flaming is too hard.


I agree with you entirely. I have been flamed on many other forums and it is quite soul destroying when you were trying to be serious or needed help. I tend to keep my posts to the point on other forums now. Wrongplanet allows me to be myself. I posted something a while back about flaming.

Well I was on the RNID forum (for deaf/HOH people) for a while then a troll came along. Thing is, even after the troll left, some of the real people left behind were really nasty to each other, and it often degenerated into an all-out flame war, with half of the other registered members joining in. The webteam shut it down for a while (they were going to re-design it anyway, but they had to close earlier than originally planned) but even now it's back up there's still some real nastiness going on. There are a few members that just seem to clash all the time, but it amazes me thay've not learnt by now to just refrain from saying anything to each other. I mean, fully-grown adults and all that ... My point is that support forums can easily be just as bad as interest-based forums!

Now that Grayson's brought it up, I'm interested ...

I agree with grayson on this. People seem to see that there is rules and don't break them. I also think that alot of asperger people don't see the point in flame wars. I my self would think I was making my self look like a fool if I dropped down to the level of flaming. I think there may be some arguements on WP but I havn't seen any thing drop to outright flaming.

I've been in sevreal here myself, but, many of those were not cause by me, but by people thinking that they know what they are talking about. most of the time, they just stop talking crap sooo. I don't take lightly to people insulting me or my knowlege to make them selves feel better.

Hmm... flame wars don't seem to be quite as common here as they are most other places, but they still do happen quite often. It tends to come and go in cycles and I think it would be fair to say that we're on a point where there are very few. However, not to worry, they will probably start back up again if you give it some time.

As a moderator, we all work hard to remind people to follow the TOS and prevent any chaos that occurs when people don't, so that may be another reason why there aren't quite as many flame wars as some people seem to like. Sometimes the controversial threads in the PPR (Politics, Philosophy and Religion) forum turn into flame wars, though.

Yeah. We have great fun seperating the left wing and right wing arguements from the flame wars sometimes. *sigh* ah well, thats died down for the moment, which is good. I couldn't do with trying to help deal with that during my january exams.

Still, its the disagreements that keep life interesting.

My own forum has a more novel solution, we enforce the rules very hard, but we have an area specificly for flaming people.... Ironicly enough, we have less flaming overall than WP.net does...

I like to think of myself as a titilator of debate.

i am a pitbull, i like to argue. The thing that i don't think that people realize is that arguing and getting pissed are not a bad thing.

The main reason why i like somple debate to become argumentative is because i think that when people get angry they get passionate, the lose their heads and we get the truth. And also, when people get the passion they tend to reach a little deeper and formulate some very good points

I am always in search of the new points of view. I think the sophist method is a good way to arrive at truths. Not your truth, but mine. I take it all as simple food for thought and i arrive at a conclusion; either it is applicacable in my own life, or its crap and i dismiss it as false.

I do not care how badly another can cream me in a debate,since it has nothing to do with pride and everything to do with learning.
Also, i really do not have too many feelings to get hurt.

Why do you think i aired a pm with someone stating i was an episode of the luney tunes? i don't care, why should i, its only my opinion of myself that matters, to me.

I think it's because this is a forum which is geared (partly) toward help. Part of WP is supposed to be theraputic, so the mods here have to make sure this place can help healing rather than harming. Whereas, on a "regular" forum about what-have-you, we "assume" people can 'deal with" whatever goes their way as far as insults and person attacks.

That's my guess anyway.

Haha.