When last we left our heroes, Christofer C. Bell had just said:
> Can someone please spell out to me, in simple language so I can
> understand, how it's "flaming" someone to post a disagreement?  

I consider it a "flame" when the disagreement crosses the line into
irrationality.  Statements such as "All Linux CDs should be blue!  Red sucks!"
provide no meaningful content and are purely inflammatory.  When you can
imagine asking a poster "But why do you think this?" and their answer can only
be "Umm... Because!", _that_ is a flame.

I also consider it a "flame" when the post is intended to hurt its recipient
on a personal level instead of making them say "Oh, yeah I guess you're right."
The latter is a rational, intelligent dialog that reaches a logical conclusion.
The former is simply hate mail.

Conversations, disagreements and even arguments attack the other person's
_position_.  Flames attack the other _person_.

As I stated before, I had no problem with the _content_ of the thread and I
even agreed with the posters.  I took exception, however, to the _language_
that was used.  Consider the following two paragraphs:
        "Well, that's a great effort!  Maybe at the next meeting we could sit
down and demonstrate some good Linux HTML editors so that, in the future, our
pages can be written using them and we won't appear to endorse Microsoft
products." (fictional; did not appear on the mailing list)
        "You are supposedly supporting the Open Source Revolution, but you
are using the most closed companies products to achieve this goal." "Repeat
after me: Don't use Microsoft for anything that matters." (nonfiction; two
separate posts contained these quotes)

The first paragraph illustrates a disagreement.  The second illustrates flames.
Though I'm positive the authors were not angrily typing those words or feeling
at all militant about their positions, everyone with an email address knows
there is a huge difference between the way words are _intended_ and the way they
are _received_.  Had those words been directed at me, either in person or in
email, I would have laughed in agreement and continued on to the next message.
But because they were intended to tear down the accomplishment of someone who
had obviously done the best they could, I was offended.

For fairness' sake, consider the following paragraph as well:
        "You decide to participate, but the first contribution you make to the
community gets STOMPED ON by some asshole who has NOTHING BETTER TO DO than
attack your choice of TEXT EDITORS!" "<CLUE LEVEL=100%>" "Why will ANYONE
trust ANYTHING you say if their first impression of you was belittling?"

That last paragraph was also a flame, and a rather hot one at that.  As you
may recall, I wrote those words.  The fact that a few others appeared to agree
with my words didn't make them right, it just made them popular.  I'm not
apologizing; I'm pointing out that I realized what I was doing as I typed that.
It was a strong response to a couple of mildly-harsh statements, but as I stated
at the top of the post, my words were intended for every Linux "advocate" who
thinks the best way to convert Windows users to Linux is to make fun of them,
berate them and taunt them until they suddenly "see the light".  I read about
so many of those people on the Linux news sites that my patience with them is
a little thin.

I hope that helps, though I imagine you still disagree with me. :)

                                -sam

NOTE: Differentiating between an off-topic post and a rant is left as an
exercise for the reader.

 Sam Clippinger               For PGP public key (KEY ID: 431C5529), see
samc@silence.org          http://www.micro.com/~samc or http://pgp.ai.mit.edu