2. trolls
3. fanboys
4. influencers
5. lurkers
6. critics
7. minorities
8. perverts
9. stalkers
10. geeks, hackers and nerds
11. noobs
12. gamers
13. doxers, pirates, crackers, drug dealers
14. bots
15. mods
16. artists
17. journalists / activists
18. gamblers
19. scammers
20. archivers
21. support staff for isp
22. educators
23. ad-hoc communities around interests
24. e-commerce
25. content providers
26. surfers
27. academic researchers
28. startups
29. scientists
30. wall street
31. privacy and foss freaks
32. hipsters and dorks
33. voter rings
34. pagans
35. spies
36. alt-history
Software forum ethanography
1. regular Posters
2. newbies
3. researchers and three star programmers
4. fanatics and haters
5. embedded
6. growth hackers and astroturfers
8. job hunters
9. employees working as support
10. dinausaurs
11. software activists
12. foreigner who can’t speak english
Before internet
few publishers, large consumers
- controlled media narratives
- fixed channels
After internet
all publishers, all consumers
- more or less free speech
- prosumer
- search / recommendation
How to start a flame war
Step 1: Express your critical opinion on something (usually a bad opinion on something popular) with phrases like “some argue” and “clearly your are a X”
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
Flame wars continue because their participants imagine that they can deliver the killer blow and get the last word in, an absurd premise when posting to a website with at least 100 members.
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/use-internet
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/sites/digital-agenda/files/scoreboard_life_online.pdf