I'm in the same boat as Frank in the Swamps - my first reaction is to take action against the flamers and others by gently reminding them about how good this site is, how wonderful the people and the cyber-atmosphere (cyber-ambience?) is here, and as Barbara said, about the difficulties of conveying tone through words alone, but now it seems that it is better if I stay laid back (pull my head in* (Oz language)) and try to ignore it. I have found that taking action only seems to wind the perpetrators up even more, but ignoring them seems to deny them the power to continue.

I have heard of the Zen belief that by fighting back you intensify the struggle, add power to the struggle, but if you move aside, bend like a supple tree in the wind, then you take the momentum out of the opposition and the opponent either realises the futility of fighting or finds someone or something else to get fired up about.

So far, in at least a decade of following this philosophy, I have found that it works very well, so I am now challenged to use it in cyberspace as well as in real life.

So Frank, let's support each other (as you have already done once with me: when either of us feels like joining the fray we can e-mail each other and prop up each other's resolve to stand well clear of it. I'm curently struggling not to jump in with both feet on a flame which popped up on an e-mail mailing list yesterday. I notice that no-one else has responded today so maybe I can examine the Zen theory in action (in in-action?) there.

Helen