I read the article with interest, but I am skeptical. No doubt the guy is a flamer, but I bet he does it mainly because he likes it, and he rationalizes it by pretending he's doing it for someone else's benefit.

It does show some interesting insight into the mind of a flamer, however. Here's a plausible scenario: A burned-out customer service rep, or maybe tech support person, is sick and tired of dealing with customers' questions and complaints. Maybe he is under stress for various reasons and hates his job. He comes to hate the customers, and considers them stupid. He is forbidden by his employer to show them any disrespect - the customer is always right, you know. So he bottles it up in the workplace, and then goes home, gets on the internet, and, under the cover of anonymity, spews his wrath on humanity. He likes to think he is flaming the same type of people who have been annoying him all day long, but they are probably innocent bystanders. He searches out some people who have some superficial resemblance to his customers - they don't know everything he knows, for example. He flames them with variations of that favorite refrain of techies everywhere: RTFM ("Read the f***ing manual!")

Cool huh? Makes me think I have a short story in me somewhere . . .