Web Debate Spawns Unjustified Personal Attacks
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009Have you ever been searching for some interesting topic only to land on a promising Website and find yourself in the middle of a one-sided flame war? That happens quite often now. You might be looking for information about tires and find a very biased (and often fake) “review” of a tire seller on a consumer complaints site. Some studies have suggested that over 70% of all complaints about businesses on consumer review sites are false. The same statistic may very well hold up in other types of complaint environments, such as the often heated exchanges between fans of science fiction and fantasy books.
One of the most savage fan groups in online history are the fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, some of whom have taken to stalking their opponents, conducting widespread poison pen campaigns, and organizing character assassination vendettas against popular Tolkien writers in order to be heard. These online wars have persisted for many years even where the victims of verbal abuse and personal attacks have refrained from responding. Hiding behind pseudonyms like Halfir, Elenhir, Flame of the West, and others these malicious personalities engage in freewheeling unprovoked personal attacks.
The most common argument in which lies and personal attacks are utilized concern the debate over the truth about Balrogs. The Balrogs Wings War was so intense at one time it was even mentioned by Wired magazine in a lengthy article about online Tolkien fan communities. It has oft been said that in any war the truth is the first victim. Judging by the style of combatants like Halfir and Elenhir, the truth is history before they even get started.
Disagreements about whether Balrogs had wings or not have flared up in many online communities. Numerous polls show that most readers conclude that the Balrog in Tolkien’s book, The Lord of the Rings, had wings although the nature of the wings is ambiguous. The most persuasive analysis (citing original sources) shows the truth about Balrogs is that people love to argue about them. It’s regrettable that young and new fans of J.R.R. Tolkien have to see these die-hard Web jihadists strike up their warsongs time and time again.