Gracefully Conceeding a Flame War

We’ve all been there. The forum topic or list topic gets a little out of hand, soon enough your best rhetoric has failed, your straw men and ad hominids are thrown back at you and you’re being run out of town on a metaphorical rail, stinking of tar and chicken feathers. There is only one solution then for the erudite troll (I mean other than deleting all the emails or giving the forum a break).

Concession.

Yes, it is like quitting, but it’s quitting with a little bit of grace. With a carefully composed concession, you can save face, endow the victors with a proper sense of shame, avoid responding to any other unpleasant claims and and even earn points among those groups you have maligned.

Here are a few key points to add to your concession:

• I’m just trying to help/telling you the ugly truth.
• I didn’t intend to personally attack anyone (even if I did).
• No one really understands me/my point.
• I am disappointed in your group’s inability to keep an open mind.
• I am no longer going to post to this thread/topic (even if I will).
• I have received a lot of support privately, but my supporters are concerned about risking their popularity with your group.
• You’ll be sad when you find out I’m right.

It is, of course, necessary to word all these points eloquently. Here is a handy template to follow. (My thanks to the anonymous Trolls who assisted in compiling this). Sprinkle in details about your own flame war to make it more personal.

“My Friends,

I’ve made my points as well as I can and it doesn’t appear my opinions are welcome.  I wish people would realize that I am trying to help here, and recognize that I am not trying to attack anybody personally.  Since I was not able to make myself heard, I’m going to conclude that I either haven’t made my points effectively, don’t have a receptive audience, or some combination of the two.  Either way, I’m not going to add to the anger and bad feelings. I’ll sit the rest of this one out.  It’s not my intent to derail anything, just to provide an alternate opinion.

I’m also going to go back to treating this <list/forum> as read-only, which seems to be a better approach for me. I’d like to leave you with a thought before I do.  Most people agreeing with me have being doing so off-list, in private, presumably because they’re too worried about getting the same treatment I have received, or they just don’t have the energy to defend their position publicly.   You might not want to confuse the fact that I am the only one publicly voicing my opinion, with being the only one having it.

I wish you all the best, and I  hope the points I have made are some help to you in your future endeavors.

Thank You,”