Causes of flame wars

I thought that's why we had emoticons.

Emoticons are kinda high tech for alot of people. Like how a blender would seem high tech to a caveman (from the cave-era, yo!), who had to make margaritas the hard way.

This is why I always assume that everyone is nice and the world is full of happiness.

Not unknown that people often interpret the written word differently than it was intended.

However, this is a rather limited take on a more complex relation. Egocentrism is not the complete tale. Also not addressed was the degree to which the reader already knows the style of the writer and the situation being discussed. It is also dismissed that the statements are not clear enough to give the reader a proper interpretation.

Lastly, many flame wars commence when one of the participants lobs a fuzzy FU at the other.

I think some flames are started on purpose, by people who enjoy making other people angry, or making other people sad, or who just enjoy seeing people get riled up about something they could make go away by looking at a different page.

I think people target specific people and make note of what upsets them and tailor their flames posts so as to obtain maximum aggravation with minimum posting effort.

I think some flame starters probably do things like look at sites like alt.flames and study topics and techniques used in the most virulent and hateful threads and adopt them for their own use.