Politics within the local blogosphere haven’t been very fun, funny, or entertaining. Most of the time, it’s just childish kindergarten format squabbles. With the Association of Bloggers Singapore (ABS) trying to “unite” local bloggers, I can’t help but to feel that it’s another attempt to draw lines between bloggers. Everyone has to take a side, their side or no side. I don’t believe that any groups can unite all local bloggers – perhaps only those that are already active in the blogging scene. But face it, there are only perhaps a couple of hundred bloggers in Singapore that takes blogging seriously. Majority of blogs you come across are anonymous or super casual (updated like twice a year?), most blogs are just outlets to vent your frustrations.

My guess is most people that are willing to pay to join the ABS, would be individuals that are already somewhat involved in the local blogging community. I don’t think it’s a good or bad idea, but I’m just skeptical of how much can ABS really aid local bloggers. How can ABS help if there’s a flame war going on? They cannot and should not take sides, being a professional body. How can ABS help when there are chaos and politics in  the local blogosphere? How are they going to educate bloggers to blog responsibly?

Although there are many questions that would be left unanswered for the time being, I believe that action speak louder than words. Perhaps we should have an open mind about this new association, and give them a chance to prove themselves. No point in slamming them, or slamming any individual, when they have only just begun.

Here are some more reads to blogger’s views on this association. Some are rather supportive, some not so.

ABS President Eastcoastlife

Anonymous blogger’s protest

The Lycan Times’ opinion

Daphnemaia’s call for boycott of ABS

Hollyjean pointing out why there’s no need to join ABS

Brian (PR guy) ‘s take on ABS

Perhaps ABS needs to answer some of these difficult questions for bloggers to be able to accept them. But after reading Hollyjean’s updated blog post on an “invite only” association, I’m not sure this will take off very well.

Related posts:

1. My Vote Counts [Singapore General Elections 2011]
2. We are Singapore, Singaporeans – Are we?
3. Not Enough Foreign Workers in Singapore?

I’ve been reading and following quite a few blogs to get more scandals. Yes, I read scandals as my daily dose of entertainment every morning before I go to work. I’m an e-Auntie.

One thing I’ve realized is, if you are fluent in English, you have the upper hand in a flame war. You don’t even have to use big words to write good flaming posts, in fact, if your written English isn’t that wonderful, please please don’t use big words. It only makes you look dumb.

I don’t want to quote any particular instances, but when I read KennySia girlfriend versus KennySia alleged affair scandal, I was tempted to take the side of the affair girl. Simply because I couldn’t really understand what the girlfriend was blogging about. If people can’t understand what you’re flaming or what you’re trying to put across, you have already lost the battle! How do people side you when they’re not sure what you’re trying to say, especially people that doesn’t know the background story? How to win in a blog flame war when you already lost supportive votes due to poor English?

So follow these simple rules when writing a flame post:

1. Don’t use big words. Unless you can pull it off as well as nocturne.
2. Use a spell checker. I’m not sure if Internet Explorer has a spell checker, but I find Firefox’s spell checker to be quite reliable.
3. Check your grammar. Firefox doesn’t come with a grammar checker, but you can try using Microsoft Words spell checker.
4. Base your flame with facts. If there aren’t much facts to work with, then at least flame with lies that sounds credible – but risk getting sued like Xiaxue did.
5. Call all your friends, fans, online communities, your ex-classmates, your boyfriend/girlfriend’s buddies to post supportive comments in your flame post and go to your targeted flamee’s blog to create havoc. Though we should never drag the family in you shit affairs.
6. Calling the flamee mean names and posting her pictures up is just low and cheap. We’re out to ruin blogs, not lives. We don’t want people ruining their lives over flame wars, and you don’t want this to be on your conscious either. To my future detractors – Sorry, but even if you post my picture up I wouldn’t jump off the building. I’m simply too egoistic and narcissistic to think my pictures look anything but cute. But that doesn’t mean other people out there would take it as nicely as I do.
7. Use simple, straightforward, direct English. You could add in your own dialect at times. In fact, if you’re more fluent in another language, don’t be afraid to flaunt it like Darth Grievous does with his super ZHAI Chinese flame posts. Only downside to it is your flamee might not understand what you’re flaming him/her. If you don’t really care about that, then by all means – flame with your most powerful language.
8. Don’t start a flame war if you don’t think you can stomach it. My blog(s) have been through numerous flame wars, mostly because I like to defend my principles and I take offense with people that blog about things that go against my moral beliefs. I see myself as a superhero defending what I believe for, fighting in the mud with imbeciles. At the end of the day, I continue living my life, I continue to blog. If you can’t take the heat, don’t join in the game.
9. Don’t get into a flame war with 15 year old kids. I’ve done that once, and boy do I regret doing that. Imagine someone coming to your blog day and night screaming “KNNBCCB! eu old CB! KNN! CCB! CCBKNN! eu tink eur english good izzit? eu CB!” My God. Hands down to these crazy teenagers with nothing better to do than to litter your blog with incomprehensible sentences. They can’t seem to type in proper sentences so there’s no way you can reason with them.

Ok, I have no idea why I’m teaching people to flame. But the next time you want to engage in a flame war, remember the case study of Kenny Sia scandal, and you should really check out nocturne and Darth Grievous’s Art of Flaming. Hopefully these tips will not come in handy for you, flaming isn’t very healthy. But like ice-creams, flaming once in a while is fun

One last thing, my posts are full of grammatical errors. Hur hur hur. But so as long as your flamee has worse command of English than you, it doesn’t really matter

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