Just scrolling through comments on the YouTube video for the tribute to Michael Jackson at the 2010 Grammy’s, one can see what online forums and message boards have become. Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song,” a song about the earth and loving one another, has comments attacking not only the message of peace on earth, but also Michael Jackson’s sexuality as well as his race.

On our own Web site (lavozdeanza.com), stories featured in the online edition become a source of discourse for our readers. The comments following a recent story about a woman who jumped off the Flint Center started off with sympathy for the woman and her family. But then comments turned.

One user’s ignorant comment “you would just f— off back to wherever you came from” and “the girl did everyone a favor,” ignited a flame war.

When a thread – or in some cases an entire forum – becomes unstable, the result is usually uncontrolled spam in the form of one line complaints, image macros or abuse of the report system. When the discussion becomes heated and sides do nothing more than complain and not accept each other’s differences in point of view, the discussion degenerates into what is called a flame war.

To flame someone means to go off-topic and attack the person instead of their opinion. Likely candidates for flame wars are usually religion and socio-political topics or topics discussing pre-existing rivalries outside of the forum (e.g. rivalry between game console systems, car manufacturers or nationalities)

I find this entirely unacceptable. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a forum is “a public meeting place for open discussion.” A discussion is not one person talking – it is the sharing of two or more people’s opinions and views. This is why forums were created – the early Internet forums could be described as a Web version of a newsgroup or electronic mailing lists – allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Developments, later on, emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists. This provided more than one forum dedicated to a particular topic.

We may not necessarily agree or feel comfortable with someone’s views or opinions. However, this does not give anyone the right to attack the person. Having a civil conversation or argument about the issue is far more productive.

Let me break it down further. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, civil means being “observant of the forms required by good breeding.”

Civility often suggests little more than the avoidance of overt rudeness. So instead of name-calling and slinging mud at someone who does not agree or have the same views as you, you can maybe ask them to explain their point of view. And then tell them yours, and if nothing else, agree to disagree.

This is the United States of America – this country was founded because our founding fathers did not agree with the way the political system was run. We may not always agree with what others may say or do. However, this does not mean we should turn a place for reasoned and thought out discussion into a hotbed of hatred, discrimination and bigotry.

This is why I will repeat something my mother has said to me since I was a child, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it all.”