The WWCC is an Internet community
sharing interesting and sometimes controversial ideas.
When cyber-sermons are released to the whole world
by way of the Internet and by e-mail forwarded to friends,
thoughtful responses will be invited from all readers.

     The people who serve as flame-catchers for the WWCC
will be charged with reading thru all of these responses
and deciding which to:
(1) post on the WWCC home page
as part on the on-going discussion of that cyber-sermon,
(2) forward to the author of the cyber-sermon
as a private comment,
(3) return to the senders with explanations,
(4) delete and discard unread.

     Flame-catchers might be compared to the people
who screen the 'letters to the editor' for a large publication
or the staff persons in a congressional office
who are responsible for reading the mail and deciding what to do with it.

     People who respond to controversial ideas by e-mail
are often more outspoken and impolite
than they would be talking on the phone or in person.
(Why the Internet causes some people to be mean
needs to be studied by some investigators of such communication.)
Thus, a wide-open Internet community like the WWCC
seriously needs a good panel of flame-catchers.

     The following are the seven outstanding characteristics
of good flame-catchers.

1.  Flame-catchers must be available almost every day.

     In order to avoid backlogs of responses piling up in any one mailbox,
each day's incoming responses should be processed within 24 hours.
This makes the role of flame-catcher ideal for someone
who is at a computer on a regular basis
and who has the time and interest to sort thru diverse responses.
If you are homebound for one reason or another,
and/or if you spend a lot of time at your computer anyway,
being a flame-catcher might be more meaningful than surfing the Internet.

2.  Flame-catchers must be tolerant and non-judgmental.

     Even if some responses are intolerant and judgmental,
the flame-catchers should not follow suit—should not respond in kind.
All responders have a right to their opinions;
and all opinions should be respected.
But only the most relevant and interesting comments
will be published on the WWCC home page.

3. Flame-catchers must be intelligent, open-minded thinkers.

     Some of the responses to cyber-sermons will be dogmatic,
orthodox, authoritarian, and politically correct.
The function of flame-catchers is not to counter one dogma with another
but to empower originally-dogmatic thinkers to become more rational.
The Flame-Catchers' Handbook describes and illustrates
many of the ways that human thinking becomes narrow and petty.
The the flame-catcher's role is not to restore orthodoxy
(as it might be in a religious movement with a creed)
but to help everyone to become more open-minded and thoughtful.
Flame-catchers must be intelligent enough to see the difference
between politically-correct thinking (intellectual conformity)
and a well-reasoned argument.

4. Flame-catchers must be self-starters and careful-finishers.

     If you volunteer to be a flame-catcher,
you will be inventing this role without supervision.
Thus, you must be someone who can carry thru a project
without someone else telling you how or when to do it.
However, where there is a panel of flame-catchers,
you will have some other people whose opinions may be helpful
for dealing with difficult cases.

5. Flame-catchers must be members of the WWCC.

     You become a member of the WWCC by creating
a member profile describing yourself for other members of the WWCC.
See the membership section of the WWCC home page for details:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/Y-MEM.html

6. Flame-catchers will not be named publicly.

     Because some responders will be angry at the flame-catchers
for returning or ignoring their responses,
the flame-catchers will remain anonymous to the general public.
If necessary, re-mailers or other means
of keeping their identities private will be used.

7. Flame-catchers will not be required
to review responses to their own cyber-sermons.

     This will protect the original authors from unwanted hate-mail.
When the flame-catchers are reviewing responses to other people's ideas,
they themselves will not be as emotionally involved in defending those ideas.
And they can be more objective about what is a valid criticism
and what is a foolish attack that should not be forwarded to the author.

     This does not prevent flame-catchers from ever creating cyber-sermons.
However, when their cyber-sermons are released,
others will do the flame-catching for them.

8. Flame-catchers will be list-managers at the beginning.

    To keep things simple at least at the beginning,
the list-managers for WWCC-L will also serve as the flame-catchers.
If and when it seems wise at a later time
to establish a separate panel of flame-catchers,
that can easily be done.
 

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.