Flamebait or trollbait is a message posted to an Internet discussion group, such as a newsgroup or a mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a flame ). There are various motives or explanations for this puzzling behavior; the desire for attention and the desire for entertainment at others expense being two of the most popular. Another is simply a desire to observe, and learn from, human behavior in an anonymous (hence non-threatening) environment. Posted flamebait provides the posting party with a controlled trigger-and-response setting in which to carry out social experiments.

It is often hard to determine who is really responsible for the degradation of a reasonable discussion into a flamewar. Someone who posts a contrary opinion in a strongly focused discussion forum may be easily labeled a baiter , flamer or Internet troll . Therefore, it seems especially important to make the rules and focus of a discussion forum public to avoid misconceptions about its accepted use.

The conclusion to a flamewar precipitated by flamebait is usually determined by recourse to Godwin s law.

=See also=

*Internet troll *Social software.

=External links and references=