Flaming vs. Real Constructive Criticism

The only thing I can offer advice on is how to deal with flamers. I spent two years on a flamer's forum, and a lot of my friends flame, and I flamed a long while ago.

So, several things.

Yes, flamers are not nice. But if they're an actual flamer and not a troll, then they'll flame someone whose story really does suck, badly enough that it's nearly illegible, it's bolded/italicized/underlined completely, et cetera.

Don't send them angry review replies unless you want to look like a fool; that's part of the point. They like to get a rise out of people.

If someone gives you constructive criticism, don't yell at them with a "YOU FALMED MEE!1121!!" Learn the difference. Constructive criticism applies to the story itself, that's it; flames generally attack the story and the author, i.e. "You suck, you should just stop writing, my eyes will never recover" and whatnot (although that's probably the worst example of a flame). At least, that's from what I know.

Sometimes flamers are right; your writing could really just suck. I have a friend who got flamed, engaged in a flame war, but eventually it all got left behind, she and the flamer became friends, and she looked back at her work and it really was just plain bad.

Reverse psychology ("FLAMES WELCOME!") doesn't work on flamers. And "THIS IS MY FIRST FIC PLEASE BE NICE" doesn't work, either. Nor does "FLAMES WILL BE USED TO POWER MY STOVE" or something similar (I've seen things like that, too).

Flame Rising is a retired flamer, he hasn't been on this website in two years, but I hung out on his forum a lot. This is his criteria for flaming:

1. You can't f*cking spell and/or you know less grammar than a six year old.
2. You try to blind your readers by bolding or italicizing every f*cking word.
3. You are too f*cking retarded to use the enter key.
4. You think people give two squirts of dog cr*p about your emotastic life.
5. You wh*re for reviews.
6. You fancy yourself God's gift to poetry because you can rhyme sh*t.
7. You have A/Ns longer than the story, and they include conversations with your other f*cked up personalities that no one gives two sh*ts about.
8. You think your readers are so stupid that you constantly have to announce point of view changes with the words "-Insert Character Name's- POV".
9. Your summary includes something along the lines of this: "NO FLAMEZ OR ELSE MIKICHU WILL EATZ U!1!!11!"
10. You violate the site's TOS and/or Guidelines. (My personal favorite, kiddos.)

I censored it. XD But I always consider his criteria when I write, because he was one of the harshest flamers on this site, I think. His forum, goodness, there were at least three threads of people coming in to yell at him for "daring" to flame them. And they got chewed up and spit out within minutes.

...Not that flamers are mean. Some of them are nice when they're not flaming you. :)

If you guys hate all flamers... -ducks tomatoes-

Vividus
Advice!