Humor and subtlety Newsgroup interaction is faceless, which means that few clues are available to aid in interpreting the intended meaning of articles. Subtlety and humor are often misunderstood without the necessary non-linguistic cues. With a world-wide audience in the millions and with a large audience for whom English is a second language, clarity is critical. Given these facts, messages should be crafted such that the intended meaning is clear. One means of doing this is the liberal use of emoticons to indicate humor, sarcasm and other nonlinguistic cues.
Emoticons are combinations of characters used to represent various emotions.
Flaming One danger of newsgroups is the phenomenon of flaming, which is often the direct result of misunderstandings caused by humor and subtlety or questions from people who have obviously not taken the time to read the newsgroup and learn its customs. While not specific to the cyberspace, flaming has certainly received widespread attention in that medium. Unfortunately, the current meaning of flame applies to the purposeful use of derisive, offensive, or crude language. A Flame War is an email exchange within a public space such as a discussion list or a Usenet newsgroup which evolves into a string of personal attacks against or between the participants. The nature of the medium in which there are no non-linguistic cues to aid in clarifying intended meaning lends itself to unintentionally offensive messages.