cloudy
Alabama Slammer
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2004
- Posts
- 37,997
I've seen several folks that aren't familiar with Godwin's Law, so its explained here, along with some lesser known rules/laws:
1. Godwin’s Law: The most famous of all the internet laws, formed by Mike Godwin in 1990. As originally stated, it said: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." It has now been expanded to include all web discussions.
Common Godwin's Law appearances include describing women's rights campaigners as “feminazis”, comparing the former US President George W Bush to Hitler, or saying Barack Obama's proposed healthcare reforms are the new Holocaust.
If any poster does mention the Nazis in a discussion thread, Godwin’s Law can be invoked, they instantly lose the argument and the thread can be ended.
2. Poe’s Law: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.
Poe’s Law also has an inverse meaning, stating that non-fundamentalists will often mistake sincere expressions of fundamentalist beliefs for parody.
3. Rule 34: Surely we all know this one by now, right?
4. Skitt’s Law: any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself or the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster.
5. Scopie’s Law: In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room. First formulated by Rich Scopie on the badscience.net forum.
This law makes little sense without a background knowledge of Whale.to, a conspiracy theory site which includes such items as the complete text of the anti-Semitic hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as claims that Aids is caused by vaccination programmes, and that Auschwitz never happened.
It has been expanded by posters on rationalwiki.com to include any use of Answers in Genesis in an argument about creationism and evolution.
6. Danth’s Law (also known as Parker’s Law): Also known as the Amicus rule on this forum. If you have to insist that you've won an internet argument, you've probably lost badly.
7. Pommer’s Law: A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.
8. DeMyer's Laws: Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations can be very safely ignored, and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun. (Also locally known here as the "Trysail Law.")
9. Cohen’s Law: Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that... …has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.
10. The Law of Exclamation: The more exclamation points used in a post, the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters.
According to Terry Pratchett, five exclamation marks is an indicator of "someone who wears their underwear on the outside"
So, now y'all know.
1. Godwin’s Law: The most famous of all the internet laws, formed by Mike Godwin in 1990. As originally stated, it said: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." It has now been expanded to include all web discussions.
Common Godwin's Law appearances include describing women's rights campaigners as “feminazis”, comparing the former US President George W Bush to Hitler, or saying Barack Obama's proposed healthcare reforms are the new Holocaust.
If any poster does mention the Nazis in a discussion thread, Godwin’s Law can be invoked, they instantly lose the argument and the thread can be ended.
2. Poe’s Law: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing.
Poe’s Law also has an inverse meaning, stating that non-fundamentalists will often mistake sincere expressions of fundamentalist beliefs for parody.
3. Rule 34: Surely we all know this one by now, right?
4. Skitt’s Law: any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself or the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster.
5. Scopie’s Law: In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room. First formulated by Rich Scopie on the badscience.net forum.
This law makes little sense without a background knowledge of Whale.to, a conspiracy theory site which includes such items as the complete text of the anti-Semitic hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as claims that Aids is caused by vaccination programmes, and that Auschwitz never happened.
It has been expanded by posters on rationalwiki.com to include any use of Answers in Genesis in an argument about creationism and evolution.
6. Danth’s Law (also known as Parker’s Law): Also known as the Amicus rule on this forum. If you have to insist that you've won an internet argument, you've probably lost badly.
7. Pommer’s Law: A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.
8. DeMyer's Laws: Anyone who posts an argument on the internet which is largely quotations can be very safely ignored, and is deemed to have lost the argument before it has begun. (Also locally known here as the "Trysail Law.")
9. Cohen’s Law: Whoever resorts to the argument that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that... …has automatically lost the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.
10. The Law of Exclamation: The more exclamation points used in a post, the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters.
According to Terry Pratchett, five exclamation marks is an indicator of "someone who wears their underwear on the outside"
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So, now y'all know.
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