Talk:Godwin's law/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

If you think you have a case for adding another corollary to the list, please put it below. At last count, over 22 irrelevant corollaries have been removed from Godwin's law.

Keep in mind that this is an article about Godwin's law, not John, Bill or Frodo's law. Laws about heroic roles reassigned to females in LOTR approaching one as time increases are amusing (sometimes), but they're not Godwin's law. In fact, they aren't really related to Godwin's law at all. Excepting very convincing reasons, I'll probably revert any law added unless:

It's related to Godwin's law
It's notable (a good rule of thumb is if someone you don't know has ever mentioned it)
It says something not already covered by the existing corollaries

--CXI 04:00, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

- I came to this page specifically looking for these purged corollaries. Where can I find them?

Perhaps we should have a new law that describes this desire to create new laws? --Freshraisin 00:32, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

I just saw this post on AppleInsider: http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=854035#post854035. Not exactly Nazi-related, but it had to be mentioned in the Talk at least. Sidney 06:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Please stop mangling this article

This used to be a good article, but someone has willy-nilly lopped out entire informative sections near the top (on totally bogus excuses, e.g. "removing unsourced 'alternative'" - the deleted pre-Godwin formulation was not only sourced, you can click right on the source and go look at it! WTF? The text that followed that counter-claimant was also informative.) Worse yet, someone has removed the traditional and canonical corollaries. Put them back. They have been distributed by Mike Godwin himself in his "official" copy of Godwin's law since ca. 1993, and properly belong with it. (Note: Not so with the "corollaries" people are randomly proposing elsewhere on this Talk page; these [aside from being too narrowly applicable in most cases] qualify as "original research" and don't belong in this article. --SMcCandlish 01:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding 'remove unsourced "alternatives,"' that edit has nothing to do with what you said it is here. Go back and look at the history.

If you want to add the corollaries back in, with a citation and link to Mike Godwin's '"official" copy of Godwin's law' that you claim they occurred in then I have no objection, although they seem to be a magnet for people to make stuff up. The incidence of this has significantly decreased since their removal. If there is no citation they may be deleted. --Grouse 09:46, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Dubious memetic terminology

As it's yet to be seen whether memetics is a proto-science or a pseudo-science shouldn't we be more cautious in using memetic terms in 'objective' articles? In a way, this validates memetics while it is truthfulness, and indeed, usefullness, is still being debated as we speak. On E-Philosopher's forum much discussion has been afforded to memetics, and at least one entire thread has been devoted to it [1]. I think we should refrain from using memetic terminology liberally throughout various articles which do not directly pertain to memetics. --Maprovonsha172 23:46, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While I myself don't find memes to be terribly interesting concepts (taken loosely they seem to just mean "ideas", taken too specifically and you have to start asking whether genetics is really a good model for "ideas" -- i.e. does one really have blind variation and selection, etc. -- which becomes very hard to judge sensibly since we don't have any way to empirically measure the metrics of "thought constructs"), Godwin himself uses the term meme and "memetic engineering" to talk about his "law"[2], so I don't think it's really beyond the pale to discuss it in those terms in this article. --Fastfission 23:49, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

That's an excellent link fission- proves the case for inclusion of memetic terminology conclusively. If that doesn't shut up Map, nothing will. I'm going to go add it to the article in case it isn't already there. --maru 00:02, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

The only thing the fact that Mike Godwin uses the word 'meme' proves is that Mike Godwin uses the word 'meme'. So what? As a matter of fact, perhaps that could provide a solution. Changing the article to say "what Godwin calls a meme" instead of just saying "meme" outright would remove any NPOV worries. I'll go ahead and do that.Maprovonsha172 01:14, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Does that satisfy everyone? I just changed "Finding the meme.." to "Finding what he called the 'meme'...". This fits perfectly with the sentence and doesn't change any of the original meaning. The next sentence goes on to explain that the term 'counter-meme' was expressly used by Godwin, so my putting apostrophes around meme in the sentence previously doesn't seem out of place in any way, nor does my qualification of Godwin's particular usage. --Maprovonsha172 01:20, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've slightly re-worded it to make me happy. Aside from being astounded you're back, I, at least, am satisfied. --maru 01:23, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good. That's fine with me.Maprovonsha172 01:44, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maprovonsha, I believe the use of quotation marks, together with the link, alerts the reader adequately to the provenance of the term. Properly, the debate about "memes" ought to go on in the "meme" entry and not be conducted here. It is unproblematic, from a historical standpoint, that the word "meme" was in use when Godwin's Law was created, and that it was created, if not as a "test" in the falsificationist sense, then at least as an attempt at proof of concept. (Whether one finds it convincing as such is another debate that could occur more properly in the "meme" entry rather than here.) Mike Godwin 10:38, 24 Jun 2005 [UTC]

What Godwin Thinks of Meddlesome Anti-"Memetics" Partisans

I came up with Godwin's Law as a deliberate experiment to see whether a meme could be intentionally propagated. This is documented, inter alia, in my Wired article on the subject.

Regardless of whether one believes in memetics or not, it is an undisputed fact that the theory of memetics was at the heart of the experiment. So it is ridiculous, in my view, to create a spurious NPOV dispute over an article that merely reported the undisputed fact that I was trying to test the theory of memetics when I wrote Godwin's Law.

--Mike Godwin, mnemonic {at} well.com

Hi Mike! Yeah, I'd say your facts outweigh a few opinions and attitudes on this one. Good seeing you here! <josh>, here known as jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 15:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, it never occurred to me that my little project (and its eventual Wikipedia entry) would run afoul of the anti-"memetics" Nazis. --Mike
- Is there a corollary that says it's not an instance of Godwin's Law if Godwin is involved? --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 01:57, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
- Probably there should be a corollary stating that the probability that any invocation by me of Nazis or Hitlers is ironic will approach one within, I dunno, milliseconds. --Mike

Yes, but I'm not sure Godwin's law 'tests' the theory of memetics. I don't mean to be an asshole about this (believe it or not) but the facts are important for an encyclopedia. In this and so many instances, the word 'meme' serves only as a metaphor for a more common and less impressive word (catch-phrase, image, concept, etc. take your pick).

P.S. Mike, I hope you're happy with the current revision, it appears everyone else is.Maprovonsha172 02:29, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

- I agree that the facts are important for an encyclopedia. It is a fact that I had a Whole Earth Review article about memes in mind when I crafted "Godwin's Law." Furthermore, it seems to me that you are conflating "fact" issues with usage issues. You may not approve of the usage of the word "meme," but your usage issues are not themselves a fact that requires revision of an entry that is historically documented. Note, however, that I have not quarreled with your introduction of quotation marks, other than to make them consistent with quotation-mark usage in the rest of the article. --Mike Godwin 10:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Warning: In my greatest act of Wikipedia arrogance to date I am about to challenge Mike Godwin on his edits to the page that bears his name (even though I only heard of the law last month).

Recently, I tried to establish some provenance for the law. This was fairly easy, but of course similar Usenet ideas had currency before its formulation as "Godwin's law". The name which recurred on my search was that of Rich Rosen, so I cited him as the earliest proponent of a similar law. Mike Godwin has removed these citations, even though he is still linking to the Godwin's law FAQ which makes the same claim. (In Appendix A: Rule#4.)

This dispute raises fundamental questions: Godwin has now reverted a version making heavy use of references to an earlier version based on an ipsedixitism: naturally, that is perfectly logical, because the law can be whatever he says it is, but is this a good use of the encyclopedia, or has it crossed the line into self-promotion? --Wragge 15:33, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Internet democracy Update

As a policy fellow for the Center for Democracy and Technology I am sure that Mike Godwin will be even more delighted than I am that Wikipedia's democratic tradition has reached the point at which even the originator of a law does not have special privileges in defining it. Another user has counter-reverted Mike Godwin's reversion of my changes made purely by appeal to authority.

Let me say here that I completely understand why Mike Godwin may have wanted to clean up my edit; frankly, my version isn't all that good, and extends the discussion beyond the law itself. Perhaps this is not appropriate, although by the time I made the first changes here the Anti-Defamation League and Neo Nazi discussion had already been included. I had not intended to introduce factual errors, which I may have done, I simply wanted to start the process of citing sources here, which had either been ignored in this article, or had been done through un-named http's.

I hope that User:Mikegodwin and others can contribute constructively to improve or move my additions. I believe that this can be done without reverting to a version having blind links ([3]) or other deviations from the Wikipedia:Cite sources guidelines. It must be a pain for him to have to cite sources on terms that he himself has coined, although it is possible that this was simply a test to see how Wikipedians would react. If Mike Godwin doesn't have the time to undo all of my mistakes, I think it would be preferable for him to explain the error here, or on my talk page (rather than reverting to a version with less standardized formatting): If this is done, I will endevour to promptly correct all of the errors that he points out, within the Wikipedia style guidelines.

Any thoughts?

Hurrah for cyber-democracy! --Wragge 18:10, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Wragge confuses the issue here when he complains (as he did earlier) about my "self-promotion." There is no "self-promotion" inherent in a knowledgeable person's correcting a historical record that, by all accounts, he was a witness to and participant in. You may be sure that my career is doing just fine regardless of what someone does to muddy up the record on a Wikipedia entry. But I can state for certain that there is absolutely no connection between Godwin's Law and Rich Rosen's writing, period. Moreover, while I respect Tim Skirvin's attempt to craft a Godwin's Law FAQ, I can't see how it can be cited as an authority to dispute a history that I not only know personally but also have documented in writing that precedes Skirvin's efforts.

This was once a perfectly fine entry, and one I could cite other folks to for a relatively clear explanation of the history of meaning and origin of Godwin's Law before the most recent efforts at uncritically incorporating every other conceivable claim to it. Wragge, I don't mind your contributing to the entry, and I don't care whether it "promotes" me or not, but I do mind when you introduce factual inaccuracy, as you have done here. Can't you just leave the old entry, which everyone thought was fine for quite a while, alone?

Texture, by the way, complains that it is inappropriate for someone who actually knows the facts about an entry to contribute to the entry. I don't see why that should be so. This is not a biographical entry about me, in any case. (And, by the way, I have corrected the occasional fact in the biographical entry about me -- what logical reason is there for me to leave an inaccuracy in a Wikipedia entry?) If you have doubts about the propriety of my doing this, about my own training as a writer and researcher, about my current work or past accomplishments, I can be reached at mnemonic at well.com, or at 202-236-3448.

By the way, if I were really self-promoting, wouldn't I have included a link to my book on Amazon?

The giveaway here, of course, is that there are citations to a document by Rich Rosen that *nobody has*. No reputable encyclopedia would recraft an entry to include a citation to a nonexistent document.

The self-promotion is obvious. You are removing references that give (some amount) of credit for this law to another. With an obvious conflict of interest on your part what makes us believe you aren't removing entries detrimental to your own interest? The concept of the object of an article editing in Wikipedia is not new and always results in keeping that individual from contributing to articles in conflict. --Tεx τ urε 18:26, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Texture, *doesn't it matter to you that it is not factually accurate* and furthermore that it is *not documented*?

You're protecting a massive Wikipedia revision that is done by a guy who self-professedly hadn't heard of Godwin's Law until a month ago.

I know that you may have contempt for someone who actually *knows something* contributing to a Wikipedia entry, but surely you can allow it in this instance.

Mr. Godwin, do you think that getting upset makes your argument for you? Instead it clearly shows that you have an emotional investment in this article about you. It is inappropriate for you to contribute and likely to be biased in your direction (as in this case). If an encyclopedia publisher were to make a story on you or your law, would they ask you to write it? Even if you had written other unrelated articles? No. They would ask an uninvolved third party to interview you and research the issues. Please do not make edits based on your emotional involvement. - Tεx τ urε 18:46, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that Mike Godwin has a legitimate reason to be upset - and for this I sincerely apologize, as I have effectively accused him of having a "conflict of interest" and trying to gain from editing Wikipedia. This was a serious error on my part, and should not be used as a reason to stop his valuable contributions. --Wragge 18:54, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Texture, you have created a conceptual scheme in your head that doesn't allow me to correct something I know to be incorrect, simply because I happen to have first-hand knowledge. Moreover, you have decided that if I express irritation with the illogic of your position, that in itself disqualifies me from correcting false statements of fact. Is there anything in your mindset that *would* allow me to correct the record? Or is this Catch-22 all over again? I note, by the way, that your personal criticism of me for my removing the spurious Rich Rosen connection (asserted more strongly here than it is elsewhere, by the way) falls apart when you consider that I haven't touched the reference to Richard Sexton's Usenet posting. As any good encyclopedist could explain to you, the Sexton reference should stay because it's *documented*. The Rich Rosen reference should be deleted because it is *undocumented* by any primary source. I know historiography is a tricky subject for some, but it seems to me that you should give historiographic principles some attention before asserting, wildly and illogically, that the person who actually originated Godwin's Law cannot be trusted to provide any facts about its origin.

Wragge, I ask you politely -- please restore the entry on Godwin's Law to its status quo ante. I respect and appreciate your enthusiasm for trying to improve things, but you have actually harmed rather than helped this entry in two ways. First, you have introduced factually inaccurate information to an entry that has mostly been accurate through most of its existence. (I'm not just talking about the Rich Rosen stuff, although that is a remarkably prominent example.) Second, the addition of countless footnotes to what was once a pretty clean entry makes the entry less accessible to ordinary readers and, for that reason, less linkable.

Style against substance

It goes without saying that User:mikegodwin is the authority here, but I don't think he can argue against reformatting the article to conform to Wikipedia guidelines. My additions of fact are relatively minor, and should be removed without comment if wrong, but the layout is (closer to) the recommended standard. Can we please keep this, even if all the facts are thrown out?

Sorry for using the term "conflict of interest", what I meant to say was "appeal to authority". As Mike Godwin admits, he is asking for the rules against unsupported assertions to be bent; there is no need for the rules to bend, we can let everyone make the necessary edits and if Mike Godwin cites a fact from memory simply credit that to him in the article (as I have done in the second footnote). --Wragge 18:54, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Not Bending the Rules

Wragge, listen -- I'm actually arguing that unsupported assertions be *excluded* from this entry. The Rich Rosen thing is unsupported. There is no primary source for it. The Richard Sexton claim, in contrast, *is supported*. That's why it should stay in.

You asserted (without support, by the way) that this is just an instance of my citing facts from memory. This shows, I think, your unfamiliarity with this entry. The citations for what I am saying were already in the entry, from the Wired article to an early Usenet posting. Indeed, they were *easy to find* until you set out to make this entry your own property. To me, the tragedy is that this entry was once really useful, and now it's filled with every rumor someone can cull from Usenet. You're doing much to undermine my faith in Wikipedia, whose virtues I have extolled elsewhere.

By the way, it's not an appeal to authority to actually cite an authority. I just happen to be in the uncomfortable position of being an actual authority regarding the subject matter of this entry. "Appeal to authority" is a term of art for a logical fallacy. Citation to primary authority, in contrast, is the cornerstone of historiography.

"Popularize" not pre-date

Thanks for clearing up some points, Mike Godwin - I'm glad you don't want to bend the rules, and I agree with everything you say about documentation.

I think the "dispute" added by another user may have confused the claims - I think my edit credited Tim Skirvin's (FAQ) with saying that Rosen "popularized" Godwin's Law. The wording I referenced was:

"...the "Godwin's" part seems to stem from "Rich Rosen's Rules of Net.Debate"

This is an extremely well-documented claim (in the sense of being all over Usenet archives).

He is not saying that Rosen developed the rule, but that he compiled it and attached your name. Since other rules are named for their originators, this seems to back up your claims to developing the idea behind the law, rather than contradict them.

I'm not entirely clear why you say this isn't 'documented' - it's a secondary source for the Rules of Net.Debate, but a primary source on Skirvin's opinion - which you yourself approve of linking to.

Rosen didn't "compile" the Law and attach my name. As I document in "Meme, Counter-Meme," and elsewhere, *I* called it "Godwin's Rule" or "Godwin's Law" so I could track it. In any case, there is no "Rich Rosen's Rules of Net.Debate" that is available for citation. Have you actually read my Wired article? It seems to me that you're misreading what Skirvin says, in any case.

I think it is a mistake to say "well-documented" and then justify that term "in the sense of being all over Usenet archives." Lots of myths are all over Usenet -- that doesn't make them true, especially given the habit of glomming text and reposting it elsewhere. Indeed, "Meme, Counter-Meme" can be said to address this phenomenon.

I don't mind citing to Skirvin's FAQ, even though it is wrong, because lots of people will see the FAQ anyway. But Wikipedia should aim for a higher standard. Incorporating unsubstantiated claims from Skirvin's FAQ *decreases* Wikipedia's accuracy. Wouldn't you rather *increase* Wikipedia's accuracy? --Mike

The thing in Skirvin's FAQ is not actually written by Skirvin. It is a quotation from the net.legends FAQ, which makes its appearance in Google Groups in 1995, although it clearlyexisted before that point. The FAQ author (David DeLaney) only says that he thinks he might have heard about it from Rich Rosen's Rules of Net.Debate, and does not make any statements about said rules having popularized it for the rest of Usenet. If you do a Google Groups search for <rosen "rules of net debate"> before 1 Mar 1995 you find 9 articles. After this point the quotations of the net.legends FAQ start to take over. If you do a search of <godwin's (law OR rule)> you find more than 400. It was clearly already in somewhat popular usage at that point. In fact I would say it is more accurate to say that Godwin's Law popularized Rich Rosen's non-extant Rules of Net.Debate more than the other way around. Clearly very few people would have heard of these rules had the net.legends FAQ not conflated them with Godwin's Law. On the evidence before me, I don't think it is accurate to say that Rich Rosen popularized these rules, and if anyone has stronger evidence that he did, they need to cite it. --Grouse 21:32, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for demonstrating what real critical research looks like, grouse. --Mike

Hi- I would have liked to cite more reliable sources than having to "screen scrape" (which is effectively what I did) - but there are few reliable source to go on (beyond your interesting article, which I did read). Therefore, I resorted to citing examples I found through google - in the format suggested by Wikipedia:WikiProject_Fact_and_Reference_Check#How to reference. The excellent scholarship of Grouse is wasted here on the talk page, as is the claim by Mike Godwin that the reason he named the law for himself is that he wanted to track it. (That reason is very interesting, but it not actually given in the version of Meme, Counter-meme that you link to opposite.) Anyway, I think this information should be on the other page, don't you?

Consider this: as a new-comer to the rule, I am much more typical of the readership than you (Mike Godwin). Although it is fine for you to view the article without citations (because you know its claims to be true) and point it out to your friends (who trust you) the average Wikipedian fact checker has no such luxury. There are presently no citations for the following (interesting) claims:

- That "One common objection to the invocation of Godwin's law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is a perfectly apt way of making a point".
- "Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate semantic impact"
- "It is also interesting that, among Nazis, a "reverse Godwin's law" exists where, as an argument devolves into a flame war, there is an increasingly greater probability that one or the other side will invoke a comparison to Jews as an insult, much the same as a comparison to Hitler or Nazis is regularly an insulting one"

I have read through the various external links now given in the page (even jurisimprudence!) and none of them touch on the above, so (as a new-comer) I am forced to rely on the claims of Wikipedia as to their veracity.

As you know, unsupported claims are often considered the achilles heel of this resource. (By the way, one of the links is down at the moment - to the eff.org - perhaps details are available here). Admittedly, these claims might be covered in archived pages on the Godwin's Law blog - but we should link to these directly shouldn't we?

I am pretty sure that "cite your sources is a good rule; even if everything here is true, I would appreciate your help (or User:Grouses who has contributed above) in verifying these claims.

Additionally (not claimed in the article but suggested above) the definition of valid provenance for a corollary is that it was issued by someone known by Mike Godwin or approved by him. Some of these are mentioned in his articles - but not Fuzzy's law, etc. Also, this definition of provenance should be given, shouldn't it? Cheers, Wragge 22:44, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

Essence of Historiography

First of all, not all corollaries came from people approved by me or known by me. But they were in existence early on (a dozen years or so ago, say), and net.culture at that time knew about them. So I don't object to their being cited here. (A reading of Van der Leun's RULES OF THE NET -- a paperback book -- may be helpful here, since it goes beyond what you can find via Google.)

Secondly, if your position is that you should *subtract* claims about Godwin's Law that cannot be documented by reliable sources, I can hardly disagree. My problem is that your substantial revisions *add* claims about Godwin's Law that *can't* be documented by reliable sources. One of the signs of the problem here is what Grouse demonstrates -- that sheerly as a matter of statistical probability, it's more likely that the prevalence of Godwin's Law predates any prevalence of the mythical "Rosen's Rule of Net Debate."

Third, it really, really matters if you can trouble yourself to read up on historiography, which is a discipline aimed at making critical judgments when writing history. Otherwise, you make yourself a victim of rumor and conjecture.

--Mike

Questions on expanding the argument elsewhere

A common theme in Wikipedia is that articles are expanded beyond their immediate applications. Normally, this is fine, because, when the new material (ad Hitlerum attacks outside Usenet) threatens to overwhelm the original topic it can be moved to a daughter article. I appreciate that Mike Godwin (and other editors) do not want these subjects mentioned here. I can easily move these items myself at some later time, but (for my understanding) what is the concencus on:

Why the ADL link is acceptable - this is not related to Usenet is it?
Is the Neo Nazi section specific to Nazi discussion on Usenet? If so Why?
Why my additions were reverted rather than moved; is there a good article for them to be moved to at the moment, or will there need to be something new on "non-usenet comparisons to Hitler"?

Thanks for reading, and maybe making me a better editor - I wouldn't want to shatter Mike Godwin's faith in the system - Wragge 22:44, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

By the way, I think Rich Rosen does exist (some say there are many of him, and he's published a book).

Style

I am surprised that you want to keep the unnamed-links, I'm pretty sure that this is against Wikipedia guidelines, although I understand the preference to remove the plethora of footnotes. Are you sure that no formatting links would be an improvement, or that citing examples outside of Usenet is irrelevant? Cheers, Wragge 20:20, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

I don't think the earlier incarnations of the entry violated Wikipedia guidelines. I'm not saying that citing examples outside of Usenet is irrelevant -- only that *some critical judgment* should be applied to what to include, and that the "External Links" place is where you ought to list extraneous stuff, if at all. I note that you have been studying Godwin's Law and its history and culture for a month. It's something I've been studying for 15 years (the phenomenon of Godwin's Law long ago escaped my control, and it is only to preserve history that I even engage in this discussion here), that I first summarized 11 years ago, and that has taken on a life of its own since. (I give a further account of it in my book, CYBER RIGHTS, copyright 1998, 2003.)

Like many cultural phenomena, Godwin's Law has the capability of generating a certain mythology. Historiographers should not merely repeat every myth, however, but instead should do research that penetrates to the facts behind the myth. Imagine what the Encyclopedia Britannica would be like if every entry included every false idea about the subject matter in question. You should be asking yourself, before you screen-scrape some meme that has circulated around Usenet and the Web, how it is that you know it is true. I have the small advantage that I was actually there, but even so I make a point of citing to reliable sources where possible. By the same token, I make a point of excluding unreliable sources. That's why Sexton (and Van der Leun, and others) ought to stay in the entry (they actually knew me when I was creating and spreading the meme "Godwin's Law"), and why Rich Rosen (no connection to me, never spoke to me, and his materials, if they ever existed, cannot be found now) should be excluded. Frankly, I don't even have evidence that "Rich Rosen" ever existed. It's as if someone were to insert the Easter Bunny into your family tree. (Texture may show up here and say I'm too emotionally involved in the question of whether I'm related to the Easter Bunny to comment -- that will be fun.) --Mike

Just to clear things up:

Hi Mike. This is Rich Rosen. I do exist. Reports of my non-existence have been greatly exaggerated—perhaps most vociferously by those who wish I didn't, but indeed I do exist, and could probably prove this in a non-rigorous fashion if required.
The "Rules of Net.Debate" also do exist. A transcript (because that's all that's left) can be found here. Yes, in a fascinating display of incompleteness, Google's archives show all the followups to this article but not the original article. Conspiracy theories regarding this can and should be routed to the appropriate place. However, the statement that "it's more likely that the prevalence of Godwin's Law predates any prevalence of the mythical (sic) Rosen's Rules of Net Debate" is proven to be incorrect simply by subtracting 1984 from 1990 and obtaining a positive number as a result.
I thought I'd read someone mentioning "Rule #4" in my list; you will note in reading this transcript that there was no Rule #4. All the rules were marked Rule #1. Perhaps I thought that was funny at the time, perhaps this was an inversion on an old Monty Python joke, or perhaps this was a comment on how these "rules" were all equally important. Quizás quizás quizás. This was 1984 we're talking about. I'm lucky I remember what happened ten minutes ago.
More importantly to this discussion, you will note in reading this transcript that there is no mention of Mike Godwin, his law (at least in part because it hadn't been concocted yet), Richard Sexton, his axiom (ditto), Nazis, Hitler, or anything/anyone else in particular. These were general descriptive statements about how Usenet discussions often went, as I think Godwin's and Sexton's comments were also intended.

Maybe I was the first to "codify" and compile such a list in an online forum, but naturally this was never intended to be a comprehensive proscriptive canon for online behavior. Perhaps this led some people later on to make a connection between my compilation and Godwin's Law, retroactively associating the two.

In any case, the citation correlating my list and Mike's law is ubiquitous on the web, as that same text from the Net.Legends FAQ (agreed, the author probably erroneously recalled an association) is reproduced everywhere—just like Howard Rheingold's comment that "You can simply choose to not see any postings from Rich Rosen" as an example (in an article he wrote) of how killfiles work. So it goes.

The bottom line is, I posted my "rules" in 1984, and was long gone from Usenet as a prominent participant by the time Mike first proposed Godwin's law. It existed independently of my set of "rules" and has no association with it other than the erroneous citation that there is an association between them… which sort of forms an association between them, I guess, at some meta-memetic level.

(It seems to me that the persistent persistence of any "myths" about such associations are worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedic entry on a subject, if only to say "X is frequently erroneously associated with Y owing to...", but perhaps that's just my opinion and a step backwards on the road to the egoless memeticism we should all aspire to.)

The thing I find disturbing in all of this is Mike's overzealous eagerness to disassociate and distance himself and his law from the name of Rich Rosen, to the point of asserting that I don't even exist. Is my reputation that awful, Mike, that you would vote me out of existence just to avoid being associated with me? Or is "I don't even have evidence that 'Rich Rosen' ever existed" (with quotes around my name and everything!) supposed to be the countermeme to "We are ALL Rich Rosen"? :-)

No matter, the point may be that if you look hard enough on the Internet for a connection between two unrelated things, you will find it.

Anyone calling this Rosen's Law should be summarily shot.

Rich Rosen 02:39, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

PS to Mike: The Easter Bunny called, and asked if you plan to come this year to the family reunion.

Dear Rich,

I'm entirely pleased to find that you (seem to) exist after all, and vociferousness in countering the anti-historical claims that Godwin's Law was somehow derivative of the Rules of Net Debate should not be taken as any evidence of anti-Rosen sentiment. I would be similarly zealous (although not, I think, overzealous) in challenging someone's counterfactual claim that (say) I was the illegitimate son of John F. Kennedy -- even though I *like* JFK.

--Mike

Never let lawyers steal your best jokes. Where's my royalty checks?

199.246.2.9 18:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)Richard Sexton ("We are all Rich Rosen")

A quick note. It bugs me that in the title "Godwin" is capitalized, but not "Law." I don't know how to change this, but it begs attention.

- Aaron

Confusion of Godwin's law with its traditional interpretation?

Hi,

This is a pretty cool page, congratulations to those who have developed it and fought the bloat (and to Godwin for the law). However, I think the definition could be refined slightly...

The first two sections go to some lengths to point out that "Godwin's law" was originally a prediction rather than an injunction, but the third section starts like this:

One common objection to Godwin's law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is a perfectly apt way of making a point.

If "Godwin's law" is a prediction then the above cannot be an "objection" to it. On the contrary, the genuine need to envoke a a certain group, would be a good reason for believing in Godwin's prediction.

Admittedly, the objection might be common and in error, but it seems as though Wikipedia is confused here. Is Godwin's law only the prediction that Reich-mentioning probability converges to one, or is it also a meme or set of rules designed to deter thoughtless use of a certain group in debate?

The introduction says:

Many people understand Godwin's law to mean [the] tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over

Is that what Wikipedia understands it to be? The article says that: "Strictly speaking":

Godwin's law does not state that such a reference or comparison makes a discussion "old," or, for that matter, that such a reference or comparison means that a discussion is over.

Is that the definition which we should use here, or the colloquial form? This page can be descriptive, or prescriptive, but if both are included the first usage should be distinguished from the second when "Godwin's law" is used elsewhere in the article. --Wragge 16:20, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

Emotional involvement

Mr. Godwin, your emotional involvement becomes an issue with your edits. You are making edits that are actually only your own claims. The claims of others have every right to be included. The very fact that you are disputing these claims becomes part of encyclopedic history of this law. (Along with the fact that you chose to become a Wikipedia contributor. Welcome.) Your outbursts on this discussion page only emphasize that you are only working in your own best interest and not in the interest of neutral fact. --Tεx τ urε 18:55, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I haven't read Godwin's edits, but after reading what he's written on this talk page, I don't get the impression that he is being at all unreasonable, and I don't interpret anything he's written as an "outburst". --Saforrest July 7, 2005 18:40 (UTC)

Strange conceptual scheme

First of all, mere emotions do not preclude accuracy. Indeed, emotional commitment to the truth may result in *increased accuracy*.

Second, you seem to be missing the point. The Rich Rosen claim is not documentable. (By contrast, the Richard Sexton claim *is* documentable.) The principle you articulate, supra, is one that says no rumor or spurious assertion can be corrected if one has the least feeling about it. Are you familiar with history, Texture? Did you know that in fact history moves people emotionally? That historians write about stuff, and strive to document it, because they are emotionally invested in it? Is this news to you?

The rule you're creating here is one that says that any falsehood must never be corrected if you actually *care* that it was false. That may work on Planet Vulcan, but here on Earth it is not how history is done.

So - ultimately I think what the above user is trying to say is that Texture is committing the motive fallacy; that is, (s)he argues that since Mr Godwin has a personal or emotional interest in putting forward the arguments he has, his arguments must therefore be false. This is, of course, a serious logical error. Just because someone could stand to benefit from arguing a certain case does not nullify their argument. -- ophelia_in_red, 20 July 2005 09:01

Examples of Godwin's law

This article by John Leo seems to allude to the Usenet tradition. Leo implies that since his opponents brought up a certain group, therefore their arguments are invalid.

More confusion about the ad hominem

On the article for Jacques Derrida there is currently an edit war over an impropoer use of the argumentum ad hominem. People don't seem to know what it means (just as Sokal showed that postmodernists don't understand the scientific terminology they use). The logical fallacy argumentum ad hominem is an illegitamate use of a personal attack in an argument. If an argument containing a personal attack doesn't follow, it's the logical fallacy. If there is no argument (it would just be an insult), or if the argument containing the ad hominem follows, it isn't the logical fallacy of the argumentum ad hominem because it is a legitimate use of a personal attack. Therefore, when this article says that breaking Godwin's Law is both a appeal to the emotions, and a illegitimate ad hominem attack (implying it's illegitimate by calling it a logical fallacy) it's more than a little misleading. Just as the ad hominem (which only means, "against the person") is not always fallacious, the appeal to emotions may sometimes be justified. Someone that is like the Nazis should evoke an emotional response, if indeed they are like the Nazis. Likewise, if someone is like the Nazis we should act against them assuming that they are. The issue, then, is whether someone is or isn't like the Nazis which depends on the situation. Making a law against the possibility of putting that to question only narrows discourse and eliminates the possibility of seeing if there is any validity to the accusation (on which the legitimacy of the arguments depend). Calling them logical fallacies implies that they are wrong, and since they may be right calling them fallacies is just wrong. --Maprovonsha172 14:43, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, argumentum ad hominem does not necessarily refer to making a personal attack that is unjustified. It refers to a logical fallacy wherein the detractor attacks the person making the argument rather than attacking the argument. To stay vaguely on the topic of Nazis (this is the Godwin's Law talk page!)--Mussolini argued in favor of standardizing train service. Mussolini was a fascist dictator. Therefore, train service should not be standardized. This would be an argument ad hominem. More generally, to borrow from the article on Wiki about said fallacy... "John Doe is arguing in favor of position A. There is something objectionable about John Doe. Therefore, position A is false." This would be a fallacious argument due to argumentum ad hominem. --68.207.198.30 21:22, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and allow me to clarify why it's considered "bad form" to break Godwin's law and make a Nazi comparison--people do it way too much. Especially on Internet message forums. If an argument degenerates into a flame war, someone is going to get compared to the Nazis or Hitler--and 99% of the time, it's a completely ridiculous comparison.

"Miller Lite has more taste than Bud Lite, and is less filling!"

"I'm sure Hitler would agree with you!"

Additionally, people tend to fall back upon this argument (otherwise known colloquially as reductio ad hitlerum) when they have nothing logical or productive remaining to contribute to the argument. We've seen this in American politics more and more lately, from both "sides of the aisle," and it's a bad tactic no matter which side uses it.

In general though, the idea is that you shouldn't really compare someone to Hitler unless that particular someone has killed 8 million people and started a world war. --68.207.198.30 02:29, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

You should really sign up if you're going to talk on these talk pages. Regardless, you say:

"Actually, argumentum ad hominem does not necessarily refer to making a personal attack that is unjustified. It refers to a logical fallacy wherein the detractor attacks the person making the argument rather than attacking the argument."

It does refer to both of those things. It's a logical fallacy wherein someone irrelevantly attacks the person making the argument rather than the argument. Irrelevant is the key word, because an an argumentum ad hominem refers to making a personal attack that is unjustified. It's not true, as you imply, that all personal attacks are wrong. There are relevant ad hominems that are not fallacious. Consider the following:

P1. Susy is a infanticidal maniac.

P2. Susy wants to babysit my children.

C. I shouldn't let Susy babsit my children.

It follows perfectly. That's a relevant ad hominem, and it's not a logical fallacy.

Likewise, there may be cases (and I think Mike Godwin has even said this) where making a comparison to Nazis or Hitler is justifed. However, you say this:

The idea is that you shouldn't really compare someone to Hitler unless that particular someone has killed 8 million people and started a world war.

I don't think that's a good idea at all. Let's be a bit more preventive. If the government starts lining up dissidents and shooting them, we would be justifed in saying, "teams of special forces are killing New Yorkers in the way S.S. hit squads operated." If that were the case such a comparison would be totally valid.

Maprovonsha172 23:01, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

just like to point out about the babysitter example, it is a logical fallacy, but comfort with one's babysitter isn't about logic, it's about being emotionally overprotective in an effort to forestall worry. i'm currently on a jag fixing the logical fallacy pages because someone has managed to allow many of them to have this same sort of problem; the fact that you can find reasons to ignore the illogical does not make it logical, it merely moots it. 216.237.179.238 00:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

So I'm removing the claim in the article that the emotional appeal and ad hominems are "classic examples of logical fallacies," because they appear to be legitamate, and only the illegitamate uses are considered fallacious.

See ad hominem explained at The Fallacy Files

See emotional appeal explained at The Fallacy Files

For example, imagine a Jewish family with enough money to leave Germany before the Holocaust. Only one of them wants to leave. He trys to convince the rest by saying, "the Nazis are going to kill us all. They're going to make the pograms look like nothing." Now, what if one of the others would have said, "like the pograms, you can't compare these people to the people that did the pograms. That's an appeal to the emotions, a classic logical fallacy."

Obviously, the second person mistook that legitimate appeal to the emotions as an illegitamate one, a relevant one for a fallacious one.

And so the comparison of people or events to Nazis and the Holocaust isn't necessarily (even if usually) irrelevant and merely inflammatory. There are times when it could be perfectly relevant to invoke Hitler and the Nazis, in which case such ad hominems and appeals to authority would not be fallacious, but logical and warranted. Maprovonsha172 16:16, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Some Political Commentary popping up in the Corrolaries.

Looks like people are continuing to add in some corrolaries in order to make a political point. (Saw a few different cases in the history) We might want to keep an eye on that. --Wahooker 15:00, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Corollary Suggestion: Sharon's Paradox

The first person to accuse the counter-argument of anti-Semitism, concedes the thread.

Amusing- but how is it a paradox? --Maru 7 July 2005 19:14 (UTC)

Corollary: Frink's

Relevancy is non-redundant if you consider Newman's a corollary with the pro and the con and the internal faction fights a relevant corollary to Godwin's law.

Case's Corollary

If the subject is Heinlein or homosexuality, the probability of a Hitler/Nazi comparison being made becomes equal to 1 (i.e. certainty)

Just a comment: Heinlein and Hitler shared the same base personality type (probably very similar on minor variations as well). 24.22.227.53 07:56, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

MFH's Law

The likelihood that someone will mention MFH(56)'s Slashdot account being purchased on Ebay approaches 100% as the moderation of MFH(56)'s comments increase.

Van Vliet's Abstraction

All email discussions/debates necessarily move toward extremism to an effort to reach final n-th abstraction; in Van Vliet's Abstraction specifically, email discussions/debates end when a picture of a demon baby is sent as a point in and of itself.

eh

The probability that ANY particular topic may come up in any particular thread approaches one as time passes-- is this supposed to be interesting?

Of course.. any such "law" is completely unfalsifiable; one could point to a billion post thread with no mention of Nazis (or whatever else) and I'm sure the response would be "The probability is merely approaching one-- it simply hasn't reached it yet."

Agreed. Substitute immature sexual references for Nazi or Hitler references and the increased probability would be so bleeding obvious that we'd call it common sense and not a law. Robert John Kaper 13:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Rehm's Corollary

If Godwin's law is mentioned and disputed, the probability of the law itself or the person who mentions it being compared to Hitler/Nazis/Naziism nears 1.

Knell's Corollary (Bush and Guantanamo)

This one occurred to me earlier following a breathtaking derailment of a discussion on spam filtering, and I think it's a valid corollary:

For the purposes of the Law, references to the activities of the Bush Administration, or to Guantanamo Bay, may be substituted for references to Nazis or Hitler. --Mpk 10:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

To avoid the prohibition on original research, I think there should be more evidence that it's actually in use before it warrants a mention in WP. —Cleared as filed. 11:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why I didn't just plunk it into the page. --Mpk 11:57, 16

November 2005 (UTC)

How about a reference to the KKK version of Godwin's law? Perhaps the KKK corollary?

para following Sexton quote is wrong

I just looked at Richard Sexton's quote (btw, we are all Rich Rosen, in case anyone's been wondering when that would come up), and in fact it is a precise analogue to Godwin's law. The term "old" means "large number of posts" in this context (an ongoing Usenet thread). The claim "probability of a comparison approaches 1" is tightly correlative with "you can tell that...when". Godwin's formulation is more mathematical in its vocabulary, but logically they state the same thing. Therefore, I propose to remove most of the paragraph following the quote; and, to restate the meme that the most common usage of Godwin's law is "you have mentioned Hitler; this thread is now over", in some other spot in the article. Anyone got any objections? 216.237.179.238 19:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, in this case I would assume that "old" means "worn out" or "repetitive" rather than "has a large number of posts". This is often the case in the English colloquialism "x is getting old", also sometimes seen as "x is getting real old". If this needs clearer delineation in the next paragraph, feel free to add it (or I will, if you prefer). CXI 06:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

disagree - On Usenet, tedium is a given (any more). How long it lasts determines how old a thread is. 216.237.179.238 00:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not following, sorry. Are you saying that you think thread length is equivalent to repetitiveness on usenet? If that's the case, then it's a valid opinion... but I'm not really sure how it applies regarding the author's original intention. CXI 18:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm saying that Sexton and Godwin say exactly the same thing: long arguments expand the realm of relevance to include almost any topic, not least one that is guaranteed to get everyone's attention and/or goat (i.e., Hitler). long arguments do, also, tend to become circular, but I don't think either Sexton or Godwin is limiting interpretation to that condition. thus they are equivalent statements and the distinction drawn between them in the paragraph in this article is not true. however, the phrase "this thread is now over" is very commonly used in reference to Godwin's law, and deserves mention in the article. --216.237.179.238 20:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who believes in a pretty solid distinction between what Richard Sexton posted and what I was trying to identify, I'd prefer that you leave the paragraph in question as it is. "Godwin's Law" was not meant to be a judgment as to whether a discussion is "old" or "over." Its function is actually pretty clearly outlined in the Wired article listed with the external links. --Mike Godwin

well, "long arguments [...] include almost any topic, not least [...] Hitler" sounds like a decent description of Godwin's Law, but the distinction here is between "long arguments" and "repetitive/worn out arguments", which I feel was our original point of disagreement, so I'm not sure if we're moving anywhere here. CXI 12:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

CXI, I refer you again to the Wired article "Meme, Counter-Meme." (It's listed among the external links.) The memetic function of Godwin's Law is only tangentially about long arguments. Indeed, the "long arguments" mutation of Godwin's Law has long been tolerated and even encouraged because most users intuitively get that this version functions memetically just as well as the original version does. --Mike Godwin

Then I'm just going to say that you don't know what your own law says, Mike (if that's really you; I know i'm really me, at least). Because it's a restatement of the Law of large numbers (fourth para) for memetic probability...and so is Richard's... I mean, I know what your point in posting it was, but you don't know what it says if you don't think that it says what I think it says... On a consensus basis, and a go-ahead-ruin-it-it's-your-opus basis, I'm going to leave this article alone from now on. But I do so amused and wistful. --216.237.179.238 19:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC

Mike, that's why I said it was a decent description, if not a perfect one. The point was that it related hitler references to thread length as opposed to thread repetitivity or such.

216.237.179.238: While we don't seem to be seeing eye-to-eye on this, it was never my (and I doubt Mike's) intention to chase editors away. I hope you stick around if there's any other stuff you can add - or if you can source the opinion that Sexton and Godwin's laws are the same, it'd be nice to add that. CXI 22:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, User 216.... Yes, I'm familiar with the Law of Large Numbers. No, Godwin's Law is not a restatement of Richard Sexton's observation. (To reach that conclusion, you have to find ways of interpreting the words "old" and "over" to mean something other than "old" and "over." Nor is that the only transmutational problem raised by equating the two.) No, I don't think I can accept the statement that I don't know what Godwin's Law says. Having thought about it for 15 years, and having written the canonical article about Godwin's Law more than a decade ago, I hope it does not seem to be overreaching to say I think I can evaluate claims about what Godwin's Law means pretty well. --Mike Godwin

Why is there a counter counter argument in the counter argument section?

Some would argue, however, that Godwin's Law applies especially to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotion as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared, both of which are fallacious in irrelevant contexts. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a valid comparison to anything besides other despotic dictators. Thus, Godwin's law holds even in making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be a reasonable comparison.

I think the above paragraph is inappropriately placed, shouldn't we move it? As a side note, another interpretation of Goodwin's law is that it decreases the chances people will consider the possibility the internet (and elsewhere) is rampant with a "nazi-esque" level of propaganda and/or be less likely to investigate or take seriously any theory that alleges something even remotely "sinister", but that interpretation could be wrong. zen master T 20:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Note: I retitled that section to "Debate and controversy" though it may still need cleaning up. zen master T 23:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Page move!

As per Aaron's comment, I've moved Godwin's law to Godwin's Law. This is the way it seems to appear in all the external links and the article itself, so I figured I'd go ahead and switch it over. I've also corrected all the external links pointing to the old page and stray internal references to the wrong capitalisation. I've left the quotes in the "other laws and corollaries" section alone, though, as I'm not entirely sure whether they should be changed or not. CXI 22:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that was a great and needed fix, CXI. Mike Godwin

Duvall's Corollary

Duvall's Corollary:

The longer a political thread goes on without reference to Hitler or the Nazis, the probability of the mention of Stalin approaches 1.

Stalin is now Hitler's stand-in, for those too smart to be tripped up by a Godwin's infraction. Stalin is used in place of Hitler, although there were some political differences between the two, for the sake of political discussion Stalin is too often used (much like Hitler) as a caricature of evil despotism, rather than used as an example of a specific action.

Since Stalin is, when used in this way, nothing more than a stand-in for Hitler, reference to Stalin or Stalinsim should be counted as a Godwin's violation if the parallel drawn does not specifically refer to an act unique to Stalin.

An erroneous note?

I had a glance at the article, and thought the following note a bit odd:

"Godwin's Law is not meant to describe situations in which Hitler or Nazis could reasonably be expected to be mentioned, such as a discussion of Germany in World War II."

Given that the exact definition of Godwin's law is that Hitler or the Nazi party becomes more likely to be mentioned as a discussion continues, one would expect that these would be the discussions in which the probability approached one most rapidly. Presumably the author of this note intended to refer to the tradition of ending a thread once they are mentioned, but (as is noted in the introduction) since this is not actually part of the law, this note probably either needs to be edited for clarity or removed.

Of course, being new to this whole editing business, I figured I'd check other people's opinions before hacking away at it myself. Thoughts?

ZombieWomble 13:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I see your point and will do some touch-up on the wording. --BRossow 20:19, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Reducto ad Hitlerum article appears to be somewhat broken (not rendering in Firefox)

I know this isn't Godwin's Law but this article links to that article. But on that article and, from what I've seen, that article only, the article's actual content pops up for a split second before the only thing shown is then the background image. It seems to be a corrupt article (even getting the Edit link from the article page's HTML source and using that, it's still a blank page showing nothing but Wikipedia's background image). I've no idea what to do here, so I'll just give a heads up and hope an admin sees this.

Also, I just checked something, and appears fine in Konqueror and not Firefox (1.0.6). It's still peculiar, since that's the only article doing it. --I am not good at running 03:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The page in question renders perfectly fine in Firefox 1.5 (Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5) for me. --BRossow 04:04, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Gramatical error in title

Should'nt the name be Godwins Law, without the apostrophe? Pyramide 12:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

No. The guy's name is "Godwin." --Grouse 14:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

And if his name was Godwins, the title would be Godwins' Law or even Godwins's Law. --BRossow 14:38, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, NO, though based on your own entry I'm wondering if this is a joke. Gramatical ... should'nt ... unnecessary comma ... Aargh! --BRossow 14:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not a joke. I do not speak enlish as my first language, and therefore I might make errors when writing in a hurry. When the letter S i placed after a noun it is called genitive. when there is an apostrophe between teh noun and the S, the apostrophe is used in stead of an vocal. Eksample: Godwin's Law actually means Godwin is law. Pyramide 16:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know you weren't a native English speaker, so no disrespect intended in my previous comment. In English, the -'s is an enclitic, in this case showing that Godwin's Law belongs to or came from Godwin. Without the apostrophe, adding -s to the end of a noun in English makes the noun plural. The only exception is the possessive its, as in The dog grabbed its bone and ran away. (The word it's is a contraction of it is.) --BRossow 20:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

With no disrespect intended, given the many mechanical mistakes in your own contributions to this discussion, and your lack of experience with the English language, I don't think that pointing out what you think are grammatical errors in the English Wikipedia is the best way for you to make a contribution here.--Grouse 15:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Hayes' Corollary

Doesn't originate with me, but I thought it appropriate.

"In situations where a valid comparison to Nazism can in fact be made, the validity of the comparison is directly proportional to the likelihood that Godwin's Law will be invoked in an attempt to invalidate it." - Randal Hayes Jr. 206.114.20.121 16:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Godwin's Law inherently flawed

It's fairly obvious that the longer a discussion goes on - the chance of anything at all being mentioned approaches 1. 68.71.35.93 03:41, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

So how does that make Godwin's Law flawed? It seems your argument bolsters the case rather than disproves it. The difference between Godwin's Law and your own statement is that Godwin was much more specific about what would ultimately be mentioned. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 03:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

This probably fits under this heading as well - I just reverted this edit by 71.41.35.164 as it belongs here rather than on the main page, but preserving it for posterity:

However, despite the above text, since the law states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.", it dosen't matter the reference or comparison in the slightest(although would in the quote of Richard Sexton). Simply that the chances of a comparison, in any means, approaches 1, and in truth, the same is true for any word to have mention or to be used as a comparisson in any text as for every word said it gives chance for any word to be said. Although due to the extremly high reccurance of the comparisson, this statment holds especially true.

--Mpk 20:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok flawed was the wrong word. Redundant is a better word. The chance that any word or comparison is made approaches 1. So why single out nazism. Why not write about a rule that the word Archaeopteryx being mentioned approaches 1. Call it Archie's rule, if you like. And then one for pot bellied mesopotamian pigs. Call it whatever you want, it's still redundant.As for something being especially true that is also misleading. Either something is true or it isnt in these terms, there's no room for qualification. I have seen it said that Godwin's Law states that there is a 50% chance that an online discussion that involves 100 or more posts will involve a comparison to the Nazi regime. This is clumsier and probably unverifiable but at least it gives the rule some power that the one stated in the article clearly does not.68.71.35.93 20:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The function of Godwin's Law is not to predict the future. It is to make writers and speakers more mindful about the present and about the past. In that respect, this "flawed" or "redundant" principle seems to have worked just fine, if history is to be any guide.

--Mike Godwin 10:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Well , you would say that. I think the spirit of the rule has tremendous validity , it's just that the wording needs to be cleaned up so that it makes sense mathematically.

I think it's probably not a good idea to alter the historical language of the Law in order to appeal more to someone's current notion of what makes sense mathematically. I mean, I don't even think *I* have the prerogative to do that.

--Mike Godwin 10:09, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Same deal with homosexuality and or the Bible

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Bible or homosexuals approaches 1." I've seen that in action plenty of times...saldy.