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The top ten "laws of the internet"

Started by GG, October 23, 2009, 10:42:50 PM

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GG

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6408927/Internet-rules-and-laws-the-top-10-from-Godwin-to-Poe.html

1. Godwin's Law:"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.

2. Poe's Law:"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

3. Rule 34:States: "If it exists, there is porn of it." See also Rule 35: "If no such porn exists, it will be made."

4. Skitt's Law: Expressed as "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:States: "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.

6. Danth's Law (also known as Parker's Law): States: "If you have to insist that you've won an internet argument, you've probably lost badly." Named after a user on the role-playing gamers' forum RPG.net.

7. Pommer's Law: Proposed by Rob Pommer on rationalwiki.com in 2007, this states: "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 Law:"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."

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 an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters."
Trust but verify