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.
It
is closely related to the logical fallacy “reductio ad Hitlerum”, which
says “Hitler (or the Nazis) liked X, so X is bad”, frequently used to
denigrate vegetarians and atheists.
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.
In its broader sense it can be used to describe
any situation where a poster loses all sense of proportion, for example
describing New Labour as “Zanu-Labour” after Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean
political party Zanu-PF.
As well as the descriptive form, it
can be used prescriptively: so 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.
If this is done deliberately to end the argument, however, it does not apply. This codicil is known as “Quirk’s Exception”.
2. Poe’s Law
Not
to be confused with the law of poetry enshrined by Edgar Allan Poe, the
internet Poe’s Law states: “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.”
It
was originally formulated by Nathan Poe in 2005 during a debate on
christianforums.com about evolution, and referred to creationism rather
than all fundamentalism, but has since been expanded.
Poe’s
Law also has an inverse meaning, stating that non-fundamentalists will
often mistake sincere expressions of fundamentalist beliefs for parody.
Examples
abound – one particularly difficult-to-judge site claims that
“Heliocentrism [the belief that the Earth orbits the Sun, rather than
the other way around] is an Atheist Doctrine”.
One that
must, surely, be a parody is sexinchrist.com (WARNING: link contains
adult material), a site that offers Christians advice on the rights and
wrongs of such activities as threesomes and pubic shaving, among much
more.
However, it is hard to be entirely certain, given the
existence of christiannymphos.org (WARNING: link contains adult
material), an apparently entirely serious site.
Here is an example of a parody site that embodies both Godwin's and Poe's Laws.
3. Rule 3
States:
“If it exists, there is porn of it.” See also Rule 35: “If no such porn
exists, it will be made.” Generally held to refer to fictional
characters and cartoons, although some formulations insist there are
"no exceptions" even for abstract ideas like non-Euclidean geometry, or
puzzlement.
For obvious reasons it is not appropriate for
lengthy discussion in a family newspaper, but the recent appearance of
Marge Simpson on the cover of Playboy, pictured above, was a (very
mild) example of the law in action, and going mainstream.
The
spread of fanfic, slash fiction and hentai around the internet, as well
as the rise of furries, are making this law more and more accurate
every day.
The other 33 rules change frequently, except one
and two, which are “Do not talk about /b/” and “Do NOT talk about /b/”,
respectively, referring to a message board on the 4chan.org website.
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."
It
is an online version of the proofreading truism Muphry’s Law, also
known as Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation: "any article or
statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to
contain at least one eror".
Language Log quotes the following example, from Paul Ordoveza’s How Now, Brownpau? blog:
"For
too long, we linguistic pedants have cringed, watching this phrase
used, misused, and abused, again, and again, and again. 'This begs the
question...' [we hear], and we must brace ourselves as the ignoramii of
modern society literally ask a question after the phrase."
While
Mr Ordoveza’s point is entirely valid (“begging the question” is a
logical fallacy, meaning to "beggar the question", or assume your
conclusion in your premise – not to raise the question), the plural of
ignoramus is ignoramuses.
It was apparently first stated by G Bryan Lord, referring to a user named Skitt, on Usenet in 1998.
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.
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) 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.
Danth’s Law was
most famously declared in “The Lenski Affair”, between microbiologist
Richard Lenski and the editor of Conservapedia.com, Andrew Schlafly,
who cast doubt upon Prof Lenski’s elegant experimental demonstration of
evolution.
After what is widely held to be one of the
greatest and most comprehensive put-downs in scientific argument from
Prof Lenski, Mr Schlafly declared himself the winner.
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 Laws
Named for Ken DeMyer, a moderator on Conservapedia.com. There are four: the Zeroth, First, Second and Third Laws.
The
Second Law states: “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.”
The Zeroth, First and Third Laws cannot be very generally applied and will be glossed over here.
9. Cohen’s Law Proposed
by Brian Cohen in 2007, states that: “Whoever resorts to the argument
that ‘whoever resorts to the argument that... …has automatically lost
the debate’ has automatically lost the debate.”
Has also
been stated in the much longer version, "Whoever resorts to the
argument that 'whoever resorts to the argument that... 'whoever resorts
to the argument that... 'whoever resorts to the argument that...
'whoever resorts to the argument that ... 'whoever resorts to the
argument that... ...has automatically lost the debate' ...has
automatically lost the debate' ...has automatically lost the debate'
...has automatically lost the debate' ...has automatically lost the
debate' has automatically lost the debate."
10. The Law of Exclamation
First recorded in an article by Lori Robertson at FactCheck.org in
2008, this states: "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."
It is reminiscent of the
claim in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels that the more exclamation
marks someone uses in writing, the more likely they are to be mentally
unbalanced.
Social Sciences