Talk:Godwin's law/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Usenet links appear to be broken

I notice that the links to one of Godwin's early citations of Godwin's Law, as well as to Richard Sexton's 1989 posting, seem to be broken. Wouldn't it be better to use Google Groups links? Or something else that doesn't break easily?

That sounds to me more like a failure of local software to handle nntp: or news: URLs correctly, but it might bear further investigation. The problem with GG links is that there is no guarantee Google won't just one day say "Eh, this GoogleGroups service isn't really helping our business model" or whatever, and turn it off, breaking every single WP link to articles in their Usenet archive. Another Google service, Writely, just went dead the other day (though it may return; its domain name still responds to http requests.) I was using that for actual work, and cannot get at documents that I need to get at. Argh! Don't trust Google blindly just because it has produced a good service or two. It is still a corporation with its own collective interests. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Google Groups users are such Nazis Leondegrance 03:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Comments on the disputed merge

Resolved

It seems worth pointing out that deletion or merger would break certain prior media references to Wikipedia's entry on "Godwin's Law". Moreover, there are probably more references to Godwin's Law on Usenet on the Web than there are to "Reductio Ad Hitlerum," which in any case does not have the same meaning. It seems wrong to have Straussians attempt to hijack this page or delete it. Furthermore, googling "Godwin's Law" and "reductio ad hitlerum" indicates that references to the former exceed those to the latter by at least an order of magnitude.

So:

(1) the two locutions don't mean the same thing. (2) Godwin's law has an order of magnitude (at least) more references (3) fans of Leo Strauss ought not to be able to hijack this page (4) there have been external media references to this Wikipedia entry. —This unsigned comment was added by 68.49.2.164 (talk • contribs) 05:51, 5 April 2006 UTC.

Please add comments on the disputed merge to the Talk:Reductio ad Hitlerum page instead of here --Grouse 08:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Stalin?

Does Godwin's Law come into effect if I use Stallin as an argument? he WAS worse than Hitler when it comes to the number of people he killed. 24.15.243.244

This is not really the sort of speculation that we need to go into if we are trying to make an encyclopedia.--Grouse 19:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Grouse, that is a stupid answer, (Personal attack removed). Stalin wasn't famous for killing people in an evil way, more to the point Stalin wasn't exactly famous just for killing people. The boy asked a valid Question Grouse, he didn't say he was going to add it to the page, and even if he wanted to he could have BEEN BOLD. You didn't even answer his question. (Personal attack removed) JayKeaton 05:14, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a general discussion forum. Please keep it on-topic.--Grouse 08:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

It's actually very on topic. I've seen Godwins Law invoked at comparisons of the subject to Stalin, on numerous occasions, and Pol Pot at least a few times.. Comparing your opponents to a dictator who killed millions is usually considered sufficient to see the rule pulled out. If I can find a reliable source for it, I'll insert a sentence on the subject. Mostlyharmless 04:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing at all wrong with citing Godwin's law in such instances, as the point of it isn't Hitler in particular, but the general practice of likening the debate opponent or their arguments to those of whatever bugbear one has that represents "the ultimate evil" (to many yee-haw Americans, the ultimate worldly evil is Communism, so Stalin/Lenin comparisons qualify as in-spirit GL instances when they are used that way.) Emphatically however, GL itself does not (in any non-tampered-with version) mention Stalin, communists, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, etc., etc., only "Hitler or Nazis". — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Oi, it's not just "yee-haw" types who kick up against communism - that ideology threatens the dignity of the individual, so it's justly opposed by dignified individuals. But the "not particular to Hitler" point is sound.--80.6.163.58 23:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)--Shtove 23:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't meaning to imply that no one can disagree with communism without being a reactive stereotypical Ugly American (heck, I disagree with Communism strongly); just saying that there is a camp that approaches "the C word" with the same uninformed, religious-level faith-not-logic-based reactionism as nazis approached "the J word" with. Nothing further intended. If you are mistaking me for a leftist, you're barking up the wrong forest (though I may've given you directions there by mistake. Heh.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs) 01:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

Agreed. The original GL did not mention anything other than Hitler and the Nazis. The fact that the 'law' is often invoked after the use of comparisons to other mass-murdering dictators should really be noted however, as is the case over on de. The reader can decide for themselves whether that is an incorrect use, or something that falls within the spirit of the rule. Mostlyharmless 08:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed in turn, if such an addition can be sourced (otherwise it will just cause a original research debate.) If the German article has a source for the addition, that can be used here as well (as I understand it anyway; I recall that non-English sources are can be used, in articles, to establish notability, so I can't see why they wouldn't be good for establishing reliable-source verifiability, too.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

American phenomenon?

Resolved

In my and some friends' observations, Americans are the ones most likely to make comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis at the drop of a hat. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gssq (talk • contribs) 17:37, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

What about the germans? --mitrebox 04:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It is cited in non-US publications, and used by non-US people, so this was ultimately just a rhetorical question. Tagging this topic "Resolved" since it has inspired no comment (other than this closure message) in over 6 months. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Good or bad?

Resolved

The explanation of Godwin's law seems to try to constrain it to bad references to Hitler, while as stated, it refers to neither good or bad references to Hitler. Also the opening focus on the stated version underemphasizes the tradition that whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress, which is what most people seem to think of when referring to Godwin's Law. Hackwrench 04:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: your first sentence, This issue is long moot, given all the rewrites in the intervening months. Re: your second, it is not the purpose of this article to address what some people may imagine something means or should mean - Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. The article addresses the actual text and meaning of the actual Godwin's Law, which is what the Godwin's Law article should obviously do. Tagging this topic "Resolved" since it has inspired no commentary in over 6 months, other than this closure post. The issue of whether "the thread is over" is or should be a part of GL is covered in its own topic, below. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't understand latest edit

Resolved

I'm sorry, but I don't get the second sentence in the edit just added: In this case, when the reach of a discussion involves a growing audience that is a more representative sample of society, the probability of mentioning a despicable subject acting as "thought police" towards the discussion approaches one.

"Mentioning a descipacle subject asing as 'thought police' toward the discussion"? What does that mean?

And I'd also like to remove the edit that followed it, because I don't think it makes a point - I don't see how in the world Godwins Law can be conisidered an "urban legend"? - DavidWBrooks 11:33, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and they also seem to be prohibited original research. I have reverted them. --Grouse 13:19, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction re: original research

Resolved

I read the policy and now have to agree (enthusiasm damped but not gone), I cannot quote sources, so from that viewpoint my text should not remain in the top spot of the article. However, it relates issues presented in the discussion section.

The point I was trying to make mith my naive English (I am not native) is that

• a) Goldwin's Law and the wikipedic explanation of its meaning make the point that derailing discussion threads by injecting a despicable comparison is likely to happen, but futile.
• b) Goldwin's Law is a tongue-in-cheek statement (I take back the urban legend), because the statistic probability of occurrence exists - independently of "Nazi" or "Hitler" - for any subject used as the "handy rhetorical hammer" (Goldwin's words).
• c) Goldwin's Law logically does not apply where the specific subject words are censored. This serves to illustrate its usefulness in statistical analysis to detect evidence of censorship. (This part may be WP:NOR)

I concur by adding to "additional discussion" a statement to the effect of:

Godwin's Law can be invoked to the same effect with despicable subjects other than Hitler or the Nazis.

This on the grounds of being "descriptive claims the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge" as it says in WP:NOR.

Bernd in Japan 14:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you are enthusiastic about this project. I have to say I'm not sure I understand a lot of what you wrote above but at this point much of it is merely dicta. Also please note that it is Godwin, not Goldwin. I disagree that that your additional statement is easily verifiable. That is like saying that a (physical) hammer may used as a weight for progressive resistance training. This is true, but it is not a common usage of the hammer and not relevant to the article on hammer. All that said, this article really needs an overhaul in a lot of ways so I'm not going to remove this particular sentence myself this instant. I won't object if someone else does though. --Grouse 17:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the encouraging words to an apprentice editor. I understand your disagreement, the point seems to be Fallacy: Appeal to Ridicule. But then Godwin's original meme comes close as well. I concur the article needs an overhaul; in the finer academic points it may be losing the audience of interested laypersons. For now I feel not qualified to carry it further, but was a learning experience.

--Bernd in Japan 01:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Trivia section removal

Resolved

I'm fully aware of what University Challenge is; however, putting that section in is effectively saying "It's becoming important enough that it's considered quizbowl canon." I repeat, who cares? In my opinion, it's (the section) redundant, because, if it wasn't important enough, it'd (the article) be deleted in AfD long ago. Andy Saunders 09:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Au contraire, it is notable as University Challenge questions tend to be from history, the arts, and suchlike - relatively few questions come from popular culture, unlike some quiz programmes. Thus it's appearance makes it notable in itself. [ -- anon.]

Please actually read WP:N - notability is about reliable, citable sources, not popularity. If University Challenge is ever mentioned in the article again, it should be as a source under "References". Tagging this topic "Resolved" since it's elicited no response other than this closure in over 6 months. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Debates and Controversy

Resolved

The whole 'debates and controversy' section seems very weak. It cites no sources and seems to just be a few editors writing what annoys them about people mentioning Godwin's Law. As such I think it counts as OR. The only bit that attributes an opinion to a real person is Godwin's response, but unfortunately none of that provides a cite. I'm thinking of chopping the whole section and letting people re-create it with cites. Any objections? Ashmoo 03:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Do it, do it, do it! (please) --Grouse 07:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see some proof of how this "law" was proven and who actually proved it. This is perhaps the weakest argument for a "law" I have witnessed. Thanks Mixson 22:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Censorship "law"?

Resolved

Is there a similar law (for contexts like Wikipedia talk pages) concerning the likelihood of the accusation of censorship? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:47, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense

i would like to see some proof that this is a "law" and what that proof is. this is nonsense. Mixson 22:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It's as much a law as Murphy's Law is.—BassBone (my talk · my contributions) 21:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Wesley Clark

In an edit to another page, an editor claimed that

Godwin's Rule is, itself, a variation of retired Gen. Wesley Clark’s Old Rule in Politics—-"Whoever uses the `Nazi' word first loses."

I'm not sure if it's true, but it belongs here if it is (and nowhere if it isn't)./blahedo (t) 17:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Occurs several times on Google, but there's no evidence to suggest that it predates Godwin's Law. --Grouse 17:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent round of edits

A recent round of edits has vastly reduced and oversimplified the discussion of Godwin's Law that has shown itself to be relatively stable over time. Given that the media now rely on that discussion for an understanding of Godwin's Law, it seems to make little sense to substract information that would help the media and other users to understand it better. - posted by 68.49.2.164 on 9 June 2006

Whether it has been referred to by the media is beside the point. The article as it stood was full of unsourced opinion. What was 'subtracted' wasn't information, but just opinion. Ashmoo 23:34, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Futility of law

Resolved

replace 'mention hitler/nazis' with absolutely anything and the law would still never be violated... it goes without saying really.. taking it a bit far "people incorrectly refer to the law being violated" we know wat they mean. makes a good point in an interesting way though...humourous too [-- anon.]

Flagging this topic "Resolved" since it has around zero interest in over six months. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a nazi way to resolve topics... --80.181.144.19 20:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms of Godwin

Resolved

It should be noted that Godwin's law is a lot like fascism. (Sorry but the irony overpowered me)--mitrebox 04:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Flagging this topic "Resolved" since it has aroused zero interest in over 6 months. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok I said that wrongly:

Resolved

Should reference be made to the ocasionaly referenced phenomenon of the Bush administration citing 9/11 to a similar extent to Hitlar acording to the law? Me lkjhgfdsa 14:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC) P.S. Was deleating the coment realy nessesary?

No, since most political organizations do similar things (bring up reference to whatever hot topic gets their supporters going) - and yes, because the initial assumption is that it was a fly-by comment from an anon who would never return and was just making an anti-Bush rant that cluttered up the Talk page. Your return shows that assumption was incorrect. - DavidWBrooks 14:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

This sort of thing would be prohibited original research. --Grouse 18:08, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, it has been referenced a few times. In reflection it's probably not that notable. Me lkjhgfdsa 10:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Besides, not everyone would agree that that's NPOV. Mo-Al 16:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

"Related" AfDs

Resolved

Two recently created wannabe corollaries have been flagged for deletion; if you care to weigh in, here are their AfDs:

• The Ralakan Corollary
• Balfour's Law

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 18:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Along with the nonsensical "Palmer's Law", these were successfully AfD'd. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Assume good faith"

Resolved

Re: 2006-07-19 15:22:22 Grouse (Talk | contribs) (rv to WhyBeNormal. please assume good faith; the spoken link is now at the top)

I generally do assume good faith, but a) "amputation by machete"-style deletions that have no edit summary at all, nor any Talk page discussion, nor follow logically from previous editing direction, nor remove vandal/vanity/ad hominem edits by others, rarely are good-faith in my experience; and b) this article has a history of partisan, bone-head, vandal, troll and narcisist edits, far more so than any other article I am 'Watch'ing. If I see edits like that I will revert them, period (and not just here, but generally; I follow basically the same pattern as the RP Patrol, and yes even they do make mistakes. I had a good faith edit, over an hour's work, reverted by one of them, asked about it, found out it was an error of zeal, reverted the revert, and everyone's happy.) I'm not inclined to ignore what I think are poorly-thought-out, malicious or just plain sloppy edits, all of which are forms of vandalism in my book (especially if they consist of unexplicated deletions), just because someone's feelings might get hurt. If one doesn't even include an edit summary, one should not complain. :-) PS: If one has trouble remembering to put edit summaries, go to "my preferences" in top menu and turn on the edit summary warnings feature. It is very useful! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Memetics

Resolved

Shouldn't there be a reference to the fact that Godwin originally proposed Godwin's Law as an exercise in memetics? Kevlaw 04:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

If you can find a verifiable source for this, then add it in. Also, please add new talk sections at the bottom of talk pages. You can use the + tab at the top of the page to do this. --Grouse 07:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[ And Grouse please indent your replies.  ;-P — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 13:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC) ]

Yeah, that and a lot of other good material has been removed from this article over several months of borderline editwarring/vandalism. It's ironic, but the non-English versions of this article are better in a lot of of ways. I concur strongly with Grouse, however, that adding such material back in should be done with verifiable source citations. ESPECIALLY on this article, which has been the subject of a lot of bogus claims and other b.s., both pro- and anti-Mike. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 13:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Godwin says expressly in "Meme, Counter-meme" (cited with an external link in the article) that Godwin's Law was formulated as an exercise in memetics. [- anon.]

Then add it back in, with a <ref name="whatever" /> citation to that source. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Section Order

Resolved

I thought standard appendices had See Also first --Trödel 15:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Mornington Crescent

Resolved

There is a definite parallel between Godwin's Law and the pseudo-game Mornington Crescent. The main difference being that the first person to mention Mornington Crescent wins whereas the first person to mention Hitler loses. Otherwise the two "games" are not dissimilar. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I know of a couple of unofficial games that involve saying/not-saying something. Don't see much of a parallel myself - this refers to comments that spontaneously appear in a real conversation (as real as online gets, anyway), rather than semi-forced comments in a game. - DavidWBrooks 22:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Whether the law includes "and then the thread is over"

Resolved

We assert that that's not part of the law. Is that assertion sourced?
--Baylink 03:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the best wording I've noted with that 'subclause' being part of GL is "...once one party has referenced Hitler, Nazism, or the like, the probablility of any useful discussion or debate arising from the thread after this point approaches zero." The catch is, what I've just stated is going to fall under Original Research, since I'm having a DEVIL of a time finding any reputable source to cite for this... - Empath 15:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Empath, that's because there is no such reputable source. The "thread is over" hooey was added on later, by someone who evidently thought that stating the obvious was necessary in something intentionally written to not state the obvious. It appears to be a restatement of Cliff Stoll's and/or Net.Legends's restatements/misrememrances of the actual wording of GL, popularized in turn by people having a hard time remembering clearly what was said by way of GL over-explanation in the alleged (and unauthorized/unsupported) "Godwin's Law FAQ", which though it appears to have been maintained up to 2003 has not actually changed substantively in quite a bit longer that I can recall.

Baylink, yes it is sourceable (including Stoll's "version" and its early date): The canonical version is still online, where it has always been. This file was put together by Godwin himself, using his preferred wording for GL, and including the corollaries he thought actually added something; it was subsquently edited to add in some other material, such as the Stoll bit just referenced (and eventually became the basis of the aforementioned so-called "FAQ" which was begun in 1999.) It even includes a copy-paste of the timestamp of GL's original Usenet posting (though Godwin notes that he believes he posted a version of it even earlier, on The WELL). This canonical version was published Jan. 1995, and assembled probably as early as mid-1994, and to my knowledge has not changed by one word, going on 14 years now. I published it myself, being the webmaster of the system it was hosted on, our then mutual employer, EFF. If anyone tries to add a corollary that is not found there, or GL wording that is not found there, or to remove corollaries or wording that are found there, they are almost certainly violating WP:OR, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NFT, WP:AUTO/WP:VANITY and/or some other Wikipedia policy, guideline, or consensus principle. I know Mike well, and in all this time he's never mentioned any extending of or other changes to this canonical 1995 archival copy.

PS: EFF's current web people have messed up the Apache configs, such that text/plain is no longer the default MIME type for unrecognized extensions; the canonical-version URL above will probably have you download the file (a plain ASCII text file) instead of simply displaying it.

PPS, to Empath: The language you quote sounds like a semi-thoughtful but misguided attempt to merge GL with the Wilcox-McCandlish Law (1995-6), which actually does address thread lifespan and value; The quoted text is basically a restatement of M.'s 1st Corollary to WML, limited (artificially) to thread changes involving Hitler or Nazis specifically ("or the like", a phrase Godwin would never have used in something like this), rather than thread changes in general.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

A-HA! That must have been what I'd seen, but was unable to source: Wilcox-McCandlish Law. Thank you for clearing up a fuzzy point for me; it's sad that I probably will sleep better with this having been resolved. --Empath 22:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

There used to be a WML article on en.wikipedia, but in my wikiyouth I foolishly edited it a lot myself, so it got AfD'd per WP:VANITY, etc. (I didn't create the article itself but I more or less came to WP:OWN it; in the end I didn't even fight the AfD, since the policy points were actually valid.) Mea culpa and all... Have preserved a copy of the article in userspace and may restore a version of it some day when I can do so with multiple reliable sources per WP:N and so on. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Palmer's Law

Resolved

Hi. I'm the original formulator of Palmer's Law, and I was wondering if it was appropriate to include Palmer's Law in the "See Also" section. I was contacted by a wikipedian after they had added the Law to wikipedia, and they said they were going to link to it from Godwin's Law. Again, I'm just wondering if this would be appropriate. As the Palmer's Law entry has a link to my blog, I'm certainly not going to edit links in wikipedia entries to point to Palmer's Law, nor edit Palmer's Law either (although some formating may help). Too much conflict of interest...

What are people's thoughts on this? Raverant2006 03:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, first, welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you can make many contributions here. Second, it is best if you add to discussion pages at the bottom (use the + tab at the top of the talk page to do this.) Now on to your real question. Many people have tried to add new "laws" to Wikipedia and particularly to link to them from this page. Most of them have been deleted quickly. See, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Ralakan Corollary and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Balfour's Law. Unfortunately I do not think your page will survive this process as it appears to violate Wikipedia policy. --Grouse 14:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. - DavidWBrooks 15:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

References in Culture

The 10/28/06 Dilbert comic made a joke on the concept of Godwin's Law, and I was wondering if this might be something worth mentioning. TBSchemer 20:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

You mean this? Well, it certainly is an example of Godwin's Law at work although doesn't mention the law. Grouse 09:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a still-valid link to it somewhere? (The above one doesn't work any more.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Deletion debate

Resolved

I've closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Godwin's Law as a speedy keep. - 152.91.9.144 03:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Twice. - 152.91.9.144 03:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Keep it up and you'll be blocked. Anons cannot close AfDs. Editors in good standing can, but not anons. -- Ned Scott 05:17, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Use on Wikipedia

I think this "Law" is dead-on. I find that Wikipedia arguments over AfD or other heated discussions will invariable turn to Nazism or Hitler. Interesting... Valley2city 06:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Help with Wiki policy

Perhaps someone can help me frame this in a way to be able to add it to the page. It was removed and tagged with POV, which is ludicrous, and OR, which is understandable, but wrong. While it is actually possible no person has ever come up with the following criticism (thus, it may be original), it is not research in the sense that there is no claim to new information being made, I am just applying basic fact, more like saying if it rains, then it's wet. The two are inseparable. Here is my edit:

Header: Criticisms

Despite the idea the law attempts to convey, it is irrelevant from a probabilistic standpoint. Absolutely any event that is possible (i.e., has probability unequal to 0) sees the probability that it occurs approach one as the number of trials increases; therefore, Godwin's Law provides no true insight.

Thanks, and hey, if you happen to be good with math notation, adding something about the probability of an event occurring once over a series of trials is (1 - (1-p)^n) would be nice. And I don't really like the phrasing; feel free to change that, too. Thanks, again. Topher0128 00:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[I realize now that a better way to put it is that I have not included "unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position" (WP:NOR). I suppose I could cite a statistics textbook if truly necessary, but I don't think that's really the precedent on Wikipedia ...] Topher0128 00:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I should not have reverted the whole edit. Specifically, I object to calling it "irrelevant" and that it provides "no true insight" without supporting sources. I think the section in WP:NOR#Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position is instructive. Grouse 00:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Topher0128, but it sounds like WP:OR to me. If it is as obvious as 'rain is wet' then it doesn't need to be mentioned. If it's not, you should be able to find a source to prove your point. Until you can, it is OR. Ashmoo 00:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I see your point, Grouse. I think, though, that there still needs to be some way to work this idea into the article. It isn't any synthesis of previously published material but a direct usage of it. Further, this problem has been raised before in some of the archived discussions. Maybe this formulation helps illustrate the idea (and will allow someone to create a clearer articulation of my point): The probability of a person winning the lottery is far less than someone making a Reductio ad Hitlerum argument, but an immortal person who plays the lottery everyday will win eventually. And indeed, this applies to all non-impossible phenomena.

Particularly in light of Ashmoo's comment, I ask if citing a statistical authority of some kind will make my claim more legitimate. I'd be happy to do so, but I want to make sure it will be relevant first, as again, this law states exactly the same thing as: "As a coin is flipped repeatedly, the probability that it comes up heads at least once approaches one." In fact, given that formulation, I cite: Law of Large Numbers and Central limit theorem. Topher0128 01:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Topher0128, I apologize for not being more clear but I have already added that bit back to the page, slightly reworded. Is this acceptable to you? Grouse 01:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind seeing a little deeper or clearer explanation (of course, I didn't like mine too much either) but I am satisfied with your inclusion in the article, and I'd like to personally lay off it for a few days and see what the community does with it before I add anything. And thanks, for being among the more reasonable users I've disagreed with. I've noticed you've been a significant monitor of this page, and appreciate your open mindedness. Topher0128 01:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Topher0128. :) Grouse 01:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

My take on: "Despite the idea the law attempts to convey, it is irrelevant from a probabilistic standpoint. Absolutely any event that is possible (i.e., has probability unequal to 0) sees the probability that it occurs approach one as the number of trials increases; therefore, Godwin's Law provides no true insight.":

1) That is WP:OR; "research" in that context doesn't literally mean "testing hypotheses in my personal laboratory, or digging up ancient ruins with my own hands"; it means "promulgation of a theory, opinion or analysis that cannot be source-cited beyond the poster of the theory, opinion or analysis in question." (It also has some WP:NPOV issues - as the promoter of the new theory, you can't reliably be expected to present it in a neutral manner. And it is WP:NFT, as are all the wanna-be "corollaries" that cannot be sourced except to their authors and their buddies). It doesn't really matter that a professional/academic logician or mathematician may concur (or may not; the fact that there's no proof of the assertion of self-evidentiality is, albeit kind of tautologically, part of why this is WP:OR, not to mention WP:V, WP:RS, WP:AUTO, WP:VANITY, etc., if proposed as an actual addition to the article). The average reader will not be able to conclusively understand that your theory is self-evidently correct, ergo it is (WP:ENC, WP:NOT) not of encyclopedic value.

2) More to the point, it doesn't matter whether your hypothesis is self-evidently true or not; it misses the point entirely. Godwin's Law is not a mathematical/natural law, it is a humorous observation that borrows language from philosophy/logic/mathematics and repurposes it in a gently mocking way to make a social, human point. Refuting it on empirical grounds is a total waste of time. It's like saying that Murphy's Law is invalid because you can disprove it experimentally, or that the JIR/AIR is worthless because it is "bad science". Of course it's bad science (just like The Onion is bad reporting); that's half the point, and most of why it's funny. GL is also much like Gary Larson's The Far Side, in this regard. As George Carlin observed, all humor is based on an exaggeration, and GL is no exception. In this case, the exaggeration is that the statistical mathematics it seems to rely upon are real.  :-)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Original Research

I have removed the section on probability. "the only way to demonstrate that you are not doing original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say." WP:OR

While your statement may be true, no reliable source has been presented which directly relates this to the topic, Godwin's Law. Mdbrownmsw 20:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If you think this is really a bad change to the article, then I do not object to you removing it. If you think it is a good change that you are only opposing to be consistent, I would urge you to consider WP:IAR. Grouse 20:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The probability of an event's single occurrence relates directly to this article, and is equal to (1-p)^n. That function's limit as n approaches infinity is directly related to that, and shows that for all events such that p>0, the probability of its singular occurrence approaches one as the number of trials increases. I don't see how this research is original. Topher0128 20:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand the concept and agree that it is strictly true. THAT IS IMMATERIAL.

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." WP:VERIFY

"the only way to demonstrate that you are not doing original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say." WP:OR

Mdbrownmsw 20:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That the use of probability in the statement of the "law" is hyperbolic and unnecessary is not a new view. It's just geek-speak. He might as well have made a Star Trek allusion. I've seen debates on the mathematical nature of the law on USENET. I consider them to be missing the point. ISTM that he just wanted a slightly amusing way to say "Anyone else notice that this happens a lot?" I'm not sure it needs to be said that this is not a mathematical result. JJL 21:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I can anecdotally confirm for you, JJL, that this is precisely the case. I've had several conversations with Godwin about GL and its genesis. I realize this does not make me a source for article purposes, I'm just saying. Arguing for a true mathematical basis for GL is rather silly, and is very much "missing the point" as you put it. Topher, the research is original because you're doing it and you're an editor of the article; you didn't get it from some verifiable third party source (whether that be a Wired Magazine article or an MIT mathematics journal or whatever). This doesn't mean that your math isn't clever, just that it's not encyclopedic. Hope this helps. PS: If one wants to argue that WP Policy may need an adjustment to account for self-proving editorial assertions in article writing that by their nature don't need third party sources, that could be an interesting argument (I can think of other examples that might qualify), though one I would have to see thoroughly debated and arrived at by consensus as per WP:HCP. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that such an exception would be necessary. If the assertions were really uncontroversially self-evident and relevant, they would not be disputed. That clearly isn't the case here. Grouse 00:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, this is the last strategy I can think of to argue my point. I appeal to someone to create "Schreiner's Law" (that's me) as any one of the following, your choice:

1. The more times you drive a car, the probability that you get into an accident approaches one.

2. The more things you eat, the probability that you get full approaches one.

3. The more you play hockey, the probability that you lose a tooth approaches one.

4. The more times you open your refrigerator, the probability that an evil alien race which has shrunk itself to microscopic proportions will suddenly fulfill its demonic plans for global domination and kill you with a rotting piece of steak from dinner last week approaches one.

5. The more times you play the lottery, the probability that you win approaches one.

6. The more hands of poker you play, the probability that you acquire a royal flush approaches one.

All of these seem obvious (although (2) isn't perfectly analogous), yet I don't think that "Schreiner's Law" would be merited in any of them. (And again, I have cited Law of Large Numbers and Central Limit Theorem and would be glad to find a 10th grade algebra book that discusses classical probability to show the above mentioned (1-p)^n) Topher0128 07:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The article reports an adage. It doesn't argue that the adage is correct or even well-phrased, just that it exists and that someone might hear the phrase "Godwin's Law" and seek to look it up to find out what it is. "It ain't over till it's over " is also obvious, but it's a catchphrase nonetheless. You're arguing against how it's put, not whether or not it's noteworthy. I think it's a fair, though unimportant, criticism that the use of probability in its phrasing is a bit overblown. Of course, when you "Nobody ever goes there any more because it's always so crowded," it clearly isn't the case that nobody ever goes there...after all, it's crowded. I think a little flexibility of language must be allowed to get intriguing aphorisms. But to my mind you're looking to critique the style in which a well-known adage is known. What's the point? JJL 14:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

First, this supposedly isn't an adage, it's a law. And I'm not criticizing what it says at all, nor how it says it; it is, in fact, quite true. It is notable, however, that it doesn't really say anything. And I think that in any article in which the reader might be misled, raising awareness to these potential misperceptions is important. I do see your point that the article is valid regardless of the idea contained in it; however, the nature of this particular idea creates a need for awareness to its problems, or criticisms. Topher0128 20:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It says in the lead that it is an adage. "An adage (IPA /ˌædˈeɪdʒ/) is a short, but memorable saying, which holds some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or it has gained some credibility through its long use.{...}Adages coined in modernity are often given proper names and called "laws" in imitation of physical laws, or "principles". Some adages, such as Murphy's Law,..."

If you wish to insist that a "law" must always be true, you have a lot of pages to work on. "Anything that can go wrong, will" should be an interesting start.

If you would like to add to the article that the law doesn't say anything, is misleading or any other problems or criticisms, please do -- provided that you have a reliable source for them.

Mdbrownmsw 20:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Topher0128, see my long-ish reply in the main thread immediately above and containing this one. Short version: That you can come up with unaphorisms like 'The more times you drive a car, the probability that you get into an accident approaches one." is a moot issue, because it's missing the point completely. There is nothing amusing or ironic about your versions. The fact that GL is a bit tautological is intentional humor, and GL has value because it abuses the language of philosophy in a tongue-in-cheek manner to make a point about human behavior, not logic or mathematics, unlike your attempts. Please, just get over it. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

"Criticism" section revert

As per all the discussion above, I've reverted the recent addition of a "Criticism" section that is simply more unsourced original research as detailed above. I don't have time to watch this article 24/7, so if it comes back, others please revert it again, under WP:V, WP:RS, WP:N, WP:NOT, WP:NFT, WP:VANITY and especially WP:OR. Not reliably, independently, externally sourced = not encyclopedic. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Nazi Germany is not the only subject that will arise...

Resolved

In an online discussion, Nazi Germany is not the only subject that will come up, so will appartheid, and so will sex. In fact the probability of sex coming up is greater than the probability of Nazi Germany.[--anon.]

Already adressed in other (active, at least in theory) topics here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 15:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Really? cite them man! 67.164.71.230 21:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, why? People are perfectly capable of reading for themselves. If you insist, one of them is #Stalin?. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Big fat, happy tick

Resolved

This talk page is the only place I've seen this:

Resolved

I have mixed views, so is there a WP page on its use?--Shtove 23:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Most Wikipedia templates are self-documenting, either at the template page (Template:Resolved in this case), their talk pages (Template talk:Resolved) or (rarely) in HTML comments in the template code. This one is documented at the template page itself (the first link).

Anyway, the Resolved template isn't particularly old, but I'm personally a huge fan of it, and use it as much as possible (where it genuinely applies!) to promote it. It is an amazing timesaver when it comes to figuring out from a talk page what issues remain out-standing and what work needs to be done on an article, and even saves the casual onlooker time and effort by dissuading them from urging support for a NPOV fix or whatever that was already made 18 months ago. If I'm activistic about anything at all with regard to WP internals, it is increased use of this template.  :-)

PS: As the template's own docs say, if you disagree that a topic is actually resolved, simply remove the template and keep on discussing.

PPS: I'm copying this discussion over to Template talk:Resolved, and actually marking this topic "Resolved" here since any further discussion of this template should go its talk page, this being the Godwin's law talk page.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 02:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age

Could we get a more useful citation for this? The footnote doesn't seem to be working very well. Article looking better all the time. Thanks. Ilena (chat) 13:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome to add one. What about the footnote is not working for you? Grouse 14:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I clicked on a couple of the references and they didn't have the book ... could we put a link to the book? Thank you. Ilena (chat) 15:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Not every book in existence will be carried by every library and bookstore in the world. I tried the link to find the book at Amazon.com and it worked fine.

could we put a link to the book? Who is "we?" What do you mean by a "link to the book?" Grouse 17:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I can see that I was confusing. Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age Let me know please if this can be linked. Ilena (chat) 17:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

GL and fallacies

Someone lately has been trying to "See also" link to Straw man as relevant, which it isn't. Last year it was Ad hominem. Godwin's Law does relate to a classic logic fallacy, but it is Association fallacy. GL itself is not a fallacy, or an illustration of a fallacy, at all, but rather a prediction of likelihood of an occurrence (as well as a wry comment on the modern predilection for a specific topical category of association fallacy). Illustrations to make the relationships (and in some cases non-relationships) clearer:

GL in action:

I think congenitally retarded people should not be allowed to breed. --Someone

I'm sure the Nazis would have agreed with you. --SomeoneElse

I.e., Hitler or Nazis are mentioned, at all, in response to an argument.

Straw man in action:

I think congenitally retarded people should not be allowed to breed. --Someone

The argument that people who aren't as smart as you shouldn't have kids is indefensible rubbish. --SomeoneElse

I.e., opponent's argument is mis-restated so that it is easier to argue against, while response does not actually address the original argument at all.

Ad hominem in action

I think congenitally retarded people should not be allowed to breed. --Someone

That argument is crap; I know you aren't very smart yourself, but you have three kids. --SomeoneElse

I.e., presenter of argument is attacked on a personal level, while their argument remains unaddressed.

Association fallacy in action

I think congenitally retarded people should not be allowed to breed. --Someone

The Nazis certainly agreed with you: "The purity of the Race must be maintained, against all undesirables, including the mentally infirm." (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 214) --SomeoneElse. [Yes, I made the quote up, for example purposes.]

I.e., argument is presented as prima facie false because it can be incidentally linked to a person, philosophy, etc., that the respondent considers undesirable, false or evil, meanwhile the actual merit, or lack thereof, of the argument is never addressed on its own terms. (And yes that example is also an instance of Godwin's Law in action, since Hiter/nazis were "mentioned".)

So, please stop adding "See also" links to unrelated fallacies. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Grouse 16:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What does 'probability approaches one' mean?

I understand this is in the original but an explanation of what 'probability approaches one' means would be helpful. 140.184.192.117 15:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to do that without it being original research; I don't know of any analyses of G.L. that take it so seriously that they go into an explanation of the mock-statistics in it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 18:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a minute. Isn't this simple school mathematics? Probability approaches one means it is most probable that this will happen. RokasT 13:12, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed; but an explanation of it would need sources or it would be WP:OR. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully the graph I just added will help people visualize the relationship of time : probability of nazi comparison Sniper Fox 19:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

When the probability is equal to one, the event is guaranteed to occur. I'm not entirely sure how that statement violates WP:OR -- I'd say that's common knowledge in that it's the very foundation of statistics. The statement within the article is along the same lines as the common prose: given an infinite number of monkeys and/or an infinite amount of time, they will eventually compose the entire works of Shakespeare. Similarly, given enough time for someone to jibber jabber about: of course someone will eventually mention some topic. I do not see how any research would be needed to prove that. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 23:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Probability one events need not occur, and probability zero events can occur. There is a strict sense of "with probability one" (a notion of convergence) but I take this statement as meaning that the limit as n-->infinity of P(n) is one, where P(n) is something like the probability that a Godwin violation will occur in a thread of n posts.

"Probability Approaches One" means "Probability Approaches 100%", as 1=100%. As mentioned above, this is the foundation of statistics Toad of Steel 23:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't believe that Mike Godwin ever intended this to be analyzed mathematically in such detail. I don't find the graph helpful. This isn't a theorem, it's an aphorism. JJL 02:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed... this isn't meant for deep intellectual thought! --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 03:41, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the intent of the original speaker has any bearing on whether or not it should be a tool for deep thought. It is most definitely not original research to explain something mathematical unless it is in some way controversial. OR was designed to stop things like people doing their own surveys, putting in information that's slanted, etc. Explaining mathematics does not constitute this, or articles such as addition commit it right from the beginning, as they usually only reference historical facts. Furthermore, there are many people who are considered deep philosophers now that probably never intended their work to be analyzed in such detail, especially existentialists and the like. To give a sort of scientific reductio ad absurdum, the moon was not intended to be analyzed geologically in such detail, therefore we shouldn't analyze it geologically in such detail. It is a logical non sequitur. I also think WP:OR is being misinterpreted in a lot of places on wikipedia, as simply taking two sources and putting them together is OR (thus two people working together are creating OR), but this is simply not what the policy was meant to address. Chris b shanks 06:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The probability is described using mathematical terms, I don't see why the graph is inappropriate. As such, I've added the graph back in. Sniper Fox 18:27, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What makes this the correct graph? Maybe it should have the opposite concavity? Using this curve vice some other curve is OR. JJL 23:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge of Stead's Law

Resolved

 – Proposed merge source deleted as WP:NFT.

Stead's Law has been proposed for deletion, with the provided reason being, "Fails WP:BIO, WP:WEB, no assertion of notability made and is totally unattributed to any reliable sources". As it is considered a corollary to Godwin's Law, (at least by the assertion made here,) I have de-prodded, and proposed a merge. -- RoninBK _{T C} 00:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Delete the vanity page and move on. JJL 01:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's vanity though. The reference provided on the Stead's page is a mirror of the "Godwin's Law FAQ" already cited here. -- RoninBK _{T C} 01:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Nah. The list of alleged "corollaries" in the FAQ is not canonical (the list that Godwin himself put together is, and does not include this one), and in parts is nonsensical (such as including this particular item, which is definitely non-notable claptrap, that is not logically related in any way to GL, but just shares a little tiny bit of its structure) Someone please just AfD that thing. Or SD if possible; sounds like it may qualify. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

An example of Godwin's Law in action

It would be nice to clarify the whole law. ...Eventually someone will compare another to Hitler:ie. "Dude Pirates are better than Ninjas" "You're worse than Hitler." ? ?

Meh. The existing prose already explains it quite well. A made-up example might be appropriate at Simple:Godwin's Law (if that existed), but would be really superfluous here, IMNERHO. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Mathematics

Resolved

 – Mostly off-topic personal dispute over logic and opinions; to the extent relevant, no consensus to change article.

(Originally to DavidWBrooks' talk page) Thanks for helping with my submission to Goodwin's Law. I now realize the absurdity of pointing out how "it's important to note." I guess I just got used to saying that in essays in university to sound more important! I just wanted to say, however, that I think the thought-experiment is pedagogically important for the encyclopedia, as the subject of the article is not statistics, thus it makes it possible for someone who is reading this article, and is not versed in that subject area, to understand it simply. I think it fits in an encyclopedic format, but maybe it wouldn't be good for something like a newspaper, where everything extraneous should be cut out. Furthermore, I am afraid someone will cut the whole section out of the article if it doesn't have the weight of the thought experiment (i.e. someone who doesn't understand it thinks it's POV or original research and offhand cuts the whole thing), but that may or may not happen. Finally I think the standard form is also important for establishing the point (though this may only be because my educational background includes formal logic/philosophy) of it being a tautology, and it doesn't make the last sentence seem so much like vandalism, because, like I said, it is quite absurd. If it has the standard form to balance with it, however, then it will flow better. I also like the standard form from a pedagogical standpoint, making the reader better understand how Goodwin's Law itself relates to the tautology. I'd like to hear what you think. Chris b shanks 23:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I found your point important and something that hadn't come up before - well worth having, but it seemed a tad redundant, which is why I trimmed it, hopefully keeping the important parts. You said (it seemed to me) that anything will eventually come up, then you said it in a more scientific form, then you gave the silly-but-useful example. You might even have had another "said" in there, too. I cut out one or two of them. - DavidWBrooks 00:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Will a logic lesson be added to A rose by any other name would smell as sweet also? A prob. lesson to A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? There are lots of well-known sayings that merely restate the obvious. You can't eat your cake and have it too...does that make the saying trivial? People keep saying it, after all. I've deleted this section that seems merely to demonstarte a lack of understanding of the nature of adages, aphorisms, etc.JJL 03:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for saying I demostrate a lack of understanding of adages, aphorisms, etc. I don't think I do, but that's a different issue. Please also don't revert something so quickly that's active on the talk page without at least allowing some of a discussion to take place. User David above at least thought it was a somewhat worthwile contribution, as did Birdbrainscan, who copy edited it. This is not a logic lesson, it is an explanation of the statistical theory which is involved in the quote. A statement such as "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" is self-explanatory, and has no relation to statistics, and it would be a stretch to put it in a logical standard format. Godwin's Law is written in a much more mathematical/logical/statistical format than the metaphorical examples you quoted above, making them not the greatest analogies for defeating my point. Note that it's "Godwin's Law", a very scientific (or strict, or logical) way of putting it. You could try to defeat this by mentioning Murphy's Law, but it definitely isn't as formal as to say something like "the probability approaches one." I also don't believe that, as you said in the edit summary, it is so obvious as to be meaningless. Someone not versed in statistics, concepts of infinity, or mathematical philosophy (and some who are) probably would not see this at first, and may even be offended by being told how "obvious" it is. This is one reason why, in my first version of the section, I included a thought-experiment as a pedagogical tool for those not experienced in statistics to make it easily understandable, as infinity is one of the most misunderstood concepts in math and philosophy. Also, if this is so obvious as to be meaningless, then so is the infinite monkey theorem, but I know people who've definitely had difficulty grasping that concept when it is presented to them, and even dismissing it offhand because they don't understand it. I would hope it wasn't meaningless, as it achieved featured article status, which I would hope most wikipedians have some faith in. I tried to edit in good faith, avoiding POV and original research (which this isn't, it's simply a description of the statistical theory involved, and it is definitely germane to the topic), but I believe the revert was quick and not in the greatest faith. Thus my revert. I don't want a mess of reverts, so could we have a discussion here please?

The first version I put in is this (I definitely will admit it's a bit wordy):

It is important to note that Goodwin's Law is necessarily valid, being a form of statistical taugology. It is a rule of statistics that if there is a probability of event x occurring, however slight, as it is iterated towards infinity (with the use of a tool such as calculus), the probability it will have occurred invariably approaches one. This is illustrated by a thought experiment: if one considers rolling a million-sided die an infinite amount of times, every possible resulting number will have also occurred an infinite amount of times. For this reason, the standard form, for any event X, given that X has a probability greater than 0 of occurring, as the opportunities for this event near infinity (grow increasingly larger), the probability that it will have happened approaches unity (one), is tautological. Thus, a seemingly absurd statement in this form, such as "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability that the word orangutan will be misspelled Shakespeare approaches one," is necessarily true. Mathematically, this is similar to the concept of the infinite monkey theorem.Chris b shanks 05:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not my intention to engage in a revert war--I only reverted once, IAW what I see as the consensus on the page that reading too much mathematical depth into a lawyer's phrasing is missing the forest for the trees. BTW, there's no such thing as a 'statistical tautology' (e.g., the phrase appears nowhere else in Wikipedia). Any attempt to analyze this is ungrounded until you can rephrase his statement in the form "let P(n) be the probability that (something); then the limit as n tends to infinity of P(n) is one" and I do not see such a formal statement yet. What you incorrectly refer to as "a rule of statistics" is in fact a law of probability. Note that you are assumeing that the probability does not change from occurrence to occurrence (a constant, or at least bounded from below by some p>0, probability of occurrence). This assumption is inherent in the monkey example but much less clear here--indeed, the probability of such a reference on post 1 is presumably less than (and hence different from) the probability of such a reference in post 100. Your assumption of some notion of equiprobability is clearly mistaken. Simiilar errors occur in the monkey page--conflating "at random" with "equally likely" (for any key to be hit), when almost surely the monkey would tend to hit the middle of the keyboard more often than the edges (a more nearly bivariate normal distribution).

But even if you understood the underlying mathematical issues, this would still be irrelevant. If a saying like this required mathematical analysis, it would never be worthwhile. People have an udedrstanding of the monkey saying that is useful even if they do not grasp the mathematical subtleties, and the same is true here. Analyzing the trees misses the point of the forest.

Perhaps it would be useful to visit the archives. Mike Godwin himself comments here as follows:

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.

I thought there was consensus on this page that trying to turn a wry comment on Internet flamewars into a treatise on probability was a bad idea. I think this mathematically inaccurate and self-indulgent section should be removed. Or should we focus instead on adding a discussion of contradiction at Have one's cake and eat it too? JJL 13:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I trimmed it and mostly de-math-ified it, just to see what people think. - DavidWBrooks 18:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

HUH!?!? JJL, first of all, as you say on the edit summary page, I NEVER played a MATHEMATICS EXPERT 'card', nor do I make any claim whatsoever to be an expert in mathematics; please stop making "commentary" as such on the edit summary page--it's not the place for it. I'm just trying to make a valuable contribution, and if its math is in any way flawed, then it ought to be fixed by an editor. But if I didn't have any faith in the simple math I was explaining, I wouldn't have posted it in the first place. Yes there is such thing as a statistical tautology - the fact that it doesn't appear anywhere on wikipedia has no bearing whatsoever on whether it exists or not. Let's get into SIMPLE linguistics, from SIMPLE math. "Statistical" is what's known as an adjective, and it is modifying "tautology," which is a noun. This is allowed, at least with the English I was taught - I'll play an expert card here, if you wish to call it something like that. I see no articles on wikipedia for "ANGRY DOG," therefore they don't exist? I don't see "SMART PRESIDENT" either, damn.... (or, amusingly enough, 'lingusitic tautology') If I did indeed mix up the words PROBABILITY and STATISTICS, a good editor would edit that. Also, this is one of the most amusing things I've ever seen on wikipedia..., you introduce the concept of equiprobability in your argument (which, from reading the article it's linked to, I never claimed, I just claimed the probability on any occurrence would never reach 0, thus iterated to infinity it reaches 1 regardless of variations), and wikilink it to an article on equiprobability. As per your argument before, "if it's not on wikipedia, it doesn't exist." Didn't think I'd check that article's history? (Maybe some of your criticisms of me are right, but damn I'm thorough with everything I do.) AND I NOTE: YOU CREATED that article the SAME DAY you made this post, and there aren't even any references in the article you created. This is bizarre. Finally, in the infinite monkey theorem article, regardless of the fact that they (in the real world, not in the ideal theoretical world of the theorem) would hit keys in the middle more frequently, it would just take them a significantly longer to make every work in existence. And, as infinity is endless, something significantly larger than another finite number is still meaningless in relation to it (i.e. infinity). Finally (sorry... another one :P ), maybe contradiction should be addressed (though don't worry, I won't do it) in the article you mentioned. First of all, statements like that aren't really encyclopedic topics themselves in the first place. So if we are trying to make them encyclopedic, we should try and explain them as thoroughly as possible. For example, when something slightly metaphorical (as this is) is mentioned, the article should not assume the reader understands the way it works (as, interestingly enough, knowledge of how aphorisms, adages, etc. relate to the real world are even used on some types of IQ tests). No other articles in wikipedia make assumptions like this. Look at the hat article for a fine example (I didn't create that one). Thus, as an article in physics would explain it in physics layman's terms (or at least offer wikilinks to articles that do), a page with a metaphorical meaning should offer an explanation in language layman's terms, perhaps as if one was trying to explain an idiom to a non-english speaker. I think I've had enough of editing wikipedia, it's impossible (or 'improbable'?) to have a rational discussion on here (fault both on my part and that of other's). Chris b shanks 07:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. Good-bye. JJL 13:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add, as a further amusing sidenote, JJL even created an article that his new article refers to at the same time as he created it. And I'd also like to add that the way it is now in the article misrepresents it and is completely wrong, maybe that's why JJL thinks I'm an idiot. "Given enough time, the chance of any event occurring increases." is BLATANTLY wrong. Take for example a logical contradiction (eg. "Both A and NOT A will simultaneously occur). Chris b shanks 07:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys, you keep this up and you're going to be calling each other Hitler. Remember, this is a small part of one wikipedia article, not a death match over something that will be Placed In Your Permanent Record. (The error Chris cites above is mine - I tried to de-math-ify the terminology. As he notes, it should say something like "the chance of virtually any event ..." or some qualifier like that. Although it has now been removed entirely.) - DavidWBrooks 13:27, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it goes beyond that...probability one events need not occur (and events that can occur can have zero probability). So, saying that P(n)->1 is different from saying that the event is certain to happen. (The same applies to the monkey case--is it impossible for the monkey to hit the letter 'z' every time and hence never write any English language word at all? No, like a coin coming up heads every time, it just happens with probability zero.) Trying to put this on firm mathematical ground creates two holes for every one that it fills, I think. But detailed mathematical (or even semantic) analysis of a saying ignores the fact that "You can't eat your cake and have it too" expresses "A and not-A is a contradiction" in a pithy way that humans find useful. I still feel we're best off without it here. An internal link somewhere to probability should more than suffice. JJL 13:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

An "infinite sequence" has no defined probability. The probability of an open-ended sequence tends against zero in the limit. An event with probability 1 indeed must happen, and an event with probability 0 cannot happen, by definition. Does this still have any releveance for the article?--Stephan Schulz 13:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

You're exactly wrong. Probability one events need not occur, and probability zero events can occur. This is first-undergraduate-course-in-probability stuff. For example, flipping a coin infinitely many times: The result 'all heads' can happen, but the probability is limit 2^-n as n->infinity, which is zero. Indeed, if you imagine flipping a coin infinitely many times, some (a priori) probability zero event must occur. For cont. distributions--say, normal, for concreteness--the probability of seeing a single point is zero (area under a curve at a single point is zero), but the outcome is a single point, so again, some probability zero event must occur. (Loosely, each point has a 1-in-infinity chance of occurring, but some one of those infinitely many options must transpire.) The phrase "tends against zero" has no mathematical meaning.

The only relevance I see for the article is the continued warning that non-expert editing of a non-expert's use of technical language in hopes of making it backwards-compatible with the correct technical usage of the term is...Wikipedian. JJL 14:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, while I wouldn't represent myself as an expert in statistics, I did indeed receive training in stat, and had a pretty good idea of what I was saying. (To wit, I wasn't simply trying to restate a trivially true -- or, if you wish, a trivially untrue -- fact about non-zero-probability events. I was also making a joke, cloaked in mock-probabilistic terms. And, most importantly, I was trying to promote a sense of mindfulness about history.) So whenever I see someone trying to reword GL in revisions, I keep saying to myself "How could he/she have missed the whole point?" But that's just me. Mike Godwin 8:53 PM, 8 May 2007 (EST) (Insert happy face here.)

I understand the point of the law. All I was thinking when I made the edit was that if it was stated like: 'In an internet discussion that gets heated, the longer it gets, the higher the chance someone will refer to Hitler,' then it wouldn't have been near as memorable or developed within the internet culture as a reference. The reason I believe it stayed was the fact of the technical wording. If it was worded in an offhand way, as above, it wouldn't pack anywhere near the same 'punch' as it does the way it is worded. I understand the point it's trying to make, but also believe the structure is important for the reason I gave above; it's formality is what seems to give it validity, and that's why it's called a 'law'... because it sounds technical and scientific. Thus the discussion of the mathematics involved, and how it is necessarily true. I understand how there is always one possiblity for something not to occur when we are talking about limits (it should be noted that this applies to Godwin's Law also--it may be possible that there will be infinite posts in a discussion that do not refer to Hitler). But the reader must remember this is specific to the term 'limit,' and not when we are referring to a probability of 1. It is not possible for an event with a probability of 1 to not occur, nor is it possible for an event with a probability of 0 to occur. What is important, however, is that it is possible for an event with a probabilistic limit of 1 not to occur (in most circumstances), and it is possible for an event with a probabilistic limit of 0 to occur (in most circumstances - for example, I hope one would not debate with me that while a logical contradiction has a probability of 0, it still may happen). And JJL, please stop telling me I have no idea what I'm talking about and don't understand probability. Thanks. Chris b shanks 03:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

"It is not possible for an event with a probability of 1 to not occur, nor is it possible for an event with a probability of 0 to occur." You don't understand probability (or limits). This isn't an insult; it's merely a fact. Please stop editing probability-related articles. JJL 03:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Why have all the contributions by Chris b shanks been struck out? Anything to do with Lamest edit wars (talk page)?--Shtove 22:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

He did that himself [1]. The edit history said Taking back comments. JJL 00:39, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Winding the philosophy debate down

Any chance of this incredibly long and increasingly off-topic philosophy debate being taken (back!) to user talk? It's really missing the point. Of course GL isn't mathematically sensible. Of course it's tautological. The entire point of it is infectious wry humor, with a corrective purpose; it (mis)uses geeky math/logic language, quite consciously, to make a point. As with Murphy's Law and the cat-and-buttered-toast perpetual motion paradox, analyzing it as if it were a mathematical or logical actual Law of Nature is just a waste of time. (Same as it was last year when essentially the same thread arose.) I'm not trying to be grumpy, but this honestly is getting tedious. :-/ — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

That is what I have been saying all along. Trying to analyze it mathematically is silly, and it entirely misses the point. The rest is just correcting mistaken notions of probability, which is indeed off-topic...if we have consensus that adding mathematical rigour to the article is a bad idea. If such mathematical ideas are to enter in, though, they should at least be correct. I'd be very happy to see the whole thing dropped. JJL 21:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire

Intriguingly circular? 142.179.57.236 23:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Stop. Guys! You're letting this go so out of hand. You're like Wikipedia's Nazis!

...Crap.~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 19:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Marking this thread "Resolved", as the increasingly off-topic discussion has finally wound down. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:04, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Censorship

Usual cries of "You're like the Nazis" on USENET that involve "censorship" do not involve it in a Nazi context, but rather in the context of someone feeling they're being censored by someone else on the Internet (and claiming their "First Amendment Rights"). The logic that it should be left in because the Nazis used it is much too broad. Genocide, propaganda--yes, these are strongly identified with Nazi Germany in particular. But censorship, repression, violence, etc., can't all be lumped in just because the Nazis used them. JJL 01:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Not sure I buy that, but I don't consider the difference between this version of the article and that one to be particularly significant. The regime was in fact as censorious as it was propagandistic, but the article is probably not any weaker without that word being added. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

xkcd

This doesn't seem a notable link to me. Is there some reason to feel otherwise? What's the readership of this comic? JJL 12:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it's a fairly popular comic, and I only found out about godwin's law because it featured on xkcd (comic 260). mattbuck 15:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there a more quantitative answer to this? Also, is a use of it in a comic a citation of the law? JJL 01:26, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Citation issue no longer relevant; heading changed to use standard one, and to avoid any more "citation to" vs. "citation of" editwarring. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a very popular comic among geeks and since these are the people godwin's law will mostly affect geeks it seems relevant. Could be used as the image for the page though SPACKlick 17:29 15 May 2007

No, it could not. xkcd is cc-by-nc-2.5. This is not acceptable. --Ysangkok 14:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with SPACKlick that xkcd is notable enough to qualify. Agree with Ysangkok on copyright issue. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Agrees that xkcd is notable enough, it is a populer geek comic, featured on BoingBoing and presumably other well read websites, beyond being well read itself. SkippyUK 15:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Upper bound on thread length?

"Thus Godwin's Law serves to impose an upper bound on thread length in general." Even if one were to assume that Godwin's Law means that a mention of Nazis/Hitler *must* eventually occur (which it doesn't - but I don't want to rehash that lively debate above) it still doesn't mean it has to happen in a bounded time. In a sequence of coin tosses the probability of a head occurring approached one, but it doesn't mean that there is a bound for when the first head must occur by. Similarly there is no bound on when the first mention of Nazis/Hitler must occur in the sequence of posts in a thread. That line in the article just seems darn wrong to me. 59.167.51.4 12:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)Dave

Beyond all that, it only says the thread should be considered dead, not that people won't go on arguing about arguing. Often the thread turns into an endless debate about Godwin's Law itself. JJL 14:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

We're wandering into original research and personal theorization about what "should" be here. The "upper bound" statement is sourced. If one wants to change the text to indicate that this is a theory advanced by a particular source, that sounds reasonable, but altering it to present a different take on the issue would require a new external source for that novel perspective. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the Jargon file link, where it says "Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups."? I'd agree that it effectively imposes such an upper bound, as per the Jargon file. JJL 01:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep; meant that link, and agree with "effectively" qualification since that is what source said. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I removed the sentence. Even reworded into meaninglessness it was still copyvio. Meggar 05:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

America

Resolved

 – Self-answering question.

This law seems very important now, especially with all of the online America-bashing that goes on. We are constantly compared to Fascists and Nazis because of our president (who in their eyes is Hitler). Is it verifiable that this is being used towards Americans most? 75.68.6.81 05:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sources present? No. Verifiable? In theory. Verified, no. No sources, not encyclopedically useful. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Addressing the "CopyPaste" in the "Corollaries and usage" Section

I didn't want to just edit the page directly in case I ended up making the problem worse rather than better:

From the source original
(HTML Comment from the Copy/Paste tag)
<!--The following paragraph was plagiarized almost word-for-word from the Jargon File. Needs to be rewritten from scratch-->

There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's Law.

My suggested re-write
There is a convention which started with Usenet, but has crossed over into many forms of online discussion. It states that once a comparison to Hitler and/or Nazi Germany has been made, the thread is effectively over. Additionally, the one responsible for making the comparison is considered to have 'lost' the argument at hand.

Looks good to me. This also effectively resolves #Upper bound on thread length?, above. Any disagreement? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

NB: Someone removed the copyvio tag, since the JF is in the public domain. I restored an HTML comment, however, to the effect that it is still blatant plagiarism and needs a rewrite, simply for WP encyclopedic and ethical standards. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Humourous

As mentioned above (and marked as "Resoloved"), it should at least be mentioned that the 'law' is intended humourously. As any discussion grows larger the chances of a participant reciting the alphabet/listing the names of former presidents of France/telling their age/saying where they live/etc. approaches 1.

The 'law' (in statistical terms) is no more than the Law of averages explained in terms of Murphy's law. That's an important point to make, but not one that detracts from the argument made my the 'law'. But where to integrate that fact? --sony-youth^pléigh 10:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Your argument assumes a constant positive probability of naming the former presidents of France, etc., for the Law of Averages to apply. That's WP:OR. There's discussion of this at a few points above, e.g. Mathematics [2]. JJL 15:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh no! The maths Nazis! :)) My point is that it is intended humorously but that that is not mentioned in the article. If you don't have any problems, I'll make a slight copy edit to 'lighten' in up. --sony-youth^pléigh 20:17, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the article already makes this clear enough. It might needs to be spelled out at the Simple English Wikipedia, but not here, in my opinion. We needn't beat our readers over the head with the obvious. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

PS: As a rule of thumb, I would suggest looking at the other articles on what could be called "observations styled 'laws' or similar, with humorous or ironic intent, at least in part, which exaggerate truths, or mathematical or physical principles, to make a point". I.e. start with Murphy's Law, and I am pretty sure there is an article about the "perpetual motion machine" allegedly formed by strapping buttered toast to a cat's back, so that it cannot land on the ground but will spin in the air forever (heh). The List of eponymous laws is probably a good starting place, and see what "See also" links lead off from Journal of Irreproducible Results or Annals of Improbable Research. If most of the applicable "similar to Godwin's Law" articles emphasize (or, by contrast, just imply) the humor, that is probably a good gauge of overall consensus on how to handle such articles. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of sources

Whoever is deleting sourced, notable, relevant material without debating the need for its removal, and far worse simply deleting source citations (!?!) for material that remains in the artice, please stop. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent cleanup

I've restored a bunch of material that was removed without discussion, deleted utterly non-notable additions of "similar laws" that have no articles here and produce near-nothing in Google hits (per long-standing precendent here; someone adds something like this every other week it seems), restored the standard "In popular culture" heading, and restored the name of the corrollaries section which had been renamed to something like "Alternative applications" or some such name that would directly encourage the addition of original research and other nonsense. Restored the slashdot controversy. Restored a bunch of deleted sources (WTF?). Retained recent grammar fixes and such, as well as more explicit mention of the criticism in Reason magazine. Did some citation formatting also. Just wanted to explain the big edit in more detail, since edit summaries are not very long. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Manzanar; use of the phrase concentration camp

Followers of this page may be interested in the debate regarding the use of the term "concentration camp" on the Manzanar talk page.--Epeefleche 18:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Facism

does facism fall under this law?Some thing 03:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Contradiciton

Isn't there a contradiction in the text? It says "Godwin's Law does not question whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate" and then later says "Godwin's Law does not apply to discussions directly addressing genocide, propaganda, or other mainstays of the Nazi regime. Instead, it applies to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions." Determining the latter implies assessing whether the references is "appropriate", contradicting the former definition.

So, if I tell a Nazi who's behaving like a Nazi that he's a Nazi, have I affirmed Godwin's Law or not?

Thanks (from an irregular Wikipedia user who was genuinely confused by the definition)

--84.161.92.213 15:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cruft in "References in Popular Culture"

The always-useless "references in popular culture" section doesn't quite have a Family Guy reference, but why does mentioning some obscure Web Comic, or a a not-particularly-famous English TV quiz series (and without explanation why it would be significant or useful to know) deserve to be on this page? How is it anything but cruft & trivia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.79.120.139 (talk) 14:06, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

They are both self-evidently notable since they have their own articles. It isn't cruft or trivia because it demonstrates the spread of usage of GL, which is part of what this article is about. The article would simply be incomplete and tantamount to counterfactual to pretend that the meme has not in fact spread outside of its online "incubator" into other media and forums. I.e., there is a sharp contrast between demonstrating the use of the meme in popular culture in this manner, and adding an "In popular culture" section to pocket billiards mentioning every single TV show that ever showed a game of pool. Anyway, WT:TRIV is probably a better place for this discussion, since what is really at issue is different definitions of "trivia" and "cruft", not this article per se; it's being used as a example of a general case, and 218.79.120.139's apparent assertion that all such material is necessarily and automatically "crufty" (whatever that really means to this person) is a proposal that would need discussion where people are actually talking about such matters. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ellen Goodman article

An editor added a sentence stating that "attenuation of Hitlerian metaphors" may amount to an instance of Godwin's Law. An article by Ellen Goodman [3] is cited as an example. In the article, Goodman places global warming deniers "on a par with Holocaust deniers." I have these concerns:

• The argument about attenuation may amount to original research, which is inappropriate for Wikipedia.
• Citing the article tends to equate Holocaust deniers with Nazis. This is an error, much like conflating Nazi with neo-Nazi.
• Personally I find the assertion unconvincing. Certainly the cited example does not lend it support.

I would be easier in my mind if this sentence were reliably sourced rather than merely asserted. The link to the Ellen Goodman article seems inappropriate in any case. I have removed the sentence. -- Rob C. alias Alarob 02:33, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It starts getting to my nerves

this is so true "..is often misused to ridicule even valid comparisons.[6]". what once was a valid joke for heated usenet discussions now it becomes an default way to hijack ANY discussion involving nazi germany. --Leladax 02:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Attempting to tidy the Reference section

I saw that there were both inline cites and standalone references. Thinking that I might separate the two, I looked at the standalone references. The first was previously included as an inline cite, the second was a summary of stuff already included in the article, and the third opened up (for me) as a 'news:' URL, that some browsers can't handle. If you think any of these might be put back, please consider whether they might become inline cites, so as to preserve a cleaner-looking reference section. EdJohnston 20:34, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to User:SMcCandlish restoring one of the items I removed, but I do note that the last qualifier of the file name is 'godwins.law' (i.e. it has no .txt suffix). On my Macintosh neither Safari nor Firefox knows what to do with such a file, other than download it. (I.e it's not a standard URL that will just open up in any browser). Downloading this, followed by explicit opening in a text editor, reveals that the contents of this file seem to be a copy of what's already in other references, so I thought we might be able to do without it. Firefox on Windows has the same problem. The only browser I have access to that opens such a file without further steps is Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. If you feel that Usenet pointers have true archival value, I suggest this reference should be redone as a link into groups.google.org that will open up for everybody. EdJohnston 22:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

It isn't a Usenet pointer; it is the canonical version, as distributed by Godwin himself, via EFF, including which corollaries he'd adopted, what his preferred wording and title is, etc. I.e., it is the most authoritative primary source. That it will have to be saved to disk by some people is a shame, but oh well. They'll live. The news URL is openable as a Google News web page, if you look more closely; it is the 3rd of 3 links in that reference. It too is important, as it documents the Richard Sexton issue, which used to be in here, but someone deleted it for no explicable reason. I've restored it in prose that I believe is both (sourcedly) accurate and fair to both Godwin and Sexton. Anyway, the undercurrent is that one should not delete references from article just because one finds them personally inconvenient to access. But that logic, every reference to an offline book or magazine or newspaper would be deleted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed you added a link to http://rs79.vrx.net for Richard Sexton. If you would consider it, there is a Godwin-related story at http://rs79.vrx.net/works/usenet/Godwin/story/ that could be used instead of the bare web site. EdJohnston 01:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Along similar lines, I think the History section was a good idea. It does still seem as though the article gives disproportionate weight to things like corollaries and other slightly off-tangent subjects, but I have no grand ideas for improvement. JJL (talk) 02:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Good find. I'll try to work in something from that. With regard to the corollary stuff, I would actually advocate for the restoration of the canonical corollaries (the ones that can be reliable sourced as having been adopted by Godwin). I have a minor conflict of interest in the matter, but I think it is not a big deal: I was the actual maintainer of the "official" copy at www.eff.org; some time around I think 1994 or 1995, I took the signature file version Mike was using, which included these corollaries, and made it an "official" EFF document in our archive on net.lore, and it did not change much after that. A thousand boneheaded wannabe-corollaries have been invented by random people, but if they are not in the EFF copy they are what WP would have to call WP:OR; i.e., if not included in that list, they are some random person's assertion that they've thought of something clever, while at least with the EFF copy we have a source to support this claim: Even Godwin thought these few examples genuinely intelligent enough to redistribute them himself as part of his own sig file, back in the day. Anyway, I would argue for restoring them, because if you read them it is pretty clear that "the Godwin's Law meme" as a whole actually includes these corollaries, and the article is simply incomplete with out them. I no longer recall who deleted them or why, but I can't think of a valid reason to leave them out, not on sourcing grounds and not on relevance grounds. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that was you? OK, rings a vague bell now. Anyway, as long as they don't overwhelm the article I don't object, but it will seem like an invitation to those making up new ones. Quirk's is an obvious choice for inclusion. I think you mistakenly exposed them at the bottom now? JJL (talk) 04:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I just forgot to close a ref, so it bollixed the corollaries and usage section (which I haven't otherwise changed). Probably over a year ago, there was a version that actually listed all of the canonical corollaries; that's what I'd restore. No big hurry - I'd rather see it get discussed more than turn into a revert war or something, since someone did delete them once and might want to give their reasoning here. As for additions of junk, the use of loud HTML comments around the section will probably help; I've used this technique at Albinism in popular culture to sharply curtail the amount of OR being added there. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. Why not start a news section here on the proposed corollaries? It may even be that a separate List of Corollaries of Godwin's Law page is justified. Too many corollaries here could detract from the 'theorem', but let's see. JJL (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Question concerning a special case

What happens if the discussion topic is already about Hitler, Nazis, the Holocaust, or any other Nazi-related topics? How, exactly, does Godwin's Law apply? It looks kinda weird to say "The Nazis were such Nazis"... 128.235.249.80 23:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• sorry, forgot to log in when I added that... Toad of Steel 23:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that this case is actually addressed by GL, other than the caveat that some comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are actually valid, and it is the hyperbolic overuse of them that GL mocks. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Atrocious Article!

this article is worse than Hitler —Preceding unsigned comment added by Veggieburgerfish (talk • contribs) 20:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Godwin's Troll? -- PaulxSA (talk) 15:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Seriously...

Godwin's law is dead. Period. End of line. Stop helping others dumb down discussion with this trite and utterly moronic concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.183.25.243 (talk) 23:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Hitler is also dead. Coincidence? 75.75.180.0 (talk) 23:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

It's just the law of large numbers

As tongue-in-cheek as the "law" is, it doesn't hurt to point out that it is strictly true for every possible event during a Usenet discussion. It's just the law of large numbers. So, it is equally true that as a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving flying pigs approaches one. It does for any event whose probability is not 0. Kronocide (talk) 17:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't hurt to point that out on the talk page (as has been done before, more than once), but it would not be a useful addition to the article, since the subject is an instance of net.humor with a social/cultural point to make, and is not meant to be mathematically analyzed into the ground (as has also been discussed in detail here before; see archives). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 07:14, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and in any case it's more about the 'mean time to Hitler', rather than solely the probability that the topic itself would arise. The whole reason this 'law' was introduced was to combat the almost universal knee-jerk reaction of people to use Hitler/Nazis as a synonym for evil. It is for this reason much more likely to arise earlier in conversation than flying pigs, as any debate that becomes heated often involves one side considering the other bad/wrong/evil etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HappyGod (talk • contribs) 23:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it's "analysing something into the ground" to point out that it is a truism. As a humorous observation it is badly put. It would be better to have said that in 5 years all Usenet discussions would involve a mention of Hitler. But, however humorously meant, the "law" is cited seriously which is problematic, because the initial version is a truism and the alternative version (the first person to mention Hitler loses the argument) is baseless (but very useful for winning arguments about WW2).--Jack Upland (talk) 03:04, 29 August 2012 (UTC)