Godwin's Law

Recently I have come across mention of 'Godwin's Law'. Not knowing what it was, I checked it out by use of Google and discovered an interesting site with regards it.

The site mentions the original board (Usenet) but the 'law' can, of course, be applied to threads in other boards (including ATS/BTS).

1. What is Godwin's Law?

Godwin's Law is a natural law of Usenet named after Mike Godwin
concerning Usenet "discussions". It reads, according to
the Jargon File:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

2. What does it mean?

It pretty much means exactly what it says - as a Usenet thread
goes on, the chances of somebody or something being compared to a Nazi
approach one.

3. Yes, but what does it *mean*?

Aah, now *there's* the real question.

In case your head has been buried in the sand for the last sixty
years or so, the Nazis were a German political party lead by Adolf Hitler
that slaughtered upwards of ten million people that didn't meet their
standards of "ethnic purity" and set off to conquer Europe and the world
in World War II. They are generally considered the most evil group of
people to live in modern times, and to compare something or someone to
them is usually considered the gravest insult imaginable.

As a Usenet discussion gets longer it tends to get more heated; as
more heat enters the discussion, tensions get higher and people start to
insult each other over anything they can think of. Godwin's Law merely
notes that, eventually, those tensions eventually cause someone to find
the worst insults that come to mind - which will almost always include a
Nazi comparison.

It gets a bit more involved than this - if you want more info, here's the site.
How to post about Nazis and get away with it - the Godwin's Law FAQ

Pisky-Thank you for posting this. I have to admit I was curious myself, but had never got around to actually looking it up.

Thanks for that. It came up in one of the threads I was responding to in the Mud Pit and I wondered what it was. Of course I was having one of my 'idle moods', so I didn't actually do anything about looking it up. :shk:

lol looks like godwin's law is in effect all over this board...oh i cant stop laughing.

pisky you made my day...its so funny i almost moved this to the jokes forum...but i wont!

but man this is hilarious.

Time for an experiment ...

Bleys, Raven, Prank - you're all a bunch of Nazis !!!!

(That should shut this thread down)

Quirk's Exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called
"Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.

Haha, so it will continue, pisky!

Bugger - I didn't read the thing properly. :shk: