As most Internet regulars are aware, there are a set of tongue-in-cheek “laws” pronounced by regulars on message boards and the like, such as Godwin’s Law, promulgtated by Mike Godwin in 1990: “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
Our very own Gaudere produced her law in 2000 here.
Netizen Nathan Poe similarly came up with Poe’s Law, which states: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing."
I participated in a thread at Christian Forums in which Nathan Poe came up with his Second Law: “Poe’s Second Law: The amount of punctuation at the end of a post is directly proportional to the level of hysterics – and inversely proportional to the number of facts.” Source here.
I’m kind of annoyed about this whole Poe’s Law thing, because I was attempting to get a very similar law (“Lamia’s Law”) recognized several years earlier:
I still think mine is better, because it doesn’t limit things to Fundamentalism. Fundamentalists are far from the only nutty people on the Internet.
Talk about your synchronicity; I was just browsing Free Ratio and saw the thread there, and went, “Hey - didn’t I just see something about Poe’s Law on the Dope?”
