# Who was Godwin?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-godwin/73442>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 22, 2001, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-godwin/73442 "2001-07-22T15:35:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2001, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-godwin/73442/1 "2001-07-22T15:35:11Z")

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Question: who was Godwin (and I hope I’ve got the name correctly), as in “Godwin’s Law”? Godwin’s Law, I believe, is something along the lines of “The first person to mention Nazis in an argument has effectively conceded defeat,” or, more broadly, “The mention of Nazis in any thread marks the demise of the thread.” I know this Law has been around for a while, because I’ve seen it mentioned years ago in Usenet threads. Where did it originate?

I hope I haven’t killed my own thread.

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**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2001, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-godwin/73442/2 "2001-07-22T15:44:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Aha. Quoting from there (Richard Sexton’s home page):
> 
> UseNet was one of my major vices in the 80’s and I raised a bit of  
> hell on the net. I’m responsible for […] “_plonk_”, “newsfroup”  
> and the quote “when somebody on UseNet brings up Hitler or the Nazi’s  
> the thread has been going on too long”. Mike Godwin has claimed this  
> maxim as “Godwins Law”, and Mike is a lawyer, so I’m not going to  
> argue, despite the fact Mike wasn’t on the net in 1989 when I  
> posted that line to news.admin.

[http://bang.dhs.org/if/raif/mol/msg03100.html](http://bang.dhs.org/if/raif/mol/msg03100.html)

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**Author:** ![Kaje](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f04885/32.png) [@Kaje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaje)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2001, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-godwin/73442/3 "2001-07-22T15:52:22Z")

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though in previewing it appears its already been sorta answered… I did find this though:

[http://www.eff.org/Publications/Mike\_Godwin/index.html-](http://www.eff.org/Publications/Mike_Godwin/index.html-)

It has a picture at least…as well as some other things he wrote… I did find other pages that confirmed the author of Godwin’s law was the same Mike Godwin featured on this page

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**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2001, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-godwin/73442/4 "2001-07-22T15:53:14Z")

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Interesting. In [this _Wired_ magazine column](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if.html), someone purporting to be the Godwin says he formulated “Godwin’s Law” deliberately, as a sort of Memetic Experiment. _:lightning flashes:_ _:thunderclap:_ “It lives! IT LIVES! My creation is _ALIVE!!!_”