A New Internet Law

[Ed]

We all know Godwin's law (from Wikipedia):

Godwin's law (also Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies) is an adage in Internet culture that was originated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states that:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. In addition, whoever points out that Godwin's law applies to the thread is also considered to have "lost" the battle, as it is considered poor form to invoke the law explicitly. Godwin's law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. Many people understand Godwin's law to mean this, although (as is clear from the statement of the law above) this is not the original formulation.

Nevertheless, there is also a widely-recognized codicil that any intentional invocation of Godwin's law for its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful. See "Quirk's exception" below.

This is fine and good but does not cover other, more annoying, eventualities.

To help add structure and understanding to internet communications, I hereby propound a new law, to be called:

ED's LAW

In essence, this law states that a thread is effectively dead when all that can be said about a subject has been said and that it only continues, Jason-like, through the pig headedness, intransigence, willfull obscurantism, ignorance or other unpleasent behavior on the part of two or more posters. There are codicils to this law. Like Godwin's, invoking it will have no effect on the progress (or lack thereof) of the thread. In fact, the continued life of a thread so declared must occur or else the law was incorrectly invoked.

The most clear example of a situation where the Law applies is one where a thread has remained dormant for days or weeks and then is revived by one of the original participants who, tediously, simply rehashes arguments from the first page. ED's Law would correctly be invoked iff one of the original posters responds with a litany of similarly ancient arguments.

I trust that this attempt to help explicate the interpersonal processes that go on here will prove useful.


Now in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed's_law

 

[Wudang]

Bzzzttt! You brought up Hitler, you lose.

 

[geni]

Now in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed's_law

Breaking the no orginal research rule. The page has been listed on votes for deletion. If you continue what you are doing you risk being blocked.

 

[Ed]

Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Breaking the no orginal research rule. The page has been listed on votes for deletion. If you continue what you are doing you risk being blocked.

Huh?

votes for deletion?

Blocked?

 

[Phrost]

Wikipedia is definitely a community with its own rules. I don't agree with all of them, and have had a little mini-jihad of my own with their first "edit" of the article for Bullshido, and even a nomination for deletion.

If you go to the discussion page, you can see some of this.

Or she may have learned to hit hard and fast to enable her to escape." The idea of an average-sized 16 year old girl hitting a full grown man with enough force to actually deter him from physically imposing his will on her is borderline Bullshido itself. It reeks of the "one hit one kill" mentality which pervades most McDojos that supposedly teach self defense. Even groin shots, eye gouges, and other "dirty" techniques do not magically incapacitate all attackers, especially those under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Huh?

votes for deletion?

Wikipedia is an enclopedia. As such it is preferble that articles are encopedic. In order to ensure this and to prevent wikipedia from filling up with rubish there are a number of policies. Your article clearly breaks the no orgianal reseach rule. This does no however fall into the catogry of a speedy delete (otherwise I would have deleted it). It is therefor going on votes for deletion for a week and is going to have to be voted on. It will probably get unanimius votes for deletion after which it will be deleted.

Blocked? [/B]

having your editing priverlages removed for a certian lenght of time. Normaly a 24 block intialy but further infactions of wikipedia rules will result in longer blocks. Any questions?

 

[geni]

Wikipedia is definitely a community with its own rules. I don't agree with all of them, and have had a little mini-jihad of my own with their first "edit" of the article for Bullshido, and even a nomination for deletion.

If you go to the discussion page, you can see some of this.

I can see why. The orgianl article is pretty much an advert for your website and if I had been on RC patrol I would probably have labled it for shifting over to wikidictionary

 

[Jocko]

Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Wikipedia is an enclopedia.

If wikipedia is an encyclopedia, the JREF user list is a phone book.

Just goes to show... sometimes there's no substitute for the real thing.

 

[Ed]

Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Wikipedia is an enclopedia. As such it is preferble that articles are encopedic. In order to ensure this and to prevent wikipedia from filling up with rubish there are a number of policies. Your article clearly breaks the no orgianal reseach rule. This does no however fall into the catogry of a speedy delete (otherwise I would have deleted it). It is therefor going on votes for deletion for a week and is going to have to be voted on. It will probably get unanimius votes for deletion after which it will be deleted.



having your editing priverlages removed for a certian lenght of time. Normaly a 24 block intialy but further infactions of wikipedia rules will result in longer blocks. Any questions?

Fine. You guys could be cutting edge but.....

Censored by Wikipedia, now that means something.

 

[Jocko]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Fine. You guys could be cutting edge but.....

Censored by Wikipedia, now that means something.

I'd be curious as to why Godwin's qualifies and yours doesn't. I see more practical applications of Ed's than Godwin's, at least around here.

But fret not, Ed. Being disowned by wikipedia is like being kicked out of the flat earthers society. Consider the source of their standards before worrying about whether or not you measure up (down?) to them.

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

I'd be curious as to why Godwin's qualifies and yours doesn't. I see more practical applications of Ed's than Godwin's, at least around here.

Wikipedia has a no orginal research rule. It is slightly usful becuase otherwise it would have endless articles writen by dowsers and homeopaths about their pet theories. There is also the question of wheather a subjct is notable. Godwins law has been around for a while and a lot of people have hear of it as such it gets in so do articles on indivdual pokemon. The exact line between notable an non natable is the subject of a running argument.

But fret not, Ed. Being disowned by wikipedia is like being kicked out of the flat earthers society. Consider the source of their standards before worrying about whether or not you measure up (down?) to them. [/B]

Wikipedia has been cited in US court judgements (something viewed by the wikipeida community as a bad thing). It is one of the top 200 sites on the web (and then there are all the mirrors which are pretty popular). It regalarly passes 1000 hits per minute (I know this because they left fitting a gigabit feed a little late). Ed has not been banned and if he logs on again he will find a nice message on his talk page explaining what is happening.

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

If wikipedia is an encyclopedia, the JREF user list is a phone book.

Just goes to show... sometimes there's no substitute for the real thing.

Wikipedia hasn't been going for very long give it a break (currently on just over 450,000 areticles it'll get there).

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Fine. You guys could be cutting edge but.....

No we could not. Enclopedias report on what has already happened elsewhere (while I'm aware that "wikipedia second with everything" doesn't sound too good it is normal for an encyopedia).

 

[Phrost]

I can see why. The orgianl article is pretty much an advert for your website and if I had been on RC patrol I would probably have labled it for shifting over to wikidictionary

"Bullshido" wouldn't be a term OR movement if it wasn't for my coining it, and starting it, respectively.

Having an article about Bullshido without mentioning the website would be like writing an on McDonald's without mentioning the restaurant.

 

[geni]

"Bullshido" wouldn't be a term OR movement if it wasn't for my coining it, and starting it, respectively.

Having an article about Bullshido without mentioning the website would be like writing an on McDonald's without mentioning the restaurant.

I wouldn't be a question of you mentioning the website that is fair enough. Wikipedia encourages links. It was the lack of much else.

 

[Jocko]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Wikipedia hasn't been going for very long give it a break (currently on just over 450,000 areticles it'll get there).

It's not the longevity, Geni, nor is it the size. It's the fact that I could post an article on the native habitat of the unicorn and see it up there for a time before someone had the good sense to pull it down. No offense, but it's not something I would cite.

And if you look back far enough, I'm sure you could find examples of the Bible being referenced in court decisions as well. I don't think you're ready to vouch for the airtight veracity of THAT document, are you?

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

It's not the longevity, Geni, nor is it the size. It's the fact that I could post an article on the native habitat of the unicorn and see it up there for a time before someone had the good sense to pull it down. No offense, but it's not something I would cite.

Depending on how you wrote it 10 minutes at most (probably less since it is a new article). Less than a minute is quite normal people do tests from time to time (recently a university newspaper did a test. The shortest time was 7 seconds). No wikipedia is quite caperble of dealing with things like that (and does day in day out).

An IBM sudy back on 2002 conlcuded that most vanderlism was delt with within 5 minutes http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/results.htm

That time is probably now somewhat shorter since more people now watch recent changes

And if you look back far enough, I'm sure you could find examples of the Bible being referenced in court decisions as well. I don't think you're ready to vouch for the airtight veracity of THAT document, are you?

But we are not looking back we are dealing with today. Any recent examples of the bible being referenced in court decisions?

 

[Beerina]

[Godwin's] law states that:

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

This is fine and good but does not cover other, more annoying, eventualities.

To help add structure and understanding to internet communications, I hereby propound a new law, to be called:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ED's LAW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



In essence, this law states that a thread is effectively dead when all that can be said about a subject has been said and that it only continues,

Hitler was so full of himself he enjoyed having things named after him, too.

 

[Jocko]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Depending on how you wrote it 10 minutes at most (probably less since it is a new article). Less than a minute is quite normal people do tests from time to time (recently a university newspaper did a test. The shortest time was 7 seconds). No wikipedia is quite caperble of dealing with things like that (and does day in day out).

An IBM sudy back on 2002 conlcuded that most vanderlism was delt with within 5 minutes http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/results.htm

That time is probably now somewhat shorter since more people now watch recent changes

Still an invitation to abuse and a serious flaw in its integrity. It only takes half a second to call up a page, and it stays there until I refresh. Not that I think wikipedia is useless, but it's not an encyclopedia. Real encyclopedias aren't adorned with questionable additions written in crayon in the margins.

But we are not looking back we are dealing with today. Any recent examples of the bible being referenced in court decisions?

No, but I don't need one. The point is what seems perfectly reliable as a source of information or moral guidance today can become a joke tomorrow.

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A New Internet Law

Still an invitation to abuse and a serious flaw in its integrity.

On the basis that I would be quite impress if someone managed to come up with an attack form that hasn't been tried at least twice and the general public doesn't seem to notice these attacks I'm not too worried

It only takes half a second to call up a page, and it stays there until I refresh.

On a good day maybe. Wikipedia keeps running out of server capcity.

Not that I think wikipedia is useless, but it's not an encyclopedia. Real encyclopedias aren't adorned with questionable additions written in crayon in the margins.

Conventional encyopedias have errors that stay in them forever. Errors in wikipedia get found and corrected.

No, but I don't need one. The point is what seems perfectly reliable as a source of information or moral guidance today can become a joke tomorrow.

Well people have been trying to portray wikipedia as a joke since it started. It hasn't worked. The bible stays the same wikipedia does not. Don't belive me cheack out the page history of some of the older articles. As new challanges appear new policies appear.