There seem to be three questions:
* Who authored what's commonly known as Godwin's Law? I'm agnostic. I can
certainly believe an earlier variant circulated in the 80s.
* What is Godwin's law? I cited it as relating to Usenet, but Godwin
himself (http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Folklore/Humor/godwins.law)
casts it as relating to all online discussions
* Does it apply here? See my earlier message. :)
-Declan
At 02:43 PM 5/16/01 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
>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 the newsgroups alt.aquaria, rec.aquaria,
>alt.aquaria.killies, comp.fonts,
>rec.food.restaurants, rec.ponds, eye.* and alt.sex, plus uncountable alt
>groups. For a
>while I posted as BIFF ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Ned Phoeboe ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) until
>I
>got caught. "*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.
>
> > ----------
> > Declan McCullagh[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > On Wed, May 16, 2001 at 12:41:26PM -0500, Aimee Farr wrote:
> > > > That European governments which collaborated with the Nazis, and are
> > > > even now collaborating with the Nazis in Bonn and Paris, are hardly
> > > > good candidates for being an "escrow service" for sensitive data?
> > >
> > > Godwin's Law.
> >
> > Perhaps I'm just being difficult today, but it strikes me as this is
> > in invalid invocation of GL. The law says:
> > "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison
> > involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
> >
> > First, this isn't a Usenet discussion. Second, this isn't a comparison
> > involving the Nazis -- this is citing history. Godwin's Law, even
> > if we agree with it, is not meant to make all historical references
> > invalid, but to avoid cheapening the Holocaust, etc.
> >
> > -Declan
> >
>Sorry Declan, but the oldest cite I recall (I've been on the net
>since 1978) was to the effect that: "In a Usenet discussion, by the
>time someone invokes comparisons to Hitler or the Nazis, the
>thread has lost all useful content".
>
>It turn out that there is at least one other claimant of authorship,
>Richard Sexton:
>
>http://www.vrx.net/richard/homeprev.html
>
>"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 the newsgroups alt.aquaria,
>rec.aquaria, alt.aquaria.killies, comp.fonts, rec.food.restaurants,
>rec.ponds, eye.* and alt.sex, plus uncountable alt groups. For a
>while I posted as BIFF ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Ned Phoeboe
>([EMAIL PROTECTED]) until I got caught. "*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. "
>
>Peter Trei
