At 2:04 AM -0700 8/15/01, Michael C. Berch wrote:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> Can someone please direct me to the origin of the 'Hitler Rule'?
>
>Not sure if this is what you mean, but the following search on Google
>will tell you more than you probably want to know:
>
>http://www.google.com/search?q=godwin%27s+law
>
>I don't know the original date or newsgroup on which Godwin's Law was
>originally posted, but it's probably buried in there somewhere.
You can also check the jargon file...
http://tuxedo.org/jargon/jargon.html
for Godwin's Law:
>[Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a
>comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition
>in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever
>mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in
>progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an
>upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a
>widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law
>in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
pf
