[ILUG] open list abuse

[Paul Biggar]

On 08/09/05, Conor McDermottroe <lists at mcdermottroe.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-09-08 at 16:32 +0200, Rory Browne wrote:
> > The majority of voters aparently support the FF/PD government. That
> > doesn't necessarly mean that we should all vote FF just because other
> > people do. This is modern Ireland. Not Nazi Germany.
> 
> Excellent, a mention of Nazis. Doesn't this mean the thread dies now?

I was hoping against hope that this was the case. But a quick check of
the relevent law (Godwin's) showed me that it is merely the fulfilment
of a statistical prediction:

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

Even worse than that, this invocation strikes me as intentional

<quote src="http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/legends/godwin/">
6.  "Hitler!"  Ha!  The thread is over!

	Nope, doesn't work that way.  Not only is it wrong to say that a
thread is over when Godwin's Law is invoked anyway (Usenet threads
virtually always outlive their usefulness), but long ago a corollary to
the Law was proposed and accepted by Taki "Quirk" Kogama (quirk at swcp.com):

 	Quirk's Exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called 
		     "Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.
	
	Sorry, folks.  Nice try, though.
</quote>

Paul


-- 
Paul Biggar
paul.biggar at gmail.com