As though it really matters.

Just what did Mike Godwin say? Was he the first to say it? Though some of the fine details may still be open to debate, these questions actually have answers. (Godwin himself, by the way, has written about his experience with the proliferation of the law). Some of these details can be found on a page on the Electronic Frontier Foundation site. We learn there, for instance, in addition to numerous enjoyable corollaries and exceptions that in 1989 Richard Sexton gave a first formulation of what was to become the law:

You can tell when a USENET discussion is getting old when one of the participants drags out Hitler and the Nazis.

Among the other interesting items on that page is a quote from Clifford Stoll whose (at least) 15 minutes of fame came through his tendency to tell things as they are:

Godwin's Law? Isn't that the law that states that once a discussion reaches a comparison to Nazis or Hitler, its usefulness is over?

And, that, I have to admit is a simple and convincing formulation.

Go to: How to lose an online argument.