Laws of the Internet

I think I’ll start with Scopie’s Law. Formulated by Bad Science forumite Rich, here. Listed on Wiki here.

In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately..and gets you laughed out of the room.

 Wikipedia also lists Godwin’s Law, but I can’t find Poe’s Law except in Parodies and fundamentalism. It is in the Urban Dictionary though – which made me think that the UD might be an apt place to define Scopie’s Law. I’ve submitted it. Rich’s homepage is here.

Sites quoting Scopie’s Law:

http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/163/

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/the_nuttiness_that_is_whaleto.php

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Internet_Law

Site’s Invoking Scopie’s Law:

http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum

10 Comments

  1. jdc325 said,

    June 19, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    OK, so this is more about spreading the word on Scopie’s Law than about listing teh Internet Laws. I will definitely add new Internet Laws if they are funny and/or relevant though. We need a name for each one though. Actually, I need to name this one:

    When commenting on someone else’s poor grammar or spelling on an internet forum or blog, you will inevitably make a grammatical / speling error of your own

  2. Radioactive afikomen said,

    July 10, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    If you’re looking for something more substantive than a simple definition, RationalWiki has an article on Poe’s Law. It’s also the only non-blog, as far as I know, with a definitive article on Scopie’s LawScopie’s Law..

  3. Radioactive afikomen said,

    July 10, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Dang, I typed “Scopie’s Law” twice. How about a law stating that, in places where you have no option to correct your comments, you will inevitably make an error? Then again, most blogs don’t let you correct your own comments, so that probably goes without saying.

  4. jdc325 said,

    July 10, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    Ah, thanks for the rational wiki link RA. Hadn’t spotted that.
    I would correct your comment for you, but I’ve got in the habit now of leaving comments exactly as posted. I am the anti-Briffa.

    Cheers for the comments,
    jdc

  5. Radioactive afikomen said,

    July 10, 2008 at 7:28 pm

    You’re welcome, jdc.

    Who was Briffa?

  6. jdc325 said,

    July 11, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Dr John Briffa. I gathered some more links about him here.

  7. symball said,

    August 8, 2008 at 10:06 am

    re: the pedants mistake- it has a name :

    Muphry’s law

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

    “if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written”

  8. jdc325 said,

    August 8, 2008 at 10:15 am

    That Wiki page is awesome. I love Muphry’s law. Thanks for pointing me to it Symball.

  9. Andysnat said,

    October 25, 2009 at 11:32 am

    It seems you are waaaaay ahead of the game. Haha

  10. jdc325 said,

    October 25, 2009 at 6:02 pm

    Thanks for commenting Andysnat.

    “Telegraph.co.uk scribe, science nerd, and pedant” Tom Chivers has written a piece about Internet Laws (here) that includes Scopie’s Law at number 5.

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