[GoLUG] Cunningham's Law

[Syeed Ali]

Steve, did someone beat you to the concept?


Cunningham's Law states "the best way to get the right answer on the
internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham's_Law

https://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2010/05/word-of-the-week-cunninghams-law.html

The New York Times archive purged its comments with a personal anecdote
which (according to an anonymous editor on wikimedia) was from Steven
McGeady (or an anonymous person claiming to be him):

https://archive.nytimes.com/schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/weekend-competition-schotts-law/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_McGeady

Although I didn't do the full legwork to determine its source outside
of the circle-citation that is the internet, 2010 at least has the idea
on the internet, so the idea is in existence at that time.

There is the claim it is around the USENET era, and I'm not looking
into that.


Of course, when the concept exists in other languages, it gets
complicated:

prêcher le faux pour savoir le vrai
preach the falsehood to know the truth

拋磚引玉 
tossing a brick to attract jade

Some expressions are older than the internet.


Notably, Ward Cunningham himself has no personal wiki entry on this:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=site:https://wiki.c2.com/+Cunningham%27s+Law