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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law Cunningham's Law states "the best way to get the right an
by will_pseudonym 6y ago
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
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."
The concept is named after Ward Cunningham, father of the wiki. According to Steven McGeady, the law's author, Wikipedia may be the most well-known demonstration of this law.
Cunningham's Law can be considered the Internet equivalent of the French saying "prêcher le faux pour savoir le vrai" (preach the falsehood to know the truth). Sherlock Holmes has been known to use the principle at times (for example, in The Sign of the Four.)
- silentsea90 6y agoFascinating! How does Sherlock use it? Or put differently, you are completely wrong about Sherlock using it in Sign of the Four. Prove me wrong! ;)
- greggturkington 6y ago"If you go to a Linux forum and ask for help fixing your WiFi driver, everyone will ignore you." "If, instead, you say 'Linux sucks, you can't even get a f*&$ing WiFi driver working!' thousands of people will solve the problem for you."
- will_pseudonym 6y agoIt's not until just now that I realized the irony inherent in my reply. What the person I was replying to did was to "post the wrong answer", and I was uncontrollably impelled to enact the very phenomenon I was describing, completely unaware I was doing so. Whether unintentional or not, it has put a huge smile on my face.
- will_pseudonym 6y agoBTW, the entirety of my post after the URL is simply quoting from that page. I would have liked to have remembered to put ">" in front of those paragraphs so it was clear that I didn't write all of that, but c'est la vie.