Talk:Poe's law

Earlier Versions and Juvenal

Isn't Juvenal's "Difficile est satiram non scribere" due to the same principle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.177.224.240 (talk) 18:44, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the above comment is self referential. That is, I suspect the above is satirical. The thrust of Juvenal is exactly the opposite of Poe's law. There should have been a smiley attached.

Not to mention that Juvenal didn't know about the internet :-) Jerry Schwarz 23:40, 2 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerryschwarz (talk • contribs)

There's no basis for your suspicion and it's almost certainly false. Satire attacks a view by making it look absurd, but Juvenal's statement, if self-referential, is an illustration that it's true, not absurd. And the fact that Juvenal long preceded the internet isn't relevant to the question of whether the quote shares the principle. -- 184.189.217.91 (talk) 05:28, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

You don't really need the internet to get to Poe's Law, just the written word, any written word. Internet just gets my faux serious satire to you faster. 67.182.214.160 (talk) 23:23, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

External links

At present, there is a link to RationalWiki.org in this article. I had added links to Urban Dictionary and Conservapedia to compliment it, but those were removed (I also intended to link to a site that is dedicated to Poe's Law but goofed and included the Conservapedia link twice). Then I removed the link to RationalWiki, and that was reverted as well. I usually kill links to RationalWiki on sight as spam, since members of RationalWiki have indicated that they desire to spam their site on Wikipedia to improve their sites rankings, and that's not acceptable. Why should RW, a poor quality source, be the sole external link on this article? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

well, i reverted your edit as your comment wasn't on par with what you did: you removed a link to RW while your comment was suggesting you were removing one to CP. the RW article's content is relevant for the article, providing even an academic source that is not present in our article. however, i'm sort of bugged by your WP:COI here: the spam argument is sort of biased, see nofollow, and as a CP editor this systematic removal is what i call a WP:POINT. as i may be myself biased towards keeping this link, another opinion surely is appreciated − MIRROR (talk) 18:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Removed information

Some of the following things were removed from the page, putting them here in case they're worth discussing.

The idea is also the main concept behind Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel Mother Night.

This was removed by User:GreenGlass1972 who said it was uncited and not clearly factual. Usually we tag stuff like this as uncited and let it sit a while, but I'll add it here rather than add it back.

"Biased message processing in Poe's Law":

• Stephen Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits when he hosts The Colbert Report. While most people agree that Colbert is funny, his viewing audience disagrees on whether Colbert is being genuinely satirical or whether he only pretends to be joking and genuinely means what he is saying when in character..
• The difference is based on the observer's political ideology. Liberals think Colbert's serious performance is a parody, while conservatives think Colbert is being serious and the joking is the disguise. To one set of observers, Colbert's parody is indistinguishable from the reality.
• This difference in conclusion, based on biased message processing, may explain why Stephen Colbert was invited to speak at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 29, 2006. His in-character performance came as a surprise to many of the guests, most of whom did not find the routine amusing. . However, it would not have come as a surprise if Colbert's previous performances had been accurately identified as parody by those in charge of arranging the entertainment at the dinner.

Also remove by green for having 'questionable sources'. Just don't like to see hard work probably put in good faith annihilated. Ranze (talk) 14:50, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

2014

I came to this page to post a "Well Done" to the editors and greatly enjoyed the "delete this" diversion. The tone of the article was good, and I admire the work the author put into going back if not to the stone age or Fidonet at least to two levels back of sources.

My congrats to the original writer/editor/poster -- and then, of course, to the people who resisted the wannabe bowdlerizer.

David Lloyd-Jones (talk) 22:17, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

RationalWiki External Link

Doesn't pass WP:ELNO's #2, and #12, respectfully. Tutelary (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Morgan's Maxim

The article has a section about "Morgan's Maxim" that cites only a reference to the original post. There should be at least one reference to attest that the "maxim" is quoted sufficiently often, and known by that name. (I myself have never seen it, while I have seen several references to "Poe's Law".) --143.106.73.152 (talk) 02:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This is useless

I see the debate about keeping it but this is an awful page that should be deleted. No significance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.92.51.157 (talk) 12:37, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I do not agree. Not sure why it shouldn't be of significance. --Fixuture (talk) 20:06, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Uselessness

I really hate to be repetitive here, but I believe that this article, if not 100% useless, has serious concerns. As Tutelary posted 2 years ago, there are some flaws with the source linked to by this article. Not only that, but, the problems that caused this to be deleted before haven't entirely been fixed (they may have been for a time), it just has 1 or 2 better (but not good) sources. And, all the links are from 2005 or 2009. Almost all the arguments from the discussion last time it was deleted against deletion were that it had gained usage since it had last been deleted, but this was in 2008 -- there should be many more and better sources if this were the case.

Not only that, it isn't a law or hypothesis, its just an observation that anyone could make that happens to be attributed to one person. It literally is a fluffed up way of saying that people can misinterpret satirical pieces. It isn't notable, its almost a stub, and it shouldn't be on Wikipedia.

It's certainly not useless, since "Poe's Law" is pretty widely used specifically to reference precisely the situation of parodies that are hard/impossible to distinguish from genuine items. Someone unfamiliar with the term is certainly aided by this entry. Besides, a great many "laws" are nothing more than standard ("fluffed up," if you like) observations attributed to a person who made them at some point in the past. Ought we to remove the article on Godwin's Law, too? 96.231.153.5 (talk) 22:45, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Parody V Satire

I don't think you can parody "thoughts". That's when you enter satire territory. Ironically adopting a flawed thought process and representing it seemingly honestly ot make the opposite point is simply not parody, it's satire. And so I'd change it from Parody to Satire in the description. Also, unrelated, how is this even a thing? Satire has always been misinterpreted as sincere by the people its targeting. Why is this an "internet"? It applies equally to the non internet. Anyhow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:99DB:A700:C06E:5306:673F:82B4 (talk) 22:53, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

The original adage uses the word "parody". Merriam webster's second definition of parody is given as "a feeble or ridiculous imitation", which seems to me to fit here, adopting extreme views in an attempt to show them to be ridiculous. Regarding it being an internet thing, the second and third source on the page mention discuss it in an online context, and it originated online, either perhaps giving cause to call the phrase an "internet adage", although I am not opposed to rephrasing the lead to make it more clear. It would perhaps also be a good idea to add a section containing analogous concepts found to exist prior or outside of the internet. Sjrct (talk) 15:45, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Alleged typo

That is not a typo, it is aprt of the quote. Ruining the quote by correcting the alleged typo would be vandalism in a new user. Not sure what it is here, except unwanted and deliberately destructive. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 11:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Per MOS:PMC, "trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment (for example, correct basicly to basically and harasssment to harassment), unless the slip is textually important" - the quote's "uttrerly" is just a minor typo on a chat forum, I can't see that it could be read as significant. --McGeddon (talk) 11:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Prehaps typo exprert Richard Weiss will exprlain to us what "aprt" uttrerly plays in the quotration, such that correctring it "ruins" it. While he's at it he might revreal to us his persronal defrinition of vandralism. EEng 14:12, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I guess we won't be getting an answer on that. EEng 01:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The slip is textually important, it isnt a trivial typo. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 08:31, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Eeng, I only respond to serious posts, yours is neither serious nor demonstrates good faith. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 08:32, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

You might want to reserve that attitude for editors you didn't accuse of being "deliberately destructive" when you had no idea what you were talking about. EEng 06:53, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I overlooked that you made two posts. How in the world is uttrerly "textually important"? How is a "slip" different from a typo? EEng 08:07, 16 January 2017 (UTC)