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* '''The Dictionary Effect:''' As a corollary to the previous rule, once a debate has regressed to its participants quoting dictionary definitions in an attempt to prove their point, the discussion has passed its intellectual event horizon and has become unsalvageable. Called "[[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LaynesLaw Layne's Law of Debate]]" on Wiki/WikiWikiWeb.

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* '''The Dictionary Effect:''' As a corollary to the previous rule, once a debate has regressed to its participants quoting dictionary definitions in an attempt to prove their point, the discussion has passed its intellectual event horizon and has become unsalvageable. Called "[[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LaynesLaw Layne's Law of Debate]]" on Wiki/WikiWikiWeb.
[=WikiWikiWeb=].
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Wiki/ namespace cleanup


* '''Falling Into The Pothole:''' If a post in a thread is created to bring attention to another web site, the thread's rate of replies will drop drastically. If the website is [[Wiki/TVTropes this one]], the remaining replies will be [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife lamenting lost time]].

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* '''Falling Into The Pothole:''' If a post in a thread is created to bring attention to another web site, the thread's rate of replies will drop drastically. If the website is [[Wiki/TVTropes [[Website/TVTropes this one]], the remaining replies will be [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife lamenting lost time]].



* '''The Informativity-to-Reliability Rate Paradox:''' On any given pop-cultural topic, fan sites are more informative than official websites and Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} combined.
** '''Corollary:''' Wiki/ThisVeryWiki is more informative than all three combined.

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* '''The Informativity-to-Reliability Rate Paradox:''' On any given pop-cultural topic, fan sites are more informative than official websites and Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} Website/{{Wikipedia}} combined.
** '''Corollary:''' Wiki/ThisVeryWiki Website/ThisVeryWiki is more informative than all three combined.
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* '''Community Split Law:''' On any forum dedicated to a specific topic, the user base will be split into two parts, those who discuss that topic and those who goof around in the general discussion areas with little to no overlap between the two.
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* '''The DIY Failure Law:''' With very few exceptions (ex. Bulbagarden, All the Tropes) forums or wikis formed due to discontent with a different forum or wiki will inevitably fall to ruin.

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* '''The DIY Failure Disaster Law:''' With very few exceptions (ex. Bulbagarden, All the Tropes) forums or wikis formed due to discontent with a different forum or wiki will inevitably fall to ruin.
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Up To Eleven is a defunct trope


** Their translation from German to English is [[UpToEleven worse than]] [[BlindIdiotTranslation Googlish]] to the point where you need to be fluent in German to understand their English.

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** Their translation from German to English is [[UpToEleven worse than]] than [[BlindIdiotTranslation Googlish]] to the point where you need to be fluent in German to understand their English.
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* '''ContinuityCreep Effect:''' As the length of a forum game increases so to does the amount of lore, continuity, and in-jokes until it reaches the point where it is completely inaccessible to newcomers.

* '''[[ReadTheFreakingManual "Read the Freaking OP"]] Law:''' In any given forum game or roleplay, only 30-40% of the participants will have actually read the Opening Post.
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Pretty sure the corollary is already a law but I can't find it.

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* '''Bump:''' Any thread that gets bumped will either have barely gone an hour without activity if have been dead for several months, if not an entire year. There is no in-between.
** '''Corollary:''' Any post bumping a thread will contain nothing of substance and not serve to further the conversation.
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* '''The DIY Failure Law:''' With very few exceptions (ex. Bulbagarden, All the Tropes) forums or wikis formed due to discontent with a different forum or wiki will inevitably fall to ruin.
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* '''Deep Fried Chicken Law:''' The more "Deep Fried" an image or video is, the funnier it is in the eyes of the internet.
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* '''Takes One to Know Everyone Law:''' Any user who claims to hate the human race as a whole will undoubtedly be a large part of the reason why there are people who claim to hate the human race as a whole.

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* '''Takes One to Know Everyone Law:''' Any user who claims to hate the human race as a whole will undoubtedly be a large part of the reason why there are people who claim to hate the human race as a whole.
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* '''Law.exe:''' If it exists there's probably a .exe creepypasta about it.
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* '''Law of Bug Report False Alarms:''' About 80% of all "bug reports" are either intended features of the software or purely the fault of the one posting the report.

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* '''Law of the Noob Learning Curve:'''
** The more jargon, in-jokes and memes a community has, the less likely they are explained anywhere.
** Any new user on a fan forum will remain a newbie until they've made themselves familiar with the [[ArchivePanic at least one dozen most important]] {{fanfic}}s from that fandom.
** The older a community is, and the more tradition it has amassed, the more difficult it is for newbies to settle into it.
** '''Corollary:''' The older a community is, the more likely there will be newbies who try to throw away all the amassed tradition that they're unfamiliar with and replace the entire jargon with something they've just made up.



* '''Rule of Rough Rants:''' The lengthier and more heartfelt a rant is, the fewer people will read it because the more likely it is to be one single huge paragraph of incoherent rambling, loads of spelling mistakes and [[WantonCrueltyToTheCommonComma next to no interpunction whatsoever]].
** '''Corollary:''' Most replies will be either "tl;dr" or the original poster apologizing for posting while drunk at 3 in the morning when they should have been asleep.



* '''Recommend-What-You-Know Rule:''' No matter what someone asks for recommendations for, 72% of all users who reply will recommend what they use themselves, regardless of whether or not it suits the original poster's requirements.




* '''English Law:''' If a user expresses annoyance or puzzlement that Americans don't spell words the same way as everybody else, the first response will be that English didn't have standard spellings until the 19th century, after the first dictionaries were published in America.

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\n*** '''Corollary:''' If someone knows [[RougeAnglesOfSatin how to properly use "they're"/"their"/"there" and "you're"/"your"]] and [[AutoIncorrect doesn't write "defiantly" when they mean "definitely"]], English is most likely not their first language.
** Any user whose grasp of the English language goes beyond blatantly obvious [[BlindIdiotTranslation Googlish]] is automatically assumed to be a US citizen.
** Chances are native English speakers will use their own local colloquialisms on English-speaking forums with world-spanning user bases, regardless of whether they speak [[UsefulNotes/LondonTown Cockney]], [[DeepSouth a Southern drawl]] or [[LandDownUnder Strine]].
*** '''Corollary:''' So will non-native English speakers, simply translating their own sayings into English.
** Americans will assume everyone is familiar with imperial units. Non-Americans will assume all Americans are willing to put up with the metric system.
** Especially Americans, but also Germans tend to be oblivious of laws and cultural standards being different from where they live.

* '''English Law:''' Law:'''
**
If a user expresses annoyance or puzzlement that Americans don't spell words the same way as everybody else, the first response will be that English didn't have standard spellings until the 19th century, after the first dictionaries were published in America.
** American users will see any English that isn't American as a bunch of spelling errors and treat it accordingly.



* '''Vanilla vs. Mod Rule:''' In an given community of a game that can be [[GameMod modded]], any user who plays the game vanilla will be considered a newbie for as long as they do.



* '''The Informativity-to-Reliability Rate Paradox:''' On any given pop-cultural topic, fan sites are more informative than official websites and Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} combined.
** '''Corollary:''' Wiki/ThisVeryWiki is more informative than all three combined.




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** '''Corollary of Fluctuation Indication:''' The number of actual replies to a duplicate original post is directly proportional to the fluctuation of users on the forum as the fewer users know that there has been such a thread already in the first place.


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* '''Flyover Posts Phenomenon:'''
** In any given thread with more than one page, no posts between the opening post and the last page will ever be read again.
** In any given thread with more than one page, at least one user will admit that they haven't read anything except for the thread title, but they've wanted to answer anyway.


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* '''"Found the German" Law:''' German users are easy to spot on English-speaking forums.
** Their translation from German to English is [[UpToEleven worse than]] [[BlindIdiotTranslation Googlish]] to the point where you need to be fluent in German to understand their English.
** They use Capitals and Punctuation in English, where it would be correct in German.
** If something has [[DubNameChange a German and an English name]], they can't be bothered to look up the English name and use the German one instead. At best, they translate the German title into English.
** They're likely the only ones on a forum to not see the GDPR as a nuisance.

* '''"Clueless and Careless" Law:''' Every forum will sooner or later encounter the sort of newbie who didn't even know forums exist right before they joined and start posting right after joining, the sort that can be identified by these attributes:
** They start new threads about topics about which at least one thread already exists within their own field of view.
** They never give their threads meaningful titles.
** They always drop their threads into which subforum they happen to be in because they've neither understood nor even noticed the existence of subforums.
** They never reply to their own threads, either because they don't know that's possible (or how to do that) or because they can't find their own threads after the mods have put them into the right subforums.

* '''Digital Immigrant Phenomenon:''' It's easy to tell forum users who are unfamiliar with any digital devices beyond pocket calculators.
** Their user name looks like it could be their real name and probably is.
** They write forum posts exactly the way they'd write a letter.
** They use line feeds within the same paragraph which also show how wide their screen is.
** Even though they could use the signature for what it was originally conceived for, namely something akin to the signature at the end of a letter, they don't have one.
** If they have a profile picture at all, it's their passport photograph.

* '''Law of Conservation of Reply Length:''' The longer the full-quote, the shorter the actual reply.

* '''ToughActToFollow Rule:''' If a new user pops up out of nowhere with an amazingly good creation of their own, they will cease any and all creativity henceforth.

* '''Online Shithole Law:''' The higher the new-moderators-announced-per-given-time-to-users ratio, the more likely something is inherently wrong with a forum.
** '''Corollary:''' If you see posts from at least two former admins whose accounts were deleted, you should probably steer clear of that forum.

* '''Rule 85 for Forums:''' There's a [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic pony]] thread.

* '''Law of the UngratefulBastard:''' If a new user has started a thread looking for a solution to a problem, and one is found, that user will never be seen again, much less post what the solution was, give thanks for it or mark the thread as solved.
** '''Exception:''' If it was a software issue, and the thread was marked as solved, the original poster has solved the problem by re-installing the entire operating system and/or switching to a different product.

* '''Secret Society Law:''' Subforums for real-life meet-ups are always visible only to registered members, if not even only to those with a two-digit minimum post count, in order to shield meet-ups from foreigners.

* '''Adaptation War Rule:''' As the discussion of any fictional story with a popular adaptation approaches infinity, the chance of flame wars between those who know the original and those who only know the popular adaptation and are mostly unaware of the original approaches 1.

* '''Law of Confirmation Count:''' Any post that is seconded by someone will also be "thirded" and so forth. Similarly, "me too" will be followed by "me three". No exceptions.

* '''General Linux Discussion Law:''' As a general UsefulNotes/{{Linux}} thread approaches infinity, the chances of the following happening approaches 1:
** Ubuntu bashing
** Linux Mint bashing
** systemd bashing
** All-round Linux bashing by Windows fanbois
** Richard M. Stallman's "GNU/Linux" rant being quoted either sincerely or, more often, ironically
** [[MemeticMutation "I use Arch btw"]]
** Rice screenshots
** Support requests by newbies

* '''Out of Sight, Out of Mind Law:''' For about 30% of all forum users, nothing exists on the forum or any given subforum, opened threads excluded, that requires scrolling in order to be seen.

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** '''Corollary 1:''' This user is instantly recognizable to everyone on the site who's been a member longer than a week.
** '''Corollary 2:''' The moment this user changes their avatar absolutely ''nobody'' will be able to recognize them and, in extreme cases, will think their account has been deleted.
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* '''Meaningful Permanence Law:''' The longer a user has a single avatar the less they will post. However, when they do post the posts they make will be impactful.
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** '''Perfect Camouflage Corollary:''' Regardless of how much this user posts, nobody will ever recognize them due to how often they change their avatar.
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* '''The Lazy Chameleon Law:''' The more a user changes their profile picture, the less they will actually participate in the forum and when they do participate they will contribute nothing of substance.
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* '''SpotlightFallacy Law:''' Any community online will become known to the general public by its most abhorrent members.

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* '''SpotlightFallacy '''[[UsefulNotes/LogicalFallacies Spotlight Fallacy]] Law:''' Any community online will become known to the general public by its most abhorrent members.

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* '''Falling Into The Pothole:''' If a post in a thread is created to bring attention to another web site, the thread's rate of replies will drop drastically. If the website is [[Wiki/TVTropes this one]], the remaining replies will be [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife lamenting lost time]].

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* '''Falling Into The Pothole:''' If a post in a thread is created to bring attention to another web site, the thread's rate of replies will drop drastically. If the website is [[Wiki/TVTropes this one]], the remaining replies will be [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife lamenting lost time]].
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* '''Targeting System Redirection Law:''' Upon seeing a post calling out a certain behavior, 80% of people who engage in that behavior feel the need to defend themselves as if the post was specifically targeted at them.
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* '''The Good Samaritan Punishment Act:''' If a user who isn't a moderator attempts to defuse a flame war or a debate that is about to become a flame war, that user will be accused of "rent-a-modding" and subsequently ignored. In some extreme cases, the user trying to defuse the argument will be reported and potentially be given an infraction or be outright banned for this behavior.
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* '''You Hate It, You Buy It:''' Oftentimes the biggest haters of a work are also the biggest consumers of it.

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* '''You Hate It, You Buy It:''' Oftentimes the biggest haters of a work are also among the biggest consumers of it.
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* '''Unlimited Hatred Law:''' If it exists, at least one person hates it. Probably more.

* '''You Hate It, You Buy It:''' Oftentimes the biggest haters of a work are also the biggest consumers of it.
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* '''Law of the Pop Culture Powder Keg:''' Discussion of certain franchises (Franchise/StarWars is a particularly big offender) will ''always'' result in a flame war, whether the original discussion was a debate or not.
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** '''"Silence is Stygian" Corollary:''' Most users who ''do'' report posts have never commented on the thread before. This mystery vigilante will often also have themselves on private mode so nobody can see when they are in a thread.

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** '''"Silence is Stygian" Corollary:''' Most users who ''do'' report posts have never commented on the thread before. This These mystery vigilante vigilantes will often also have themselves on private mode so nobody can see when they are in a thread.

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** '''"Silence is Stygian" Corollary:''' Most users who ''do'' report posts have never commented on the thread before. This mystery vigilante will often also have themselves on private mode so nobody can see when they are in a thread.


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* '''[[Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Drax's]] Law:''' Metaphors used on the internet will fail every time either due to the receiving user not recognizing the expression (possibly because it is not used in their country) or being extremely LiteralMinded.

* '''Law of Sarcasm Failure:''' The more sarcastic a post is the more seriously it will be taken, unless the sarcasm is blatantly pointed out in the post (thus ruining the point of being sarcastic in the first place).
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* '''Herd Mentality Failure Law:''' Any attempt to intentionally invoke herd mentality will inevitably meet with failure.

* '''One Opinion for All Rule:''' Around 85% of all users, upon posting an opinion on the internet, will expect everybody and their dog to agree with that opinion.
** '''Corollary:''' Of this 85%, 51% of them will throw the written equivalent of a hissy fit upon discovering that not everybody shares their opinion.

* '''"Nobody Asked" Law:''' As the length of an online argument approaches infinity, the likelihood of a new user being told "nobody asked" or something similar upon expressing their opinion approaches one. When this happens the argument is deemed to be over with no winner as the uses on the receiving end of this law drops the original topic in favor of justifying their place in the argument.
** '''Creativity Reward Corollary:''' The more creative an example of this law is, the more likely it is to be screenshotted and posted somewhere on social media, usually Twitter, Tumblr, or Buzzfeed.
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Think this is covered by higher rules, but feel free to restore this!


* '''The Law of Percieved Superiority:''' If a user belittles/claims to be more powerful than a Moderator (or worse, an Admin) they are more likely to comit actions that are against the rules and thus, won't last long before getting banned.
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* '''Kersplusho's Law:''' If a staff member who is hated by many members creates a thread asking what they can do better, then 3 things will happen

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* '''Kersplusho's Law:''' If a staff member who is hated by many members creates a thread asking what they can do better, then 3 three things will happenhappen:



** 80% of comments of ^ threads will be comments of how much they hate these threads, 20% will be the hated staff members saying they did it before it was cool, and 100% will consist of trolly/sarcastic comments. Nothing will be honest feedback

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** 80% of comments of ^ threads will be comments of how much they hate these threads, 20% will be the hated staff members saying they did it before it was cool, and 100% will consist of trolly/sarcastic comments. Nothing will be honest feedback
feedback.

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