Editing Godwin's law (section)

==History==
Promulgated by the American attorney and author [[Mike Godwin]] in 1990,<ref name="Godwin94" /> Godwin's law originally referred specifically to [[Usenet newsgroup]] discussions.<ref name="Godwin 1991">{{cite newsgroup |last=Godwin |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Godwin |title=Re: Nazis (was Re: Card's Article on Homosexuality |date=August 18, 1991 |newsgroup=rec.arts.sf-lovers |message-id=1991Aug18.215029.19421@eff.org |url= https://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Aug18.215029.19421%40eff.org}}</ref> He stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in [[memetics]],<ref name="Godwin94" /> specifically to address the ubiquity of such comparisons which he believes regrettably [[Holocaust trivialization|trivialize]] the [[Holocaust]].<ref>{{cite news |last=McFarlane |first=Andrew |title=Is it ever OK to call someone a Nazi? |work=[[BBC News Magazine]] |date=July 14, 2010 |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10618638 |access-date=August 4, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite podcast |last1=Fishman |first1=Aleisa |last2=Godwin |first2=Mike |author2-link=Mike Godwin |title=Interview with Mike Godwin |work=Voices on Antisemitism |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |date=September 1, 2011 |url= http://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/mike-godwin |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140520044036/http://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/mike-godwin |archive-date=May 20, 2014}}</ref> Later, it was applied to any [[Conversation threading|threaded online discussion]], such as [[Internet forum]]s, [[chat room]]s, and [[Social media|social-media]] comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other [[rhetoric]]<ref name="Goldacre 2010">{{cite web |last=Goldacre |first=Ben |title=Pope aligns atheists with Nazis. Bizarre. Transcript here. |work=bengoldacre – secondary blog |date=September 16, 2010 |url= http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nazi-youth-pope-aligns-atheists-with-nazis-bi |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130325005933/http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nazi-youth-pope-aligns-atheists-with-nazis-bi |archive-date=March 25, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Hillary Putin">{{cite news |last=Stanley |first=Timothy |title=Hillary, Putin's no Hitler |department="Opinion" department |date=March 6, 2014 |work=[[CNN]] |url= https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/opinion/stanley-hillary-clinton-hitler/index.html |access-date=March 6, 2014}}</ref> where {{lang|la|[[reductio ad Hitlerum]]}} occurs.

In 2012, ''Godwin's law'' became an entry in the third edition of the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Godwin's law |work=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |url= http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/340583?redirectedFrom=Godwin%27s+law#eid |access-date=February 27, 2013}}</ref>