Known as Godwin's Law, this rule of Usenet has a long and sordid history on the network - and is absolutely wrong. This FAQ is an attempt to set straight as much of the history and meaning of Godwin's Law as possible, and hopefully encourage users to invoke it a bit more sparingly. As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.
People scream at each other a bit more, then give up and go home.
They don't fade away nicely, either. FAQs are asked frequently. Get used to them. Read the thread from the beginning, or else. It just has an economy that makes no sense to capitalism.