Cunningham's Law
E139354
Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Cunningham's Law canonical | 5 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1224342 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Cunningham's Law Context triple: [Ward Cunningham, knownFor, Cunningham's Law]
-
A.
Postel’s law
Postel’s law is a design principle in computing and networking that advises systems to be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they accept, promoting robustness and interoperability.
-
B.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
-
C.
Sutton's law
Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
-
D.
Leacock-Pennebaker
Leacock-Pennebaker was a pioneering American documentary film production company known for its influential cinéma vérité works in the 1960s.
-
E.
The New Hacker's Dictionary
The New Hacker's Dictionary is a comprehensive lexicon and cultural guide to hacker slang, folklore, and traditions, compiled and edited by Eric S. Raymond.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Cunningham's Law Target entity description: Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
-
A.
Postel’s law
Postel’s law is a design principle in computing and networking that advises systems to be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they accept, promoting robustness and interoperability.
-
B.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
-
C.
Sutton's law
Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
-
D.
Leacock-Pennebaker
Leacock-Pennebaker was a pioneering American documentary film production company known for its influential cinéma vérité works in the 1960s.
-
E.
The New Hacker's Dictionary
The New Hacker's Dictionary is a comprehensive lexicon and cultural guide to hacker slang, folklore, and traditions, compiled and edited by Eric S. Raymond.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
informal principle
ⓘ
internet adage ⓘ internet meme ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
Q&A websites
ⓘ
internet forums ⓘ online discussions ⓘ social media ⓘ wikis ⓘ |
| assumes |
people are motivated to correct errors
ⓘ
public mistakes attract attention ⓘ |
| category |
internet laws and adages
ⓘ
online culture concepts ⓘ |
| circulatesVia |
Q&A platforms
ⓘ
blogs ⓘ discussion forums ⓘ social networks ⓘ |
| coreIdea |
people are more likely to correct a wrong statement than to answer a question
ⓘ
the best way to get the right answer online is to post the wrong answer ⓘ |
| describes | online information-seeking behavior ⓘ |
| encourages | participation through correction ⓘ |
| hasCriticism |
can spread false information if not corrected
ⓘ
can waste others' time correcting intentional errors ⓘ may encourage deliberate misinformation ⓘ |
| hasDomain |
internet folklore
ⓘ
knowledge sharing ⓘ online communication ⓘ |
| hasFormulation | The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer. ⓘ |
| hasName | Cunningham's Law self-link ⓘ |
| hasPerspective |
descriptive of observed behavior
ⓘ
not prescriptive scientific rule ⓘ |
| influences | how some users frame questions online ⓘ |
| isNot |
formal scientific law
ⓘ
rigorously proven principle ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Ward Cunningham ⓘ |
| oftenMentionedWith |
Betteridge's law of headlines
ⓘ
Godwin's Law ⓘ Poe's Law ⓘ Sturgeon's Law ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Wikipedia culture
ⓘ
crowdsourcing of knowledge ⓘ internet culture ⓘ online collaboration ⓘ social correction ⓘ |
| status |
humorous
ⓘ
unofficial ⓘ |
| usageContext |
commentary on online behavior
ⓘ
informal advice for getting answers online ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Cunningham's Law Description of subject: Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Ward Cunningham