Cunningham’s Law
Etymology
Named after Ward Cunningham, the programmer who invented the wiki, but he did not state it himself; the "law" was formulated and attributed to him by Steven McGeady. It distills the collaborative-editing insight behind wikis into a wry rule about human motivation. The eponym honors the wiki’s inventor rather than the law’s author.
noun phrase · /KUHN-ing-hamz law/
The observation that the fastest way to get a correct answer online is not to ask a question but to post a wrong answer.
What it names
It captures a genuine truth about internet psychology — people are far more motivated to correct an error than to fill a gap — which is useful both as a research trick and as a warning about why confident wrongness spreads.
Example
Instead of asking, he invoked Cunningham’s law and posted a confidently wrong date — three people corrected him within minutes.
Related idea
Betteridge’s law of headlines is another wry internet "law," but it is about reading media skeptically rather than about eliciting answers.