Talk:Schneier's law

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Reads like a whimsical promotion of Cory Doctorow[edit]

It isn't an article at all. Instead it is a pointless promotion of something unimportant which Cory Doctorow apparently wrote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.233.172 (talk) 07:45, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"something unimportant which Cory Doctorow apparently wrote" <-- redundant, no?

incoherent[edit]

This article lacks coherence. The first quote, apparently referred to as Schnieders Law, suggests we CAN produce something undecypherable, the second suggests we CAN'T and the last portion suggests evidence that Schnieder DID. 82.57.30.240 (talk) 15:38, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Partially correct. The two qoutes *are* far from equivalent. The first doesn't say that it is possible to create an unbreakable cypher. The first says that anybody can create a cypher system that *they themselves* cannot break. The second says that anybody can imagine creating an unbreakable cypher. I suspect that an earlier equivalent quote could be found, but this isn't it. The third section you reference, that is now gone, didn't say that Schneier created a cypher that was indecypherable, but one the *he himself* could not break. Ferritecore (talk) 23:25, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

all sources capitalize it[edit]

There are not many sources, but all of them capitalize it. The only book I could find and verify [1], Bruce Schneier's blog[2]. It was capitalized when it was first coined "...what I think of as Schneier's Law: "any person can invent a security system so clever that she or he can't think of how to break it.""[3]. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

None of these "sources" are reliable so maybe it shouldn't even be in the project. In any case the MoS says it shouldn't be capitalized. Joja lozzo 04:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:02, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Schneier's Law → Schneier's law – List of eponymous laws clearly shows that the correct style for this project is to down-case "law". An up-cased usage in sources is not sufficient reason for an exception to a consistent style. Joja lozzo 04:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See my comment above, I think that these are the best sources available for this term, if you have better ones then present them.

Fictious laws are capitalized in the real world "The new office professional's handbook" by American Heritage Dictionary [4]. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support, in accord with WP:MOSCAPS, where the first sentence is "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization." The most relevant of the subsidiary principles:

In science and mathematics, only proper names that are part of a name for an idea should be capitalized (Hermitian matrix, Lorentz transformation). A small number of exceptions exist (abelian group).

This is a sound principle, in harmony with a great number of style guides, and it readily covers the present case by a rational generalisation of coverage. It is absurd to pick and choose among such minor resources as The new office professional's handbook, all the while ignoring OED which favours lower case. OED's current examples for physics, at the entry "law, n.¹":

Avogadro's law n. the law that equal volumes of different gases, pressure and temperature being equal, contain the same number of molecules. Charles's law n. the law discovered by Alex. César Charles (1746–1823) that for every degree centigrade of rise in temperature, the volume of a gas increases by ·00366 of its amount at zero. Dulong and Petit's law n. the law that all the chemical elements have approximately the same atomic heat.

(OED is not yet entirely consistent. It has an entry for "Murphy's Law" (capped), but also one for "Parkinson's law" (uncapped). This is typical in the history of this constantly revised 20-volume leviathan. The clear preference is for lower case, as can be seen throughout the main entry that I have just cited.)

And Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS16, the current edition):

8.147 Laws and theories
Though usage varies widely, Chicago recommends that names of laws, theories, and the like be lowercased, except for proper names attached to them.
Avogadro’s hypothesis (or Avogadro’s law)
the big bang theory
Boyle’s law
(Einstein’s) general theory of relativity
Newton’s first law

The time has come for us to give sort shrift to such divisive and unsystematic RMs, based on little more than personal preferences and woefully inept appeals to "reliable sources" and their own varied style choices. Wikipedia has its own style guidelines, and they exist for a purpose.

Noetica^Tea? 10:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Support per Noetica.

Tony (talk)

02:51, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.