From RationalWiki

Haig's Law states:

“ ” The awfulness of a website's design is directly proportional to the insanity of its contents and creator.

A corollary to this states:

“ ” If a website still runs on Netscape, there is a high probability it was designed by a crazy person.

This is named after the Haig Report webpage, which is a riot of recursive links, varying fonts, enough colours to trigger an epileptic fit and content that makes Timecube look sane.

Haig's Law differs from the Timecube Law in that not all crazy pages are overly long, nor are all Timecube-type pages badly designed. Be aware of the confusion of the inverse fallacy — Fred Phelps' websites actually have reasonably spiffy designs that are easy on the eye, yet the content is as questionable as any other site suffering Haig's Law.

Origin of the "law" [ edit ]

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Tremble in fear before My angry fruit salad!

The Haig Report would appear to be a smear campaign launched against a Queensland couple by a disgruntled and deranged family member.[1] It also attacks various Queensland judges, accusing them of corruption. It even wants to sell broadband internet. However, the horrific site design makes it virtually impossible to actually navigate the site and read any of his claims — it is perhaps an oddly effective defense against libel.

Law of Exclamation [ edit ]

A frequently related concept is the idea of The Law of exclamation which is an internet law that states:

“ ” The more exclamation points used in an email (or other posting), the more likely it is a complete lie. This is also true for excessive capital letters.

Exceptions exist, like if the post includes something like "THE POPE IS A MINDCONTROLL LIZARD-NAZI!!!!!!", then it's sarcasm that (hopefully) passes Poe's Law.

Other examples [ edit ]

Exceptions [ edit ]

Nizkor Project: It's got that typical design from the 1990s, thus looking as terrible as some of the above pages, but its objective is to present arguments against Holocaust denial. [18]

Holocaust denial. Quackwatch: The site has a somewhat old-fashioned design, not completely horrible but also not the most appealing, and it's good for knowing what's wrong with alternative medicine. You might call this an example of substance over style. The best thing about it is that weaker mobile browsers don't have to squirm loading the page unlike too many "updated" sites. [19]

Fox Nation: It was put together like any other professional news website, but it's the kind of crowdsourced "stories" that even Fox News won't host due to their unverifiability and bias. [20]

Asimov Online: It's a good website about Isaac Asimov, the scientist and author, but with absolutely deplorable nonexistent minimalist design.[21]

See also [ edit ]