Who proposed Poe's law in a 2005 internet forum discussion?

Who proposed Poe's law in a 2005 internet forum discussion? The answer is Nathan Poe.

Nathan Poe proposed the formulation now known as Poe's law in an August 2005 discussion on ChristianForums.com. The conversation involved creationism and the difficulty of telling whether an extreme statement was meant seriously. A participant had already noted that a “wink” was needed to prevent readers from interpreting a comment literally; Poe turned that observation into a broader rule about online communication.

The original wording focused on fundamentalist claims, but the principle soon traveled beyond religious forums. It is now used for political parody, extremist rhetoric, trolling, memes, and deliberately ambiguous posts. Without a clear marker such as an emoticon, satire label, or direct explanation, readers may interpret parody as sincere—or treat sincerity as a joke.

Nathan Poe is sometimes confused with Edgar Allan Poe because of the shared surname, but the internet rule is named for the forum participant Nathan Poe. The law also predates modern social-media platforms: its origin belongs to the mid-2000s forum era, even though its relevance has expanded with later online networks.