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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

> give them the wrong answer, they will be forced to correct you.

Before Stack Overflow, the savvy knew that this was a great way to get help with anything Unix-related. If you just went to Usenet or mailing lists and asked "how do I X?", you'd be pummeled by uppity greybeards going "RTFM, n00b". Ah, but if you created a sockpuppet and posted the wrong answer in reply to your question, then you'd be guaranteed to get useful advice.

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Yep, that's definitely Cunningham's Law [0] in action.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham#Cunningham.27s...

Ha! I never knew it had a name. I thought I independently discovered this phenomenon, but I guess it's so obvious others realized it too.

Wow, this is genius. Makes so much sense.

" Ah, but if you created a sockpuppet and posted the wrong answer in reply to your question, then you'd be guaranteed to get useful advice."

I've gotten some great information on forums like this doing exactly that. I usually pose it as a challenging assertion or question rather than a statement of a fact I'm sure about. Gotta balance using that for it's benefit vs effects on one's own reliability.

Variation on that was to say something like, "Linux sucks! It won't do x." If the answers weren't sufficiently straight-forward, you could follow up with, "It's so much easier on MS!" Required a thick skin though.

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