Poe's Law

Overview
Poe's Law is an adage which states, in its original form: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

More generally, it refers to any speech which is sufficiently dogmatic -- or sufficiently extreme in its extrapolation of an ideology -- as to be indistinguishable from parody. (Such parody would then be a form of reductio ad absurdum.)

Reference

 * as of 2009-06-29, article had been deleted multiple times
 * as of 2009-10-10, redirects to a page which lists Edgar Allen Poe's law "That there is a maximum desirable length for poems".
 * as of 2011-01-15, an article on this topic was in place
 * as of 2011-01-15, an article on this topic was in place