Yhprum's law

Common card · No. 405069

Yhprum's law is the opposite of Murphy's law. ("Yhprum" is "Murphy" spelled backwards.) The simple formula of Yhprum's law is: "Everything that can work, will work." A more specific formulation of the law by Richard Zeckhauser, a professor of political economy at Harvard University, states: "Sometimes systems that should not work, work nevertheless." Resnick et al. (2006) used this law to describe how intensive and seemingly altruistic participation by giving ranking is observed in the eBay feedback system. Jøsang, in a discussion of online trust management, suggests that all similar "trust and reputation systems" are manifestations of Yhprum's law. He states the law in a similar form to Zeckhauser: "Something that shouldn't work sometimes does work." Arenas et al. in a similar discussion add the adjunct "...or at least work fairly well" to the law.

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