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** If you'd be so kind as to expand on why? I'm still connecting my neurons :-p [[User:Xavexgoem|Xavexgoem]] ([[User talk:Xavexgoem|talk]]) 01:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC) |
** If you'd be so kind as to expand on why? I'm still connecting my neurons :-p [[User:Xavexgoem|Xavexgoem]] ([[User talk:Xavexgoem|talk]]) 01:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC) |
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***Because it's all to easy to thwart serious discussions with rumormongering nonsense that cloaks itself in the guise of wisdom. We've all seen it: [[User:Sensible]] writes "I disagree with this proposal because of...(pertinent diffs and reasons)", then [[User:Gossip]] follows with "The ''real'' reason Sensible opposes is because because I didn't support his FAC last month." A bump back up to policy would help short-circuit that kind of thing. Adds weight when third parties respond that last month's FAC is irrelevant. <font face="Verdana">[[User:Durova|<span style="color:#009">Durova</span>]]</font><sup>''[[User talk:Durova|347]]''</sup> 01:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC) |
***Because it's all to easy to thwart serious discussions with rumormongering nonsense that cloaks itself in the guise of wisdom. We've all seen it: [[User:Sensible]] writes "I disagree with this proposal because of...(pertinent diffs and reasons)", then [[User:Gossip]] follows with "The ''real'' reason Sensible opposes is because because I didn't support his FAC last month." A bump back up to policy would help short-circuit that kind of thing. Adds weight when third parties respond that last month's FAC is irrelevant. <font face="Verdana">[[User:Durova|<span style="color:#009">Durova</span>]]</font><sup>''[[User talk:Durova|347]]''</sup> 01:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC) |
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== When others cast doubt == |
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The third paragraph of the lead started very awkwardly - both these versions; |
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*When others cast doubt on their own good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can. |
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*When others cast doubt on their own good faith or yours, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can. |
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This describes someone, weirdly, saying, "''I have doubts about my own good faith''", or, "''I have doubts about both my own good faith and yours.''" |
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I've changed it to one of these; |
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*When doubt is cast on good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can. |
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*When you see doubt cast on good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can. |
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I would suggest that the whole of the lead needs re-written. It uses a mixture of first, second & third person narrative (is "''Just as one can incorrectly judge ...''" third person?). I would recommend second person narrative throughout - this is an instructional piece. [[User:HarryAlffa|HarryAlffa]] ([[User talk:HarryAlffa|talk]]) 21:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC) |
Revision as of 21:18, 19 November 2009
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Voting
Moved to Wikipedia:Assume good faith/Vote
Proposed extension
Can be found at Wikipedia:Assume high intelligence. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable; that needn't be on a separate page, just put it here :) (Radiant) 13:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Proposed extension - wording
This is my proposed expansion of the policy:
- Equally important as assuming good faith is to assume high intelligence. Although we may not know many of the other people who edit Wikipedia articles alongside us, it is likely that they have a curiosity about life that derives from high cognitive ability.
- When examining other people's edits, it is important not only to check facts diligently to ensure we do not introduce factual inaccuracies into debates and articles, but also to remember that our fellow contributors sometimes make mistakes in spite of "knowing it, really", and that it is possible that they are aware of the mistakes they've made, but were not able to correct them before somebody else did. This can be due to any number of reasons, including slow connections, network failure, computer failure, inefficient peripheral devices, and sudden demands of our real life environments.
Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Policy? Guideline would be better
It is my opinion that this should never have been a policy, only a guideline. Let me explain why. The first point would be that what does and doesn't constitute good faith is hugely open to interpretation. Nowadays, most criticism of anything seems to firstly be countered with a reference to this policy, which invariably stalls constructive discussions. "You're not letting me get away with whatever changes I want to make, therefore you are assuming bad faith and I win because you violated policy."
Secondly, this policy is completely unenforceable. All it does is it makes people express whatever bad faith they have in more nefarious and less detectable ways. My objection to this policy is currently the deepest resentment I have to any part of Wikipedia, and I hope that this can be addressed, because apparently the disclaimer, This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary, is being ignored by the vast majority of people.
I come from an academic background where discussion is encouraged, and anything that concerns the matter at hand can be said in whatever mode most suits the speaker and will be answered in whatever mode most suits the respondent (with usually some consideration given to the need to speak in terms that the questioner can understand). In fact, it is understood as a challenge to always bring forward the heaviest criticism one can come up with. It has always been my understanding that Wikipedia aspires to this academic mode of discussion to resolve disputes, and that at the heart of Wikipedia, there is a belief that questions can be answered with a combination of intellect (aka common sense) and use of outside sources. However, a lot of people on Wikipedia are already having trouble distinguishing even between harsh criticism ("that's a stupid thing to do") and personal attacks ("you are an asshole"), so in combination with WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA (why are there two of these, by the way?), this policy is an absolute recipe for disaster. I would hope that we can come to some fruitful discourse on what can be done to resolve the current situation. My proposal is to relegate WP:AGF to a guideline, which in my opinion is really what it is, and ever can be. It's not enforceable as a policy because it's not yet possible (and God help us!) to screw with somebody's neurons to change some basic belief they hold about another person. Note that this is in contrast with other policies, which can be enforced by editing and deleting pages, and executing protections and blocks. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think it makes too much practical difference whether this is a guideline or a policy. Call it a principle, if you will. I do prefer "guideline" myself (and argued in favor of that designation somewhere in the murky history of the page...) because it will provide less expectation that there is some bright-line rule about when one is violating it, which there isn't and can't be. Doesn't matter. Yes, it is completely unenforceable; you cannot know someone's intentions. Which is why it exists. Assume good faith because you can't know otherwise -- and act against unacceptable behavior. (If someone's bad faith is not producing bad effects, we don't care. If it is, we do, however small they may be.)
- I do not think the principle, as it is, is a recipe for disaster. I think it is necessary. It does not mean we must assume everyone's actual actions are good, just that in our approach to correcting them we err on the side of charitable interpretations. Some of the worst POV-pushers on the wiki are doing so in completely sincere, good-faith conviction that they are spreading The Truth. They still have to be banned.
- As for WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA—yes, NPA is a subset, but sometimes the more frequent violations need a page of their own to beat it into people's heads that yes, this really is part of it, stop it right now, that means you. A bit of redundancy to combat obnoxious ruleslawyering isn't too bad.
- I do agree that genuine criticism is often but should not be mistaken for incivility—but I don't think this page itself is at all inconsistent with that. Oh, and anyone who waves this policy/guideline/principle/whatever around insincerely to try to get out of being called out on bad behavior should be severely beaten with a large, knotty cluestick. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 17:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
- You know, Samsara, you have a couple of other 'projects' up that I'm skeptical about, but this is the most sensible thing I've seen all day (maybe that means I haven't had a very sensible day). I usually think the spirit of this page would be better titled something like Don't make unwarranted assumptions about other users' motivations, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it. At any rate, even though it has no practical significance what tag sits at the top of the page, labeling a page dedicated to thoughts and motivations as 'policy' has unfortunate effects, particularly when combined with the fact that a small fraction of those who quote it have actually read it. Quoting this as 'policy' and pointing fingers at those 'violate' it just tends to derail discussion of content into discussion of what one person might or might not have been thinking about another person's thoughts. This is of course totally nonproductive, and undecidable in any case. Knocking some of these people on the head with the cluestick tends to produce more whining - well, now you're assuming that their accusation of assuming bad faith was made in bad faith, which isn't assuming good faith, is it? Opabinia regalis 02:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I would also support changing this from policy to guideline. WP:NPA and WP:VANDAL suffice enough to be policy, but however how often can obviously suspicious edits be considered as good faith and you be considered as having bad faith for seeing them as inappropriate (even the bolded sentence in one of the paragraphs mention that this should not stop one of doing so). So based on these circumstances calling this a guideline would be more accurate.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 04:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
- Centrx has gone ahead and make the change back to guideline with the reasoning that you can't force people to assume good faith. I agree and support the change. Thank you to user:samsara for bringing this up. pschemp | talk 15:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- I think the downgrading of this needs more discussion than this. Abandoning an implicit assumption of good faith as policy implies that the community can now do what it wants, as long as they are civil in their actions. This no longer protects new users, as they rely on people assuming good faith. Although there is a small difference between policy and guideline, there must be a reason for someone to say this is not important enough to be promoted by all users, as opposed to "something some users think is a good idea". Unless there is a solid reason why new users should not have an implicit not-guilty tag attached to them I see no reason why the not-guilty assumption should be changed to guilty through this change. Ansell 22:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Per well-reasoned arguments above, I would also support a change from policy to guideline. —Doug Bell talk 22:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- Persian Poet Gal: You do not have to actually say that all edits are done in good faith. You just have to assume, and not be overly reactionary without other evidence. Part of the definition from Wikipedia:Vandalism "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism." assumes that this policy is a hard and fast piece of advice for all editors supported by all editors. By downgrading this to guideline we can no longer use the current definition of vandalism, as policy should not rely on a guideline for its basic definition, as that would seem to show that not all users think the current definition of vandalism is okay.
- Could someone tell me what the urgency behind changing this is? Is there a prolonged situation where someone does not like to assume good faith? Ansell 22:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't see how this part of Wikipedia:Vandalism would force AGF to be in the class of policy. —Centrx→talk • 23:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- Good point, but simply delink it from the definition in the same manner as Wikipedia:Verifiability does not link to the guideline Wikipedia:Reliable sources from the definition, but rather as a see also later on the page. —Doug Bell talk 23:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
- Besides vandalism/personal attacks then, even content related wise encouraging editors to practice good faith or assume good faith is more along the lines of a strong recommandation, enforcing this as a policy is rather too official a stamp in my opinion.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 19:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't see this as such a big deal either way, but I concur with Centrx's reasoning. Note by the way that some links to this page call it policy; that may need a bit of fixing. (Radiant) 13:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Specifics
I think this is a great guideline in theory - without it, the level of bickering and nastiness even among good contributors would really be through the roof.
However. This is the first time I've ever looked at this actual page and I am a bit surprised at how unfocused and rambling it is. "Assume high intelligence?" And the whole bit about giving people the benefit of the doubt in case they made a bad edit but couldnt fix it because their connection dropped? It's very fuzzy. It seems to me that this can be pruned substantially and still have the same thrust. Thoughts? --Dmz5 22:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
- That's because the AHI passage was recently added. If it proves uncontroversial, it could be more integrated with the rest of the text. The point is hugely important, however - some people are more offended if you imply they are stupid by careless use of common good faith phrases, than if you metaphorically kick them hard for doing something that you disagree with. Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
- The addition still needs the kinks worked about but I still agree with Samsara. The point it illustrates is a key component to being civil in editing disputes on Wikipedia. Just give it time, I'm sure with more rewording as you proprosed, the passage will become more defined in context.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
- Not calling people stupid is fine (and belongs at WP:CIVIL if not already obvious there), but that is different from actually supposing that someone has high intelligence. One of the reasons for assuming good faith is exactly because the other person may very well be mistaken, or not understand Wikipedia, or simply be stupid but good-hearted. That is not the same as assuming something that is plainly false in many cases, or making wild assumptions about the "high cognitive ability" of an editor who is on Wikipedia because they have a "curiosity about life". This is nonsense. —Centrx→talk • 00:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- No, it isn't. Read intellectual giftedness, which, btw, is well referenced. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Where does it say in there that Wikipedia editors must be intellectually gifted? —Centrx→talk • 00:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Okay, you're twisting things, and you know it. I never made the claim you are asking me to justify. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not twisting anything; you may have misunderstood what I was referring to as nonsense. What makes no sense is that we could make the assumption that someone is editing Wikipedia because of a natural curiosity about life deriving from high cognitive ability. —Centrx→talk • 00:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Okay, you're twisting things, and you know it. I never made the claim you are asking me to justify. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Where does it say in there that Wikipedia editors must be intellectually gifted? —Centrx→talk • 00:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Also note Wikipedia talk:Assume high intelligence. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, I have read this as well as #Proposed extension and #Proposed extension - wording. Is there discussion about this anywhere else? —Centrx→talk • 00:41, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- No, it isn't. Read intellectual giftedness, which, btw, is well referenced. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted the unilateral change by Samsara back to the longstanding AGF policy. A consensus would be required to apply a change as significant as "assuming high intelligence", because the policy is intended to speak to assuptions about other persons' intent, not about other persons' aptitude, intelligence or skill. ... Kenosis 00:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- It wasn't unilateral. Obviously you haven't read the talk page. Or the definition of unilateral. Radiant, me, Samsara and Persian Poet Gal all seem to think it has merit. Discuss rather than edit war. pschemp | talk 00:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is not how I read it. I see two sections above from November about "Proposed extension" of the policy to include this new idea of "assume high intelligence", expressing only Samsara's preference. As of now, however, plainly it is under actual discussion. ... Kenosis 02:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC) OK, I do see the last week's discussion in this section now. Problem is, this proposed addition to a longstanding WP guideline attempts to change the policy to include assumptions of factors other than "intent" of the other person, specifically the assumption of the others' intent to help WP, not hurt it. Now what's being proposed is to move the assumption into areas that have more to do with competence of the other person than they do with their intent or "faith". ... Kenosis 02:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Radiant liked it too. As of now, you are edit warring rather than discussing. pschemp | talk 02:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- That appears true at this point. Sorry. So, let's go ahead and resolve this issue on the merits. This policy guideline is too important and fundamental to the human intercourse on WP. It was never, until now, intended to speak to competence, but instead has always been meant to speak to assumption of intent or "faith". ... Kenosis 02:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Radiant liked it too. As of now, you are edit warring rather than discussing. pschemp | talk 02:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is not how I read it. I see two sections above from November about "Proposed extension" of the policy to include this new idea of "assume high intelligence", expressing only Samsara's preference. As of now, however, plainly it is under actual discussion. ... Kenosis 02:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC) OK, I do see the last week's discussion in this section now. Problem is, this proposed addition to a longstanding WP guideline attempts to change the policy to include assumptions of factors other than "intent" of the other person, specifically the assumption of the others' intent to help WP, not hurt it. Now what's being proposed is to move the assumption into areas that have more to do with competence of the other person than they do with their intent or "faith". ... Kenosis 02:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- It wasn't unilateral. Obviously you haven't read the talk page. Or the definition of unilateral. Radiant, me, Samsara and Persian Poet Gal all seem to think it has merit. Discuss rather than edit war. pschemp | talk 00:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- It's understandable that not all Wikipedia editors can appreciate the finer points of policy. Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've removed it again- at minimum there seems to be little consensus for its presence. There seem to also be a variety of problems with the paragraph in question: first, it confuses ignorance and stupidity (or if you prefer, intelligence and education). Second, very often in order to AGF one must assume that the person in question is ignorant about a matter in question or is an idiot. If we need to be not condescending when replying to people that is a matter for WP:CIVIL, not a matter for AGF. JoshuaZ 02:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- For the record, you reverted at 2:11, without discussing first, and only posted this 11 minutes later. That's not using the talk page. pschemp | talk 02:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, that's making an edit and forgetting to click the save page button on the window. In any event, whether or not I used the talk page appropriately isn't relevant to whether or not we should have this paragraph in the article. JoshuaZ 02:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- For the record, you reverted at 2:11, without discussing first, and only posted this 11 minutes later. That's not using the talk page. pschemp | talk 02:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've removed it again- at minimum there seems to be little consensus for its presence. There seem to also be a variety of problems with the paragraph in question: first, it confuses ignorance and stupidity (or if you prefer, intelligence and education). Second, very often in order to AGF one must assume that the person in question is ignorant about a matter in question or is an idiot. If we need to be not condescending when replying to people that is a matter for WP:CIVIL, not a matter for AGF. JoshuaZ 02:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- That's exactly the point. How can you defend assuming that people are idiots within the larger context of creating a good atmosphere on Wikipedia, which is the motivation for AGF? Tell me. Samsara (talk • contribs) 02:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- The point of the policy guideline, originally at least, was to circumvent judgments about others in favor of an assumption of good faith. Assumptions about competence were never meant to be part of the equation in my observation of it. ... Kenosis 02:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Assuming high intelligence seems a little too much, firing up a computer and editing Wikipedia productively does not necessarily require high intelligence. How about just "assume intelligence"? That would have the same affect of hopefully reducing the number of accusations of "stupidity", "idiocy", etc that are tossed around. Assuming some level of intelligence does seem like a natural extension of the guideline. --Bobblehead 02:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- That's exactly the point. How can you defend assuming that people are idiots within the larger context of creating a good atmosphere on Wikipedia, which is the motivation for AGF? Tell me. Samsara (talk • contribs) 02:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
What if a person does not consider himself intelligent? Are we to continue to assume high intelligence if a person declares that he has some medically diagnosed retardation? With good-faith at least, we can confidently say that bad-faith contributors are not welcome; non-intelligent people are. —Centrx→talk • 03:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- You're making me laugh. I hope that was your intention. :) We're not prohibiting common sense yet, and I hope you're never going to side with anyone who will. Samsara (talk • contribs) 03:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- The point is that there are welcome contributors who do not have high intelligence. With good-faith at least, either someone is acting in good-faith at least generally, or they should not be allowed to continue that way on Wikipedia. After we do not "continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary", the user gets a warning to stop. After we do not continue to assume high intelligence in the presence of evidence to the contrary, nothing whatsoever changes; we would still be giving the exact same answers to a question as before, we would still be making the exact same edits to that person's revisions as before. "you may already be aware of this" applies to the dumbest of the dumb as well as the smartest of the smart, and it is in either case needless verbiage. —Centrx→talk • 04:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Your "needless verbiage" is otherwise known as "common courtesy". There is always time for that. Samsara (talk • contribs) 04:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Regardless, even supposing that it is the most necessary verbiage of all, it would apply whether we assume high intelligence or not. —Centrx→talk • 04:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Which is why I suggested getting rid of the "high" portion of "assume high intelligence" and making it "assume intelligence". Assuming high intelligence may give Wikipedia the appearance of snobbishness or elitism and discourage people from editing here. It may also decrease the amount of tolerance someone has for honest mistakes. However, by assuming that they have modicum of intelligence it extends AGF beyond the person's intentions and extends that good faith to the content of their edits, while leaving room for mistakes. I've noticed on certain pages that even if editors are assuming good faith about the actions of the other editors, they are discrediting the edits because of a lack of respect for the content they are adding. Too often content is removed because it is "nonsense", "useless", etc. but there is a lack of explanation beyond those statements in the edit summaries or if there is an explanation, it is done in a manner that disrespects the content and that disrespect tends to starts the discussion of the content off on the wrong foot. By assuming the other editors have some intelligence the content discussion is done in a more intellectual manner, which tends to make the discussion less personal and more about finding out why the content should be in the article or not. --Bobblehead 08:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Some people are not "intelligent" either. For the same reason that "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary.", it would not require editors to continue assuming intelligence. If someone adds nonsense—and after all any intelligent person may be sleepy or accidentally add nonsense—it is still nonsense. —Centrx→talk • 09:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Which is why I suggested getting rid of the "high" portion of "assume high intelligence" and making it "assume intelligence". Assuming high intelligence may give Wikipedia the appearance of snobbishness or elitism and discourage people from editing here. It may also decrease the amount of tolerance someone has for honest mistakes. However, by assuming that they have modicum of intelligence it extends AGF beyond the person's intentions and extends that good faith to the content of their edits, while leaving room for mistakes. I've noticed on certain pages that even if editors are assuming good faith about the actions of the other editors, they are discrediting the edits because of a lack of respect for the content they are adding. Too often content is removed because it is "nonsense", "useless", etc. but there is a lack of explanation beyond those statements in the edit summaries or if there is an explanation, it is done in a manner that disrespects the content and that disrespect tends to starts the discussion of the content off on the wrong foot. By assuming the other editors have some intelligence the content discussion is done in a more intellectual manner, which tends to make the discussion less personal and more about finding out why the content should be in the article or not. --Bobblehead 08:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Regardless, even supposing that it is the most necessary verbiage of all, it would apply whether we assume high intelligence or not. —Centrx→talk • 04:22, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Your "needless verbiage" is otherwise known as "common courtesy". There is always time for that. Samsara (talk • contribs) 04:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- The point is that there are welcome contributors who do not have high intelligence. With good-faith at least, either someone is acting in good-faith at least generally, or they should not be allowed to continue that way on Wikipedia. After we do not "continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary", the user gets a warning to stop. After we do not continue to assume high intelligence in the presence of evidence to the contrary, nothing whatsoever changes; we would still be giving the exact same answers to a question as before, we would still be making the exact same edits to that person's revisions as before. "you may already be aware of this" applies to the dumbest of the dumb as well as the smartest of the smart, and it is in either case needless verbiage. —Centrx→talk • 04:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
(outdent)I'm assuming you have a point? Much like an editor would not be required to assume good faith on someone's actions in the presence of evidence to the contrary, that editor also would not be required to assume intelligence in the presence of evidence to the contrary. --Bobblehead 09:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- An assumption of good-faith is warranted for anyone who is not trolling or vandalizing, etc., that is anyone we should be editing with or having a conversation with in the first place. Evidence that a person is not acting in good faith ends with the user in question being warned or blocked. Evidence that a person is not acting with intelligence means...we don't say "you may already be aware of this" anymore? or no change in behavior at all with regard to the user? —Centrx→talk • 10:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
How about using something along the lines of "informed edits" instead of intelligence? I agree in theory, but "high intelligence" or even "intelligence" makes this seem silly to me. —bbatsell ¿? 05:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Request for protection
Seriously, revert waring on the Assume Good Faith guideline? I've submitted a full protection request for this guideline. Now break off into teams Tiger teams and discuss a solution to the revert war. :P --Bobblehead 02:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've had my three, so I'm out of the game for now anyway. Far more important to resolve this very importance change of the longstanding understanding of what AGF is intended to mean. This digression into an assumption of competence or intelligence is a wide divergence from the past range of assumptions about WP:AGF in my observation. ... Kenosis 02:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- WP:3RR is not a blanket right to edit war for 3 reverts. I'm dismayed you don't understand this. "Use common sense; do not participate in an edit war. Rather than exceeding the three-revert limit, discuss the matter with other editors." pschemp | talk 02:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I already explained myself in the section above. Now I suggest let's move on, please, back to the real issue, which is that without a clear new consensus, the policy guideline has been changed to include an assumption of competence on the part of WP users. That was never intended to be part of the principle until now. As to the matter of using three revs today, on a matter this important I'm entitled to my 3, and if you argue differently, sue me or file an RFC. My preference would be to move right onto the substantive discussion, and consensus the issue among the many editors who may have missed out on this little discussion here. I trust we will now choose to move to the substantive issue at hand. ... Kenosis 02:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- WP:3RR is not a blanket right to edit war for 3 reverts. I'm dismayed you don't understand this. "Use common sense; do not participate in an edit war. Rather than exceeding the three-revert limit, discuss the matter with other editors." pschemp | talk 02:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've had my three, so I'm out of the game for now anyway. Far more important to resolve this very importance change of the longstanding understanding of what AGF is intended to mean. This digression into an assumption of competence or intelligence is a wide divergence from the past range of assumptions about WP:AGF in my observation. ... Kenosis 02:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Teams? I hope you are kidding. Once any discussion breaks off into opposing factions, you'll have lost all hope of reaching a consensus. Samsara (talk • contribs) 02:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry, bad choice of words.;)--Bobblehead 02:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Seems to me Kenosis was intelligently using his allotted three reverts in good faith. As for common sense, seems to me common sense would indicate that since the average American has an IQ between 95 and 110 (just like the rest of the world), assuming "high intelligence" (IQ 130 or higher?) would be to live in a fantasy world. Given that Wikipedia has no entrance exam and is open to anyone with access to a computer and the ability to string letters together to form words and sentences assuming that only the top 3% of the populace contribute to Wiki would be an ableptic excercise.
- Now, if we remove the word "high", what does that buy us? Nothing really, unless intelligence is defined and quantified, and that's likely not someplace we really want to go. •Jim62sch• 11:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- RE "We have already agreed to drop the word higher." WHO IS "WE"? This is a lobbying effort by Samsara to change the parameters of WP:AGF. It has met with substantially more disapproval than approval, when the opposite would be required to justly implement it. And at least one user has pointed out that a different procedure would be needed (announcing the intentions to the larger community and getting broader feedback on the proposal) in order to properly implement such a change . AGF has nothing to do with presumed intelligence or any other kind of competence--period. It has only to do with assuming good intentions. ... Kenosis 04:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Discuss
I have protected the page to end the revert war currently taking place. Parties are encouraged to discuss here and then request unprotection once an agreement has been reached. RFC, Mediation, or Arbitration may be of use. Administrators are reminded not to edit protected pages in order to continue an edit war. Essjay (Talk) 02:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- "Although we may not know many of the other people who edit Wikipedia articles alongside us, it is likely that they have a curiosity about life that derives from high cognitive ability." - I seriously laughed out loud on this. Everyone who edits should be assumed to be a genius? --Wooty Woot? contribs 09:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- It would certainly seem to redefine genius. •Jim62sch• 11:12, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe I misunderstand. Is "high" meaning "normal" or "above-normal" in this context? EDIT: In my opinion, the best solution is to simply say "Assume your fellow contributors are capable of understanding." That might sound a little condencending but I don't know what other way to put it. --Wooty Woot? contribs 09:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- I doubt anyone was trolling. The simple bell curve regarding distribution of intelligence would indicate that an assumption of high intelligence is hardly an intelligent assumption. •Jim62sch• 10:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- a) this point has already been addressed (were it not for the protection), b) it is absolutely minor. Apparently, in all your zeal to destructively criticise (because that is oh so cool and makes you look oh so much cleverer than anybody else), you have completely overlooked what this amendment is trying to achieve, and in the process, utterly lost my respect. Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Uh, what? --Wooty Woot? contribs 04:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Assume high intelligence?
I certainly would not assume, merely on the basis of edits or commentary, that someone is lacking in in intelligence, but I think to assume high intelligence as in exceptional human intelligence overstates the case, and may be unduely optimistic. And to a certain degree it might be argued that intelligence should be less of an issue than the ability to read and write and to think critically and dispassionately and the quality of being informed as to the facts pertaining to the subject of an article. Possibly, this phrase might be better rendered assume a reasonable degree of intelligence or other moderate words to this effect. Cryptonymius 15:53, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- If you ask an artificial intelligence or SETI resercher, then all humans are intelligent, even those whom medics would describe as mentally limited, so where does that leave us? Different people, different definitions. If you had read the talk page, you would have realised that the change you are suggesting has already been accepted but has not been implemented due to the page being protected from editing. So I suppose you are rather proving your case. Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is a really poor addition. Assuming good faith is fine, because it's generally true. But the average contribution does not come from some super human, but just average people who want to help. "Assume high intelligence" is demeaning, elitist, unhelpful and just wrong. It also doesn't have anything to do with AGF. Can we please pull it? Stevage 04:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Different people, different definitions. Some folks will read that phrase "assume high intelligence" as impugning their own intelligence, perhaps by suggesting that only the truely exceptional should edit and therefore compelling them to "masquerade" here as an intellectual. Cryptonymius 16:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, on second thought, if this had been written as do not assume the other person is stupid merely for disagreeing with you I would have probably scanned by it without blinking an eye, though I suppose this is covered in etiquette or something, somewhere else. (And as for not reading the talk page...just trying to get a sense for what's going on around here, and how things ought to be done, becomes a bit daunting at times, and perhaps leads one occasionally to jumping right and beginning to blather...in hopes of making sense to someone...somewhere...out...there... ) Cryptonymius 07:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Problems with the proposed addition of "assume high intelligence"
Here is a brief summary of the problems I see with this newly added addendum to WP:AGF, recently advocated by User:Samsara, which currently reads as follows:
- "Equally important as assuming good faith is to assume high intelligence. Although we may not know many of the other people who edit Wikipedia articles alongside us, it is likely that they have a curiosity about life that derives from high cognitive ability. Therefore, when you approach people, a typical phrase you may wish to use is, "you may already be aware of this, but [...]"."
- (1)This newly inserted attempt to include a supplementary policy guideline for WP users to "assume high intelligence" has absolutely nothing legitimately to do with assuming "good faith". Good faith has to do with assumptions of others’ intentions, not about their competence. WP:AGF places upon us an expectation to assume good faith intent to help the Wikipedia project, and to continue to assume good faith unless and until there is substantial evidence of motives not consistent with good faith that can be clearly demonstrated to other participating editors. The issue in assuming good faith is not whether someone else is assumed to be smart or not-so-smart, but rather has only to do with assuming that others’ intentions are good and not malicious. To the extent that we follow the policy guideline, assuming good faith guides us to avoid making hasty negative assumptions about others' intent, particularly when we get into disagreements about article content or manner of personal interaction. And WP:AGF is no way whatsoever anticipates that we need make any standardized judgments about others' cognitive abilities or skills in order to support our assumptions of good faith. To the contrary, making assumptions about others' level of intelligence would appear to increase the likelihood of arriving at a hasty judgment in the context of disagreement, to the effect that someone else, assumed to be very intelligent, obviously must be being obtuse or fraudulent.
- (2)Worse, this debate in the talk section(s) just above has gotten lost around the periphery of the issue and has wandered into whether one should assume "high intelligence", or merely "intelligence" or some other level of innate ability, when in fact assuming good faith has absolutely nothing to do with assumptions about others' innate ability or any other speculative assessment of other users' competence.
- (3)Irrespective of whether such a concept may be legitimately attached to assumptions of good faith, any official policy guideline insisting that users assume that other users have a pre-specified competence level of any kind is completely opposed to the foundational concepts of Wikipedia, which make no demands for a given level of competence in order to participate in WP. If the agenda here is to get Wikipedia users to assume competence of some particular kind, there should be a completely separate proposal arguing for a new project-page guideline specifying what those assumptions should be (e.g. WP:Assume high intelligence).
- (4)The proposed addition of "assume high intelligence" to the WP:Assume good faith policy guideline also makes several additional flawed assumptions.
- A) The assertion that "to assume good intelligence" is "equally important as assuming good faith" is an unconsensused judgment formulated by User:Samsara, and not a reflection of consensused Wiki-wide priorities. Even assuming that an expectation for WP users to hold assumptions about others' intelligence is legitimate at all, on any project page, the issue of its relative importance has not been adequately discussed among WP users.
- B) the assertion concerning other WP users that "...it is likely that they have a curiosity about life that derives from high cognitive ability" is completely unfounded and speculative. It's a nice compliment, but completely unverified and probably unverifiable. Moreover, it quite arguably is contrary to many editors' personal experiences with other editors across the wiki.
- C)The statement "[t]herefore, when you approach people, a typical phrase you may wish to use is, "you may already be aware of this, but [...]" is a nice advisory that appears quite relevant to WP:CIV, but is a non sequitur and does not properly follow either from AGF or from any other assumptions such as about intelligence.
In sum, any principle, expectation, demand, or guideline to assume high intelligence is not properly a part of WP:AGF, and quite arguably should not be a part of any WP project page. ... Kenosis 05:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes it is, because as Centrx has amply demonstrated, if somebody does something that looks stupid to you, most people would either assume that the person is being evil or stupid. AGF advises against believing people to be leaving, so very obviously, there is a glaring omission of advising against believing people to be stupid, which, as I have said before, and some have agreed with (Pschemp and Persian Poet Gal), can be just as offensive. AGF is about creating a good atmosphere, not about giving people a guideline that suggests by omission that people who do perceived wrong are stupid. Read this version, which makes everything perfectly clear. Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
RE "[I]f somebody does something that looks stupid to you ... would either assume that the person is being evil or stupid" ??? If somebody does something stupid where? On the Wikipedia talk pages or in the articles? Stupid to whom? No one's required to make such judgments as are suggested by Samsara's choice between "evil or stupid", unless a situation has gotten to the point where it's headed towards, or already in, a request for mediation, RFC or RFA. And, "evil" is not anywhere near specific enough, and arguably should never be a permissible judgment about another participant in Wikipedia. And in general, people do not do things in Wikipedia, but instead say things, question things, assert things, wonder about things, etc. And, an action, where someone does something such as deletes a whole section or article, inserts random characters or other such guff, etc. may call for a reasoned judgment whether it's likely accidental. If someone does something that doesn't appear likely to be random or accidental, such as inserting in an article the words "Professor X sucks", we're called to make a judgment whether it's a mistake (possibly unfamiliar, inexperienced, perhaps clumsy, or even, as Samsara says, stupid) or whether it's vandalism (malicious), and never whether it's "evil". Other situations, such as suspected spamming, may call for judgments whether it's merely enthusiasm about a preferred website or POV, or whether it has commercial motivations or other self-serving motives. Yet other situations may call for other judgments such as whether a mass copyedit of an article is doing something too broad or too agressive at one time. When people do things such as those I just mentioned, the issue is not, ever, a simple choice between whether the other editor is being "evil or stupid", as Samsara says above. And it's not necessarily a required choice between "stupid" and "not in good faith" either.
The vast majority of circumstances, however, have to do not with what others' do but with what users' say, assert, question, include in an article, state on the talk page, etc. The vast majority of instances can, and should, be dealt with on the basis of the particular conceptual or substantive or procedural issues at hand, be they related to an article's content or to points being discussed on a talk page. In no way does this process require anyone to make a judgment about others' innate abilities in order to make a personal decision whether another user deserves to be assumed to be participating in good faith. The policy guideline WP:AGF directs us to AGF-- period-- unless there is substantial evidence to the contrary which can be articulated and demonstrated to other editors. And even if, in the context of arguing to fellow WP users your grounds upon which you may have ceased to assume good faith on the part of someone else, the possible question comes up as to whether things said or done by that editor are best interpreted as either incompetent or malicious, such a question would be only one of an extremely large number of possibilities and questions that could potentially be involved in the analysis.
Making speculative judgments about others' innate abilities, such as to "assume high intelligence", is completely irrelevant to assuming good faith. This proposal plainly did not have consunsus to begin with, and plainly has substantial opposition on a number or grounds by at least six or seven users thus far, with only marginal support by about three users if I'm counting the views correctly. The paragraph about "assume high intelligence" should be removed promptly upon unlocking of the project page, and not be replaced unless and until there is a clear consensus for its inclusion in the project page. ... Kenosis 16:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Concur with Kenosis here - pardon me, but it is idiotic to assume high intelligence, as intelligence varies enormously, and most importantly, assuming intelligence is actually contrary to AGF: someone might be a little slow, which can look malicious, but actually be a good-faith effort on their part. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Proper procedure
Regardless of where it belongs, it is a terrible break with WP procedure to introduce a change like this without talking to a larger community, and without having come up with a coherent and defensible explanation of what it means and what the implications and likely side effects are. This is WP policy, whether we call it a guideline or a policy, and it's not the place to be throwing neat ideas in randomly. Please, proponents, once the page is unlocked, yank this in toto and prepare an essay explaining what you mean and why it should be part of WP policy, and where you think it should go, and then float the essay at the Village Pump and wikien-l for feedback. Georgewilliamherbert 06:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- I found no support for my case when I stated it at first, so I figured people who supported this didn't actually exist. Good to hear :) The idea that other pages should be changed to not refer to this as policy may have already been implemented BTW! Ansell 09:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- The explanation exists. See previous changes by me. Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:11, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- I will assume good faith, but I am afraid that your proposal is hopelessly muddled and does not have a coherent rationale. Until you can provide that, in a single clear document somewhere, this is horribly premature. Georgewilliamherbert 07:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Recapping the discussion above
Proposed extension: Equally important as assuming good faith is to assume high intelligence. Although we may not know many of the other people who edit Wikipedia articles alongside us, it is likely that they have a curiosity about life that derives from high cognitive ability. Therefore, when you approach people, a typical phrase you may wish to use is, "you may already be aware of this, but [...]".
When examining other people's edits, it is important not only to check facts diligently to ensure we do not introduce factual inaccuracies into debates and articles, but also to remember that our fellow contributors sometimes make mistakes in spite of "knowing it, really", and that it is possible that they are aware of the mistakes they've made, but were not able to correct them before somebody else did. This can be due to any number of reasons, including slow connections, network failure, computer failure, inefficient peripheral devices, and sudden demands of our real life environments.
- Existing rejoinder: Assuming good faith is about intentions, not actions. Well-meaning people make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do. You should not act like their mistake was deliberate. Correct, but don't scold. There will be people on Wikipedia with whom you disagree. Even if they're wrong, that doesn't mean they're trying to wreck the project. There will be some people with whom you find it hard to work. That doesn't mean they're trying to wreck the project either. It is never necessary that we attribute an editor's actions to bad faith, even if bad faith seems obvious, as all our countermeasures (i.e. reverting, blocking) can be performed on the basis of behavior rather than intent.
The bits that are clearly rejected by the current talk page participants are stricken out above, the bits that have been tentativly rejected are underlined. We're pretty much left with an extention of the existing third paragraph, copied below the proposed extension. I think that the action is over here, that the page can be unprotected and that we can agree that "Equally important as assuming good faith is to assume intelligence" has no consensus at this time. Anyone demure?
brenneman 06:47, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- Why is assuming intelligence a) important; b) equally important; c) appropriate for this guideline? What is the purpose of this phrase when approaching people? —Centrx→talk • 07:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- You're preaching to the converted. I was trying to cover off what had already been clearly rejected. - brenneman 10:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- Intelligence implies that you are going to discuss with someone in a rational manner. If you assume that you are better than someone you are not as likely to discuss things as rationally. it is equally important as it is more than just assuming someone made an edit without wanting to harm either the encyclopedia or their fellow editors. It adds IMO an element of respect above a simple initial good faith condition.
- Ignoring the semantic difference between guideline and policy for the moment, it is important as a way of improving the applicability of the whole idea. Although there are those who think that this idea is outdated and somewhat less than what they expect of a policy (whatever that is), the encyclopedia was not created with the goal to gain a fellowship of editors to lord their status over others. Heck, you could say the goal was to humbly respect the efforts of others and get a true representation of human knowledge. A simple civil society does not contain any elements of humility. You can rip an editor to shreds without violating either "civility" or "no personal attacks". The applicability of this addition, although it may not have been in the original, is significant in this respect I think. Ansell 08:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is also a completely different concept than AGF's original intent, and deserves to stand (or fall) on its own as a separate policy proposal. It's just not right to go around tacking other possible but not consensus good ideas onto major WP policy documents. Georgewilliamherbert 10:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
All of the proposed material is irrelevant to WP:AGF-- completely irrelevant. Even "assume reasonable intelligence" or some such approach would be irrelevant. Even a statement such as "assume rationality" quickly finds numerous exceptions where an edit or a discussion is neither intelligent nor rational, but we're still called to assume good faith unless there's clearly demonstrable evidence to the contrary. However, since the project page already has a paragraph which serves as a brief 'advice column', I would support the inclusion of an additional statement or two about how one might wish to communicate the assumption of good faith. The example of saying "you may already be aware of this, but [...]" is one of many that could be used as examples of how to communicate one's assumption of good faith (even though this is more in the realm of WP:CIV). Possibly even a note of advice about attempting to demonstrate some degree of patience with other users might conceivably help editors' demonstrate their assumption of good faith.
But any dictum for assuming intelligence, aptitude, competence, or any other type of ability, experience or skill, is not among the necessary conditions for assuming good faith, and should be rejected with respect to this project page. ... Kenosis 16:58, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that assuming competence is important, and the idea is very similiar to assuming good faith. But, it may is better stated somewhere else. I started User:Friday/Competence not long ago- if this idea has legs maybe it should become Wikipedia:Assume competence and be a seperate-but-related guideline to this one. Friday (talk) 17:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- It doesn't belong on this page. Also, competence is in some ways worse than intelligence because there are numerous people on Wikipedia who are clearly not experienced at Wikipedia or competent at editing properly, even to make links or section headers. —Centrx→talk • 06:20, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Please remove the "high intelligence" section
It clearly doesn't have consensus, and at the very least is controversial enough to warrant discussion on the talk page *before* including it in the policy/guideline. Can an admin please remove it pending further discussion here? Thanks. Stevage 01:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is reasonable; I've removed that section, as it clearly does not have consensus. While I suspect the aim was to provide a nice way of adding an asterisk to the basic policy that says "and don't assume everyone is a blithering idiot, either", the wording left something to be desired.
- It's worth point out again that this material was originally at Wikipedia:Assume high intelligence, and merged here per suggestions on that talk page. Should something to this effect be implemented, there evidently is no consensus on whether to include it here or create a separate page to house the idea. Opabinia regalis 01:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
er, guideline?
Hasn't Assume Good Faith been one of Wikipedia's fundamental policies for years? If we make it a guideline, people won't treat it as if it were so important. -- Chris is me 14:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- No, this page was first tagged as a "policy" in May 2006, [1]. It is more in the nature of a guideline than a policy; it is an extrapolation of Wikipedia:Civility, which supersedes it. —Centrx→talk • 21:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- See also discussion above; the distinction is largely semantic, but making a state of mind a policy is unenforceable and therefore essentially useless. If people were only "assuming good faith" because this page had a "policy" tag at the top of it, they're doing it wrong anyway. Opabinia regalis 07:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
- I still think that AGF is an essential Wikipedian concept that every editor needs to follow. If it's a guideline, it's less important, but AGF is fundamental. -- Chris is me 15:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
- As I said above, anyone whose behavior changes as a function of the tag at the top of this article is an Olympic medalist in Missing the Point. Opabinia regalis 07:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- I am very much with Chris on this one and his thread title actually proves the point for me. The "er" device in prose is more often than not evidence of an inability to express oneself clearly in the written word. It is one thing to say "er" in the spoken word when pausing for thought, quite another to use it in writing. This is quite aside from sarcasm being the lowest form of wit. However, the whole point is that one should, indeed must, assume good faith in his posting, however he expresses himself. I am completey with him on this one. Assume good faith has to be a fundamental policy of Wikipedia and not simply a "guide". Informed Owl (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Informed Owl
- Oppose the change, and agree with Centrx and Opabinia regalis. Assumptions made of anyone or anything is to subjective to be anything more than a guideline. --Hu12 (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- I am very much with Chris on this one and his thread title actually proves the point for me. The "er" device in prose is more often than not evidence of an inability to express oneself clearly in the written word. It is one thing to say "er" in the spoken word when pausing for thought, quite another to use it in writing. This is quite aside from sarcasm being the lowest form of wit. However, the whole point is that one should, indeed must, assume good faith in his posting, however he expresses himself. I am completey with him on this one. Assume good faith has to be a fundamental policy of Wikipedia and not simply a "guide". Informed Owl (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Informed Owl
- As I said above, anyone whose behavior changes as a function of the tag at the top of this article is an Olympic medalist in Missing the Point. Opabinia regalis 07:41, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- I still think that AGF is an essential Wikipedian concept that every editor needs to follow. If it's a guideline, it's less important, but AGF is fundamental. -- Chris is me 15:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
- See also discussion above; the distinction is largely semantic, but making a state of mind a policy is unenforceable and therefore essentially useless. If people were only "assuming good faith" because this page had a "policy" tag at the top of it, they're doing it wrong anyway. Opabinia regalis 07:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
(undent) There are only 42 policies, while there are hundreds of guidelines. Given the relative numbers, and the general stability of policies, I suggest that changing a page from a guideline to a policy not be treated casually; at minimum, notification of the planned change belongs on this page before the change occurs, so there can be discussion.
In this case, the page has been reverted back to a guideline, something with which I personally agree. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:32, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- There are 42 policies and 25 guidelines. --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
What to do when someone fails to "AGF"
I've noticed a lot of interactions here in which one editor throws an AGF link at another as part of a response to some point in a dispute. The effect of this is often an escalation of ill will, and a further wandering from the constructive point at hand, because they end up arguing over whether one person was assuming good faith, and whether the other was assuming the assumption of good faith...
I would suggest, and maybe someone can figure out a way to include this in the guideline, that the correct response to a "failure to AGF" is not to accuse them of failing to AGF, but to explain your intentions, and show that you're working for the best of Wikipedia be refocusing the discussion on that, and not on who may have violated which civility-related policy.
Opinions? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
- I think this suggestion by GTBacchus is simply brilliant. I also believe that AGF should be a Policy, not a guideline. Shortcomings of the policy should be addressed by making the policy better, not by making it something that those who don't like it can just opt out of. GTBacchus's suggestion goes a long way toward achieving that end. Well done! Jerry lavoie 20:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
- That a page is tagged as a guideline is not because of "shortcomings", it indicates how the page fits into the policy framework. The fundamental notion of "assuming good faith" is vaguer than policies are and has exceptions. It would not make sense to assume good faith if someone is rapidly posting obscene pictures throughout Wikipedia, but the block message can indeed still be WP:CIVIL. —Centrx→talk • 08:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- See User:Cyde/Don't be a fucking douchebag. —Centrx→talk • 08:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
- I find that to be vulgar, and I don't see how it enhances this discussion. I suggest deleting it. Jerry lavoie 00:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps you don't understand what it is in reference to. People often tell others to "not be a m:dick" as though referring to some sort of "official" essay excuses incivility, much in the same way that people accuse others of not assuming good faith by throwing in a link to WP:AGF, which is itself not assuming good faith. —Centrx→talk • 14:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
- I find that to be vulgar, and I don't see how it enhances this discussion. I suggest deleting it. Jerry lavoie 00:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
- I wanted to make sure I understand GTBacchus' suggestion. Tom and Mary are editing back and forth. At some point Tom puts, "reverted per (insert policy)" or "please refer to (insert guideline)". Instead Tom should put "please refer to (policy)...where it says 'blah, blah, blah'" so that everyone (Mary included) can understand what Tom believes is the relevant portion of the quoted page. Often there are conflicting phrases/clauses on the same page or based on a particular interpretation a conflicting policy, but nothing productive can occur with just the link. Mary will read the link, find the part that supports her and ask Tom for more detail...which generally is ignored. I would love to see people quoting the policy with the link so we all know what the heck the person is actually referring to. -- Tony of Race to the Right 20:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Interwiki
Dear administrator, please add the following interwiki:
[[ia:Wikipedia:Presume bon fide]]
Thank you in advance, Julian Mendez 23:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- Hm? This page doesn't seem to be protected. Luna Santin 02:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Assume Good Faith / Assume good faith
The "Assume Good Faith" [capitalised] entry refers the visitor to the "Good faith" entry but not to here. At "Good faith" the decision had been taken to remove the link to here as "confusing". I've added an External Link there with an explanation but I think it would be helpful if someone with experience of disambiguation provided a link to here from "Assume Good Faith" --Opbeith 11:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
- No, the encyclopedia is kept strictly separate from Wikipedia-space pages. —Centrx→talk • 06:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm new, and I don't get this...
Why was The Exception removed from this policy; I'm new here on Wikipedia, and I don't get this mentality. Why is the mental sanity of our long-time contributors not worth more than getting a few more POV pushers or otherwise trouble-makers on the project? Are there too little edits being made on Wikipedia servers, are the hardware costs of the wikimedia foundation so low that we need more trouble-makers on board? What is the reason for this tolerance of bad behavior? --Merzul 22:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
- I have to agree that the exception was justified. I don't agree with Merzul's arguments, as I've seen too much of "long-time contributors" who are also "POV pushers", and I don't see how constant accusations of bad faith could decrease the amount of trouble-makers and the hardware costs. However, without such an exception, even the use of the word "vandal" (the very definition of which includes malice) would have to be prohibited - people may vandalise (perform bad actions), but that doesn't allow us to call them vandals (thus assuming bad faith). I'm sorry, but I think this is absurd hair-splitting. An impracticable rule is worse than no rule at all. --Anonymous44 15:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
- If someone blanks enough pages on a topic there is a point where that action is not coming from an intention to do good. Exceptions are obvious, but in a format where the long-in-the-tooth rely on only the text the exception should be stated. -- Tony of Race to the Right 20:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Does accusing of violation of AGF *really* amount to a violation of AGF?
WP:AAGF used to be an essay (officially, it still is), and for good reasons, IMO. This edit, which apparently passed without substantial discussion, suddenly turned it into part of the policy/guideline itself. I think this is wrong, not because I am in favour of citing AGF groundlessly (personally, I never envoke it in discussions), but simply because it does not make sense logically - and this does not inspire any respect for WP policies/guidelines. The reason is simple: failing to assume good faith in someone else is not the same as acting in bad faith oneself - thus, accusing someone of violating AGF is not the same as accusing him of bad faith - thus, accusing someone of violating AGF does not violate AGF. Accusing wrongfully of AGF violation may be a very wrong thing to do, but AGF is not the policy to deal with it. The fallacy of the AAGF essay is, IMO, simply that someone equated "not assuming good faith" with "making any sort of accusations", and figured that envoking AGF is an accusation, too. Of course, the underlying identification of any accusation with an AGF violation here is wrong. Once again, my major concern is not the actual application of the rule; it is the fact that people reading WP policies and guidelines expect to read something that has been well thought over, and will have less respect for them if they find something illogical or impracticable there. --Anonymous44 15:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
- See also "Assume the Assumption of Good Faith". I suppose some kind of infinite regress would be possible, and if links like WP:AAAGF and WP:AAAAGF turn from red to blue, we'll know it's happening. My own contribution is "Assume the Presence of a Belly Button", which I hope never to see anyone accused of "violating". (How exactly does one "violate" an essay, anyway? Errrm, does it involve bondage?) -- Ben 21:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- So far, nobody has objected to my arguments above, so I'm removing the sentence in question:
- "Accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith, without showing reasonable supporting evidence, is another form of failing to assume good faith."
- If someone insists on re-including it, it ought to be re-worded to something like "Accusing the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith, without showing reasonable supporting evidence, is strongly discouraged." This is indisputable, and it also makes sense logically, unlike the original version. --Anonymous44 15:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- Ben wrote this before my deletion. AAGF is merely an essay, and AGF does not need to be in accordance with it. --Anonymous44 16:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- Also, please address the *substance* of my argument above. I took the trouble to write it, so I expected people to take the trouble to read it and respond to it before reverting.--Anonymous44 16:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- I think you've got two concepts mixed up here. This guideline concerns itself with assuming another party's intentions are evil. What you seem to be talking about is doing evil, which this guideline is not concerned with. If that's not what you're talking about, please strive to make your argument less convoluted. Thanks. Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'll try to clarify it.
The disputed sentence says the following: if you say (without sufficient reasons): "User X violates AGF", then you are violating AGF.
However, this is another way of saying that if you assume that user X assumes bad faith, then you are assuming bad faith.
And this is another way of saying that assuming bad faith (as user X supposedly does) is a form of acting in bad faith.
But that's not true, is it? User X may have perfectly good intentions, and yet make the mistake of being too suspicious towards others. I notice someone pointed out more or less the same before, without realising that he is already contradicting the new text of the policy. [2]
Here is a table of sorts, starting from the statement in the present text and reaching the implication that I'm sure no one of us would agree with:
1. assuming non-assumption of good faith = violating "assume good faith"
2. assuming non-assumption of good faith = assuming bad faith
3. non-assumption of good faith = bad faith
--Anonymous44 17:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, I can see the paradox. I think that since this isn't a policy any more, it may be okay to drop that sentence. You've got to appreciate, though, that the phrase was added at a time when every vandal and edit warrer would come to ANI and complain that bad faith had been assumed against them. So that phrase was presumably added at that time - in good faith - in order to curb such a waste of everybody's resources. Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- I'm very glad it's all cleared up, I really hate conflicts. :) Sure I understand why people felt that something like that was necessary; and indeed I think the sentence can be preserved in a form that achieves the same effect without being paradoxical, something like "Editors should avoid accusing the other side in a conflict of assuming bad faith without showing reasonable supporting evidence." I guess that's the edit I should have made in the first place, but I couldn't think of a good wording. --Anonymous44 19:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Act in Good Faith
Wikipedia:Act in good faith is a new article that is meant to be a companion to WP:AGF. That is, here would go a list of things *you* the individual should do that *show* your good faith in your own edits. Versus AGF being what you should assume the other person is doing in *their* edits. Obviously I need help developing this proposal, it's just the first blurb. In reading over AGF it looks like a lot of content here, can be forked over there. Any takers? Wjhonson 07:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
- Why is this even needed? I can't say I approve of forking this. It sounds like WP:CREEP. pschemp | talk 16:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
"In all cases where a Wikipedian claims credentials, they should be assumed to be only claims until they have been verified by reliable third-party sources."
I added it. C.m.jones 16:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
- A procedure of "verifying credentials" is not part of normal wikipedian practice, and I think it has better stay that way. Credentials are really peripheral to the whole project; it works on the basis of wiki policies and (in particular) on citing sources, not on expertise. The fact that one is or claims to be an expert should have no consequences for the way one's edits and arguments are treated. So I don't like this addition, mainly because it seems to suggest that credentials do have a "legal" significance, if they are true. --Anonymous44 20:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
- That would be a nice addition to Wikipedia:Assume Bad Faith, but not here. Derex 22:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Userbox
Should we display the Assume Good Faith userbox on this talk page? Could someone find it for me? -PatPeter 16:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not needed obviously, this page is as calm as a lake in the morning. Readers and authors have read the article, as it seems. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 13:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Question about the last paragraph
I was in a discussion after a failed RM. The proponent of the move listed a table that classified the voters by their affilations. There was some heated discussion, and I decided to join in, and voiced discomfort about his tone and his classification of the voters. I did that because I believed he was not acting in good faith. It resulted in some awful alternation between me and him. So, what should I have done in that discussion? Is it really appropriate to complain if the other party is likely to act in the contrary or would it just cause more incivility?--Kylohk 21:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
I included Suspension of judgment under See also, as I believe that this is a fundamental auxiliary concept necessary for the AGF. —AldeBaer 09:37, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
- I agree. In WP:KEYSPAM someone raised the legal concept of Ignorantia juris non excusat ("ignorance of the law does not excuse") as a way to excuse admins and editors who failed to assume good faith during the AACS encryption key controversy. I think we should include text that specifically says that assume good faith is in contravention to "ignorance of the law does not excuse". I am also raising this in WP:BITE.--Cerejota 12:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
- This is the bulk of my posting over at WP:BITE:
- However, since "Ignorantia juris non excusat" is indeed a legal principle highly esteemed in the western world, from which the bulk of the english wikipedia editors come, it is only natural that people would feel this principle applies.
- --Cerejota 12:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Question about last sentence
Emphasis mine.
- This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Actions inconsistent with good faith include repeated vandalism, confirmed malicious sockpuppetry, and lying. Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that criticism should not be attributed to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice. Editors should not accuse the other side in a conflict of not assuming good faith in the absence of reasonable supporting evidence.
Hi, can someone tell me what the last sentence means, please? That you shouldn't accuse other people of assuming bad faith when there's not enough evidence? --Kjoonlee 16:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
This is the problem
IMO, it is this particular policy that is the most misguided on WP. WP:AGF is simply Jimbo's Randian experiment, contrary to more sane notions of human nature. Except in non-controversial areas (e.g., math), the evidence indicates that most people contribute to WP out of self-interest to push a personal agenda. Of course, when and if that agenda is the common good, that's fine, but experience at WP betrays this as a broad, accurate assumption. And they may view their personal, non-common-good agenda as helping. In fact, of course they do! But is it really? Assume nothing. Act according to evidence--WP:ANAAE. This project will never be a widely accepted encyclopedia without striking WP:AGF and replacing it with such a fundamental, realistic assumption. ---C.m.jones 09:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Assume good faith" does have a caveat for extreme cases. As to it being Jimbo's Randian experiment, I beg to differ: it is in fact the least Randian of the policies in wikipedia.
- Since we do not know each other in real life, and have little time to build trust among ourselves, assuming good faith as an operative principle seems like the only logical way to keep the house form crumbling. In fact, there seems to be a direct relationship between article quality, and the assumption of good faith on the part of editors in that article. The worse quality articles in wikipedia always have talk pages full of failure to assume good faith.--Cerejota 08:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
What do I do with a user who is having a problem with the AGF rule
I hope I am taking this as a correct procedure to report a user, as on how do I resolve this argument between users as the user:293.xx.xxx.xx has accused me and another user of a "vandalism" edit over the bippu page, as for the fact I have never either heard of the term before or know of the existence of the article. So when I first came to this page, that edit at the time said vip instead of Bippu, therefore, taking this as a common abbreviation any anybody would, I changed it to an all upper-case word, when this user came to his page, he gave me and the other user (User:Night Garage) an vandalism tag, also for general editing.
for the fact I have never heard this word before, on google there is 10,100 hits for the word bippu[3] compared to 232,000 for VIP Style [4]
This user has this attitude as he doesn't want anybody to edit "his" page (which he did not create) which is against the spirit of Wikipedia
As from my personal experience, this user is one who cannot keep to the AGF rule with me and another user (User:Night Garage) who has been given a vandalism tag, purely for giving an explanation on how it is pronounced in Japanese, as he is accused for fan-crufting. I am not sure about taking this argument further as I know this argument has became more heated as ever. So what shall I do as I don't like myself to be the person to back down after being blamed for a "vandalism" edit I have not done for the fact I was unwittingly involved.
You can see the commentary between me and him, starting with the one he sent me, as of when he replied back, this is started to stray from the AGF rule. Willirennen 12:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
A case study - Food for thought
I propose to insert a link to A case study, e.g. in the "Articles" section. It is provided only as "food for thought". I am not assuming that people will share my opinion, but I believe that this case is quite interesting, in this context. Do you agree? Paolo.dL 15:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Since nobody disagrees, I inserted the link. But there was no section in "See also" suitable for "case studies". Thus, I placed the link within the text, at the end of the paragraph referring to the principle of "ignorantia legis non excusat", because the case study is just about misbehaviour due to ignorantia legis. Paolo.dL 10:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think a little more than a week is not enough time to establish consensus, since no-one has replied.
- I do have one comment: your link is to a Userspace essay, and while linking to those is not unknown, it is generally frowned upon outside of talk pages. If you fill your essay nets betetr treatmeant, you should try to read WP:POLICIES, in particular the part on essays. Be warned however, if that once out of Userspace, it will be come much more scrutinized by the community and hence subjected to restless editing, or maybe not! Just be be bold!!!--Cerejota 23:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for the info. Paolo.dL 07:47, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
remove Assume the assumption of good faith
Why have this nonsense essay in the mix. It suggests not linking to this page after someone demonstrably fails to assume good faith, and is counter productive. The common sense intention is so basic that if someone lacks it, there is little hope of helping them at all. Pdbailey 01:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Why did you delete documented video interview?
I'm sorry but this is very relevant to the article.
I vote that this interview should be added to the Blair Wilson article on the Wikipedia.
Refactor of intro
I've edited the introduction somewhat, to try and cover AGF more carefully. The original article was a 6 paragraph intro (only) which included 2 paragraphs each of introduction, WP:BITE, and AGF in general. I've edited this as follows:
- Moved the two general paragraphs into a section "About good faith", to allow other editors to expand the topic in future.
- Moved the two paragraphs on WP:BITE to a section specifically on "good faith and newcomers".
- Refactored the remaining two paragraphs of the introduction as follows:
- In the 1st paragraph, replaced "we must assume that most people who work on the project are trying to help..." by "we work from an assumption that most people are trying to help...", which seems more accurate.
- In the 2nd paragraph, took the sentence about talk pages and disagreement and made this into a paragraph by including this addition: "Consider whether a dispute stems from different perspectives and look for ways to reach consensus if possible."
- Finally, used the bare statement "Good faith is obviously not bad faith", and expanded this with clarification of what bad faith editing means, and what is expected if AGF is in doubt. The extra sentence reads: "Even if good faith is in doubt, assume good faith where you can, be careful to remain civil yourself, and if necessary follow dispute resolution processes rather than edit warring or attacking other editors."
FT2 (Talk | email) 09:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Update:
- Clarified the sentence about "accusations of bad faith themselves being bad faith unless reasonable evidence..." etc. This sentence was criticized above on this page as being unclear. I've reworded it, and put it in its own subsection "Accusing others of bad faith".
- I've split the main section on good faith into two; one covering good faith, the other describing how to deal with (suspected) bad faith. if someone wants to re-merge these, I dont have a strong view on it but this seemed sensible.
- I've put the section on newcomers above the section on bad faith, rather than below it. Again, no strong view, if anyone feels differently, go for it.
FT2 (Talk | email) 10:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
"Reverting good faith edits"
I see this comment a lot... does it mean that the edit being reverted is, or is not, in good faith? --JWB 13:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, it means that the edit reverted was an edit made in good faith, or was assumed to be made in good faith. –sebi 11:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
- You see it probably because Twinkle has this function. I personally don't think that it's useful to cite in an edit summary, well, maybe for when a newbie makes a genuine edit and you don't want to offend them by blatantly reverting, but that's it. Melsaran 11:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
- But you shouldn't forget to expain why the edit was reverted. Otherwise, it looks like: "hey, you are a nice guy, I know, but your edit is so stupid that I reverted it and don't even bother explaining you why" :-). Paolo.dL 13:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Application of this policy
I don't like how this policy is applied. It makes no sense that an edit like [[5]](Warning, foul language) gets tolerated with a warning. In my opinion, that deserves an IMMEDIATE ban, not 'Congratulations, your edit worked!' on their talk page, then a dozen more warnings before anything is done. I'm not saying that this policy is without merit, but it does not discourage vandalism at all. Vandalism is a major problem. I shouldn't be reading about Vicia_faba then stumble upon a line of very foul language that I would not want children seeing. There just isn't enough policing action to let vandals run rampant and trust that we'll have enough contributors with genuine good faith to clean it up- promptly. This policy, and its application, is detrimental to the quality of Wikipedia. Phasmatisnox 10:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
accused by mischarge
I found the Epthorn has accused me of a false charge to other user. In recent, I added two sentences underpinned by the reliable references written by journalists and issued by major massmedia in Korea. However, Epthorn misconcluded my intention for the revision solely supported with his imagination. Following the paragraph Epthorn left on other's user talk box;
Jpbarrass, Hey, I wanted to warn you that a user called "Patriotmissile" may intend to vandalize a page you have contributed to, Sungkyunkwan_University. I have had about all I can take of this user. Since I have only so many things I can do at once (and don't want to follow this particular person all over Wikipedia) maybe you should keep an eye on it. Thanks, Epthorn 15:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I revised the content in the 'Sungkyunkwan university' thread, and you can check whether my revisions are supported by reliable references and my intention is nothing to do with the charge claimed by the Epthorn. I kind of feel upset by this accusation with a false charge.Patriotmissile 15:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Guideline needs revision
The AGF guideline is being both abused and misunderstood by many users on Wikipedia. For example, in some cases, even if a user has been found guilty of misconduct, if a person claims that convicted user is acting in bad faith then sometimes that person is accused of not assuming good faith. And this is just the start. Is this how AGF was meant to be used? Was this ever anticipated? - Cyborg Ninja 08:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
- "Guilty"? "Misconduct"? "Convicted"? What is this, court? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
In the face of evidence to the contrary
I think violations of civil should be added to this, especially in the instance that someone is warned and continues to behave in a uncivil manner. I don't think there is any reason to assume good faith when someone is insulting your lineage and making wild accusations.--Crossmr (talk) 04:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
- The idea that, just because someone is uncivil, we can conclude that they're acting in bad faith, is utterly ludicrous. You seem to be assuming that someone acting in good faith would be incapable of rudeness, and that's just untrue. Looking for cases where you're "allowed" to drop assumption of good faith is a fool's errand, because there is no situation in which it's remotely useful to drop assumption of good faith. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
End the policy
I would like to see this policy come to an end. What procedure is there for calling it to a vote? A show of hands here? :)
No, seriously--if anything, we ought to be making the opposite assumption.Dawud (talk) 06:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
- Yes. If you're always paranoid then no one can *get* you. I'd better order another 100 pounds of coffee because I can't sleep ever. Wjhonson (talk) 06:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
- When Wikipedia began, most of my edits corrected obvious mistakes. As the content here has matured, my edits have gone from fixing mistakes, grammar and writing style to fixing edits that increasingly use Wikipedia in bad faith. It gets worse by the month. Any thoughts about edits that are clearly not vandalism, but also clearly in bad faith. The worst situations are when there are a handful of people committed to one side of an issue all working together. I would also like to see some of the worst-offending WP articles. I am certain that I have not seen it all.90.134.47.38 (talk) 18:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
- I think what you're talking about is people introducing content that is not NPOV (which certainly is an act of bad faith when it's done willfully or intentionally.) I'm personally all for pointing out demonstrable bad faith in situations like that, and I don't think WP:AGF prohibits such a thing, but I think in that specific case it might be more productive and more valuable to the project to work on articulately demonstrating why the edits are not NPOV. Any successful articulation you come up with is useful not only in that current situation but can serve as precedent against future POV-pushing within the article.Unfortunately, the most practical way to do things on Wikipedia often involves climbing the steep side of the mountain, to use James Baldwin's metaphor. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 18:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
- Even willfull POV pushing is not bad faith. Bad faith is edits that are intended to compromise the encyclopedia. Willfull POV pushing would only be bad faith if it was willfull and made with the realization that the pushing will make the encyclopedia worse. Said in another way, when confronting POV pushing all AGF tells us is that we should assume that the POV pusher belives that his view would make for a better encyclopedia. Taemyr (talk) 05:05, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Correct them
- Well-meaning persons make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do.
Hi, what does "them" refer to? Persons or mistakes? I assumed mistakes, but I thought I'd check. --Kjoonlee 19:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
- There's a difference? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
- Are you a mistake? ;-) <ducks and covers> --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
- Mistakes comes from many reasons, sometimes they are accidents. People not writing quite what they intentend to write. If this is obviously the case then correcting the error is best. Other times they stem from a mistaken belief about guidelines or syntax. If you have reason to assume the latter then you might want to point the mistake out to the editor, together with the reasons why it was a mistake. So you should correct the person, and it is best if the person corrects the mistake. Taemyr (talk) 10:58, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
- There's a difference? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Get rid of Assume
I am thinking we should get rid of the word assume (ex: assume good faith). It has a sick joke to it:
'ass' 'u' 'me'
I believe some people may be offended by this word, so thats why we should get rid of it. Versus22 (talk) 00:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- No, but maybe some people just don't like this word because it contains the word ass, u (you), me. Sorry for the language, I was just explaining this. I wonder if there is a better word to use for proper & better use for this kind of encyclopedia? Versus22 (talk) 22:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think the word "assume" is entirely proper, and that any childish joke that can be made out of the letters in it is nothing to worry about. No professional publication avoids the word "assume". That word doesn't contain a sick joke; some might make it into one. However, those people don't own the word, and the fact of their juvenile tittering is not going to dictate our word usage. See, I just said "titter" and then "dictate". Shall we avoid those, because they might remind someone of naughty words? I think not.
In general, it's not very productive to try to eliminate things that "might" offend someone, "maybe". In this case, it's extremely unlikely, so we won't worry about it. Thanks for understanding. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think the word "assume" is entirely proper, and that any childish joke that can be made out of the letters in it is nothing to worry about. No professional publication avoids the word "assume". That word doesn't contain a sick joke; some might make it into one. However, those people don't own the word, and the fact of their juvenile tittering is not going to dictate our word usage. See, I just said "titter" and then "dictate". Shall we avoid those, because they might remind someone of naughty words? I think not.
The Joke of Wikipedia
Yes one should assume good faith, but once one has been off-put for the 50th time or more by a PoV warrior, what then? Is it time then to assume there is no good faith intended?
I'm not asking for a debate of the subject. The answer is obvious: a person driven to repress something they see in themselves by repressing others is not subject to reason, thus we have our colorful "edit war" situations.
I know the conservative wing of this site thinks it can ignore readily apparent phenomena in favor of a forced inner compulsion to act X way against Y internal compulsion. (this is its folly) So there will probably not be change in the near term. However, there is a left wing (centrist) element that I don't think is quite as intimidated by the possible implications of the phenomenon itself, and reaching out to them for purposes of discussion about what to do in light of it is worth the effort expended. Perhaps the right centrists, seeking a more civil discourse, can reach out to the left in mututal understanding and evolving consensus.
I'm not saying these people (the PoV warriors) should be denied their voice, but Wikipedia is unique among modern largescale collaborative projects in that it gives these people actual power, which as I have already noted, is the substance of edit warring on the wiki. (I know this from experience, having entertained months of the same against select individuals even when there was a solid community consensus against them. These people are determined and if it means they must stop just about everything in their lives to prove a point -- or more problematically, to impress their judgment on community process, they will). Tcaudilllg (talk) 08:46, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
- What does acting to stop disruption have to do with assuming good faith? Does assuming good faith mean letting people run roughshod over you? Is it impossible to disagree strongly while assuming good faith? I've personally blocked people, and supported community bans against people, all the while assuming good faith. I fail to see how dropping the assumption of good faith factors into one's actions at all. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
- There is a presumption that editing will continue, that there is something abstractly gained -- a form of psychological gratification, like solving a problem -- from continuing to edit the article. Agreeing to disagree only works if either party can go its own way on the issue without entangling the other. On Wikipedia this is clearly impossible because the issue is the immediately accessible form of the article. If even one side is committed to action on the disagreed point, conflict (by edit war) is inevitable. If the side committed to action reaches out to the other side in a guesture to surpass the disagreement, then if the other side will not commit to finding common ground (again, good faith) then the other side is the bad faith side, because it may be presumed that the other side has no intention of resolving the disagreement. If there is no common ground... well I'm not one to surrender hope for greater harmony of action. Tcaudilllg (talk) 06:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
- But the point here is the assumption of good faith tells us to assume that both sides feel that the way forward that they are pushing for is what is best for the encyclopedia. If one side is trying to engage in dialog to get an acceptable compromise while the other is making stale reverts we do not need to say that the later is acting in a way that demonstrates bad faith. Rather what we see is that the first side is attempting to resolve the conflict with a minimum of disruption, while the other side is acting in a way that is generally considered to be disruptive. This then should be sufficient grounds to take action. AGF only tells us that we should believe that both sides believe that what they are doing is what is best for the encyclopedia. Taemyr (talk) 14:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- And what is the "best interest of the encyclopedia"? Who makes that arguement? What authority have they for such? I guess Jimbo Wales maybe, and we're just little worker bees for him to make a competitor to Brittanica. But in that case you'd might as well drop a lot of the "boldness" talk and just ask for volunteers to help you make an opensource Brittanica. (or program an AI if you think you've got the techology!)
- If the days of wiki-boldness are fading (along with the wiki dragons, alas!) then Wikipedia should let the public know this is no longer the bold experiment it was earlier in the decade, but rather exactly what Jimbo Wales originally envisioned it being. Then the 500 or so regular editors can keep with their little community, and the experimenters can move on to say, Everything^2. As it is, you've got a little of both right now, and a lot of confusion over what this project is supposed to be.
- In any case, I don't think "acting in the best interest of a project", any project, will withstand the will of consensus for long. I apparently had misread it as "acting in the best interest of the presumed project goal of making as much (relevant) knowledge available to humankind as possibel", but maybe they aren't the same thing after all. If so, then that's a problem, because I think consensus cares more about its own goals -- of which increasing the availability of knowledge is definitely one -- than the project itself.
- But the point here is the assumption of good faith tells us to assume that both sides feel that the way forward that they are pushing for is what is best for the encyclopedia. If one side is trying to engage in dialog to get an acceptable compromise while the other is making stale reverts we do not need to say that the later is acting in a way that demonstrates bad faith. Rather what we see is that the first side is attempting to resolve the conflict with a minimum of disruption, while the other side is acting in a way that is generally considered to be disruptive. This then should be sufficient grounds to take action. AGF only tells us that we should believe that both sides believe that what they are doing is what is best for the encyclopedia. Taemyr (talk) 14:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- There is a presumption that editing will continue, that there is something abstractly gained -- a form of psychological gratification, like solving a problem -- from continuing to edit the article. Agreeing to disagree only works if either party can go its own way on the issue without entangling the other. On Wikipedia this is clearly impossible because the issue is the immediately accessible form of the article. If even one side is committed to action on the disagreed point, conflict (by edit war) is inevitable. If the side committed to action reaches out to the other side in a guesture to surpass the disagreement, then if the other side will not commit to finding common ground (again, good faith) then the other side is the bad faith side, because it may be presumed that the other side has no intention of resolving the disagreement. If there is no common ground... well I'm not one to surrender hope for greater harmony of action. Tcaudilllg (talk) 06:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Tcaudilllg (talk) 08:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
- AGF calls for us to assume that each editor acts in a way that he feels is best. Ie. this is a judgment that each editor makes. Please note the difference between this and the assumption that no one is calling on you to make, namely that each editor acts in a way that in fact is the best for wikipedia. Precisely because there is no authority stating what in fact is best for the encyclopedia AGF has a place. It tells us to remember that we should consider the reasons behind an other editors actions. Taemyr (talk) 10:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
RFC on WP:DGF
❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 10:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC) |
I think the changes you have made to the WP:AGF guideline are largely unnecessary or inappropriate. I don't think an editor is required to explain any motives to anyone if he wishes not to. I must grant that I agree with much of what is said about being careful about actions taken after an accusation of bad faith, but there are obviously certain serious concerns that must override. I'd submit that copyright violation and enforcement of the WP:BLP policy are two very obvious things that every editor must take extremely seriously and must act on when that editor detects them. I think the bulk of what is written is already covered by this policy. Erechtheus (talk) 21:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
- "I don't think an editor is required to explain any motives to anyone if he wishes not to." No editor is required to be a helpful collaborator, if he wishes not to, but I think it would be very strange for someone to choose not to be a helpful collaborator, or not to explain themselves when asked, considering that we're working on a collaborative project.
What's the sense in not explaining one's actions to an honest questioner? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
- My response is going to stray into the topic I didn't want to get into. I opened a WP:WQA due to the conduct of the person who opened this RFC earlier in the week, and he felt my WQA didn't get far enough into my concerns about him. I declined to get into it there as the guidelines for WQA specifically request not to essentially turn the WQA into another manifestation of the dispute. That's not the only context in which I think explanation is not necessarily appropriate, but it's one major context. I also don't think lack of collaboration equates to bad faith. Any editor is welcome to choose to collaborate or not collaborate with anyone they choose. Erechtheus (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
- I absolutely did not assert that lack of collaboration equates to bad faith, and I would never say that. I asked the question, why not collaborate? Is there a positive reason to choose lack of communication over communication, in an environment such as Wikipedia? I'm not suggesting that someone who doesn't do it is bad or wrong; I'm just trying to understand why that might be chosen over the alternative.
As for WQA... that page seems rather misguided to me. The response to incivility is not to "report" it. Are we trying to play cops and robbers here? Imagine you're stranded on a desert island with someone, and they're rude to you. You can't report them to anyone, because there is no one. You have to actually communicate with them and work it out, or else you'll probably both die, to which you're welcome, but it seems an odd choice. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I have to say that I don't think WQA did much to win me over in my one and likely only use of it. At the same time, life is not always like a desert island. There are occasions when moving on make the most sense. Did you take a look at the volume of stuff that was generated during the dispute with Struthious_Bandersnatch? There becomes a time when you just can't go doing the same thing. I think it's obvious that direct response by me to him is absolutely pointless. CobaltBlueTony told me as much, though it seems a inadvertently dragged him right back into things. It's such an easy thing to do sometimes, though. When somebody says something outrageous to you and you notice it, it's difficult to be quiet. I wasn't attempting to suggest you were saying lack of collaboration equals bad faith, and I'm glad you would never say it. If you have better ideas about civility, I would appreciate hearing them. Feel free to write any time. Erechtheus (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
- I absolutely did not assert that lack of collaboration equates to bad faith, and I would never say that. I asked the question, why not collaborate? Is there a positive reason to choose lack of communication over communication, in an environment such as Wikipedia? I'm not suggesting that someone who doesn't do it is bad or wrong; I'm just trying to understand why that might be chosen over the alternative.
- My response is going to stray into the topic I didn't want to get into. I opened a WP:WQA due to the conduct of the person who opened this RFC earlier in the week, and he felt my WQA didn't get far enough into my concerns about him. I declined to get into it there as the guidelines for WQA specifically request not to essentially turn the WQA into another manifestation of the dispute. That's not the only context in which I think explanation is not necessarily appropriate, but it's one major context. I also don't think lack of collaboration equates to bad faith. Any editor is welcome to choose to collaborate or not collaborate with anyone they choose. Erechtheus (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Erechtheus, in the edit comment you cited lack of community consensus as the reason to remove the new section I added to the article. At this point I would ask you to honestly attempt to determine whether there is community consensus that the section in question accurately describes the principle of assuming good faith or whether a modified version of it would accurately describe the principle - it seems to me to be very much be in harmony with many comments expressed here in the talk page and in the talk page archives. If you do not feel that you could carry out such an examination with fairness and impartiality I think that it is your responsibility to select a user who you believe can carry out such an examination with fairness and impartiality. At this point I am willing to forgo any influence on the selection of that individual and I endorse anyone you might choose, even if for example you were to say that you thought CobaltBlueTony would be a fair and impartial arbiter of this.
To anyone else reading this I would like to point out that although the template above does not make it visible, in the RFC, at WQA, and at the Village Pump I placed comments acknowledging that the dispute between Erechtheus and I was the inspiration for this new section and specifically asking third parties to examine the text and modify or delete it. I also requested the input of Erechtheus on this and I thank him for what he's said above (though I don't thank him for deleting the content personally instead of editing it or taking other more constructive actions) and I certainly urge that what he has said be considered by everyone. I don't think he's a bad person, on the contrary he has shown that he can be articulate, is quite intelligent, and is willing to work towards the good of Wikipedia, he's just a person who has taken some actions in bad faith in a particular situation with me.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 14:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
- I think going with a RfC makes it clear that there is not obviously community consensus. This is a very important expression of a policy-like guideline for the entire project, so that means we shouldn't be going live with such a sweeping change until there is consensus. I have had my say about how I feel regarding the proposed text, and that's all I plan on doing. I hope other editors of all viewpoints will see the RfC and that consensus will form one way or another. Erechtheus (talk) 16:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, that sounds fine. In that case I will resume the other steps I was taking to invite various people here to look at it, but I'll of course point them to the copy now down below. And after some more discussion has occurred I'll see if I can find someone else willing to do the actual edit to place a "demonstrate good faith" section in the text. Despite your avowal of concerns over consensus, I think this has to do with distrust of me rather than what that text says - I wanted to give you the opportunity to have some control of this if that was what you were going for. In general, here are more notes on the reasoning behind this:
The way some people talk about good faith and the way they attempt to employ WP:AGF they seem to believe that it means "I have the right to assume that others will regard any action of mine as originating in good faith", which obviously is not what's meant nor what's literally said in this page. I think that we rather need to convey that you should assume others will regard your actions to be in bad faith (particularly if someone already suspects bad faith on your part) and hence you may be able to avoid being inflammatory by making articulations and taking actions to demonstrate that you are acting in good faith. Even if those actions are as simple as making sure you've explicitly laid out the evidence for your claims or the principles that back up your actions and even if the honest motivation is accompanied by harsh criticism, anger, or other upset feelings.
Another thing that I think a recommendation like "demonstrate good faith" would help with is that I believe many people frequently do not consciously examine their own intentions and hence frequently act in bad faith without being entirely conscious that they're doing so. I think that saying "before you say something harsh or make even a well-founded accusation, do your due diligence and make sure you're indicating the honest motivation behind your words" will simply get people to think about their own motivations in the first place.
Many of the guidelines, essays, and even parts of the policies seem to convey an attitude along the lines of "everyone should pretend that everything is joyful and hunky dory all the time, and all users must be treated as if their every act derives from the most pure and innocent of motivations." This not only is contradictory to any policy or guideline recommending acting against bad-faith actions, but I think it has created an atmosphere where many people both consciously and unconsciously try to justify their actions or cover up bad faith using WP:AGF.
To get right down to it, though I wasn't trying to express this in the text I wrote, I do not think that anyone who has been accused of a bad faith motivation should ever respond by saying "assume good faith!!!" - especially if extensive reasoning and citations can be presented that are consistent with the accusation made - that doesn't even make sense given what this guideline says. On the other hand a response of "I have demonstrated good faith via statement X and action Y, which is inconsistent with the hypothesis I had a bad faith motivation, and here's my articulation of my actual honest motive Z." would seem to me like a reasonable response. (Though simply making a statement formulated that way wouldn't disprove bad faith by itself, of course.)
I will also note that I disagree with the claim made in the nutshell section "it is never necessary or productive to accuse others of harmful motives" because I think the qualifier "never" directly contradicts things said in a number of policies and other guidelines. But that's not what I'm trying to change here and now and I don't think the text I added reflects any belief like that; I simply think this guideline should recommend demonstrating good faith and recommend not demonstrating bad faith. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 15:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
- With this explanation, I have even stronger concern over this proposed revision. I think it's fine to encourage people to act in good faith and to consider that their actions may be confusing or frustrating to some. I don't think suggesting that people have to demonstrate that they were acting in good faith is at all appropriate. I also think that when you say, "Despite your avowal of concerns over consensus, I think this has to do with distrust of me rather than what that text says," you illustrate an at best incomplete understanding of what WP:AGF is all about. What is so hard about taking somebody at face value unless you can make a very strong case that their actions are not in good faith? Don't even get started citing any history between us because you have admitted that you had trouble taking me at face value during our very first encounter because you felt I was misapplying policy. With that said, you being a flawed messenger isn't what makes this wrong -- what makes it wrong is that it subverts this very appropriate guideline in a manner that will inevitably result in more disputes. Erechtheus (talk) 22:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
If people genuinely believe that a suggestion to demonstrate good faith is subversive to the main tenet of "assume good faith" then fine - as I've said in several places, the entire section should be deleted if it isn't expressing any community consensus whatsoever. But I remain suspicious that community opinion was genuinely considered before this entire section was deleted, especially given the way Erechtheus has paraphrased adding a suggestion that users demonstrate good faith to a guideline article as users being "required to explain any motives to anyone if he wishes not to". Even the tone that the text is written in below does not talk about anyone being required to do anything; I'm simply talking about a responsibility to say "I am acting in good faith" when you know others have been urged to assume you're acting in good faith, just confirming what everyone is supposed to assume. And the idea isn't to try to force people to do things (which a guideline doesn't do anyways), it's suggesting that you can help other people to assume good faith on your part if you say "I am acting in good faith". Can anyone propose a one sentence version of the idea I'm expressing here? Let's evaluate something like that instead of talking as if I'm insisting the entire text below is exactly what should be in the policy. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 01:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- My concern is an "as written" one. As for one sentence, how about something along the lines of, "If a dispute arises, it is always a good idea to tell others involved that you are attempting in good faith to contribute to Wikipedia and that you are aware that they are trying to do the same thing." Erechtheus (talk) 03:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'll add that even if that sentiment isn't what you're trying to get at, I think it would have served as a good lesson for the both of us. I think something along those lines probably needs to go in even if it's not exactly what DGF was supposed to be about. Imagine how things would have probably worked out if we each commented in that way instead of the way we actually did. Erechtheus (talk) 03:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I really don't think that the guideline should in any way imply that you should wait until a dispute arises to demonstrate good faith. I don't think you were necessarily implying that but I think it should encourage that everyone put thought into demonstrating the good faith behind every action and articulating the honest motives they have, all the time. As far as that particular sentence, the concern I have is that absent the context it seems to say that you should ignore evidence of bad faith (which contradicts the current text "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary.") or that it might seem to be recommending that people overlook what they think is evidence of bad faith and disingenuously tell others that they think their actions are in good faith (and I want to decrease disingenuousness, and besides I think many people would just absolutely refuse to follow a guideline that already tells them to put controls on their genuine opinions if it also told them they should display false opinions.)
Do you think there's any way, acceptable to you, to address those concerns with changes? The underlying thrust of that sentence does seem reasonable to me apart from the objections above.
In an unrelated note that isn't meant to comment on the DGF issue, I just noticed the essay WP:AAGF which appears to agree with me that AGF should never be offered as a defense of one's actions or a response to an accusation of bad faith.
Oh, that just gave me a great thought: I did not envision that this DGF principle ought to ever be used to demand that someone demonstrate good faith, like as in saying to someone "per WP:DGF you must immediately state that you are doing X in good faith!!!" And in fact although if I was in a dispute with someone whom I believed had acted in bad faith I would as part of my evidence lay out patterns of omission where the person in question had opportunities to demonstrate good faith and chose not to, I don't really think anyone needs the support of a policy or guideline document to do that. We're all pretty good with evidence and something which is circumstantial or direct proof of bad faith is probably going to be mentioned and evaluated basically the same way regardless of what this document says, I should think. I guess we could try to tune up people's skills on analyzing what constitutes a demonstration of good faith but that isn't what I was thinking of; I just want to encourage the behavior.
My thought of how this would work is that it would end up being of benefit to the people who are accused of bad faith; I believe that if someone starts thinking more seriously about the appearance of each action to others and how they might show good faith to the suspicious, and they start doing that then next time they get accused of bad faith they can respond "Okay, but like I said my real motives were A, B, and C and if you look back you can see that I said X to show you A, I took action Y to show you B, and I did Z to show you C."
I don't know if that last bit made sense, I'm a bit woozy. So I'll see you all tomorrow. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 07:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- Remember, AAGF is an essay. Perhaps that's what DGF would best be. Maybe what I propose above should say that they're aware the other person is probably acting in good faith. I think the sentence I was proposing should not be seen as a requirement as much as solid advice for how to behave if there is a dispute and you want to make sure it is handled constructively. That is more in line with AGF. I wonder if what you're getting at should be an AGF subject at all, though. It might come off more positively and effectively if written as an essay on integrity or disingenuousness that could eventually become a separate guideline if there is consensus about it. I think I have to propose that disputes on Wikipedia shouldn't be about the evidence, and I'm aware that's contrary to some of my own actions. Leave weighing evidence to third parties. Erechtheus (talk) 11:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
All right, this discussion has wandered pretty far afield from what the text I added actually said, it had nothing to do with weighing evidence. I created the sort of shortened and rewritten version of this principle that I've been talking about and added it to the article along with a note that the section does not require anyone to do anything. I expect that it's quite possible that you will revert this shorter version, Erechtheus, and I think that would be just fine: I want it to be clear exactly what we're talking about and exactly what you are opposing here. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 20:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Demonstrate good faithIn addition to assuming good faith on the part of others, it can improve community spirit to assist others in assuming good faith on your part by demonstrating your own good faith. You can demonstrate good faith by articulating the honest motives behind actions and by making statements and taking actions that show willingness to compromise, sincere interest in improving Wikipedia, and other good faith motives. Demonstrating good faith is not required by this guideline, simply recommended as an aid to smooth and successful interaction with other editors.
I think the section runs against the current meaning of AGF. Some of the things it states is things that should be said, but the tone is completely inappropriate. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort with a consensus model for decision making. This means that failing to communicate your reasons for an action that other editors disagree with is a problem. This because it makes it harder to create a starting ground for building consensus. But this is a general feature of our dispute resolution process and not directly tied with AGF. WP:AGF should state that it is a guideline governing the actions an editor should take when confronted with apparent bad faith, and as such in no way absolves editors from actually acting in good faith. It would perhaps be helpful to include a section about what to do when someone accuses you of acting in bad faith, but saying that such an accusation creates a requirement for you to demonstrate that you where acting in good faith is not it. Taemyr (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
The tone of that text certainly has a tinge of outrage in it because of the circumstances in which it was written (though I would note that it does not, as you suggest, talk about requiring someone to demonstrate good faith - it seems my mention of responsibilities is easily misconstrued and that certainly shouldn't be in the article, then). That is why I urged every person I've spoken with about this to rewrite the whole thing if they want to. Please, unless you really think adding a suggestion like this would subvert AGF the way that Erechtheus claims it does, try writing another version - even, as I say above, if it's just one sentence. (And I'm not saying put it straight into the article, just mention it here. I really want to build up a community version of this idea, the text below is just for reference because the entire concept has been completely removed from the article.) --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 01:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
The removed WP:DGF text
For those I invited here to look at the content I added, here it is:
- Demonstrate good faith
The principle that you should assume good faith on the part of other users, and that other users should assume good faith on your part, does not absolve you of the responsibility to explain the honest motives behind your statements and actions, nor does it absolve you of the responsibility to strive to only make statements in good faith and take actions in good faith. In accordance with the principle of honesty you must make every effort possible to conduct yourself in a manner consistent with good faith.
You should not wait until your behavior is challenged to demonstrate good faith. But if another user does accuse you of acting in bad faith, telling them "you must assume good faith" is not a response that in and of itself demonstrates good faith. You should make further articulation of the motives for your actions and perhaps take other actions that further demonstrate good faith.
Don't demonstrate bad faith
If you have been accused of bad faith, or any motive that could be construed of bad faith, it would behoove you to be scrupulously careful in avoiding any other actions or statements that might confirm the accusation or demonstrate additional bad faith motives. Doing so may arouse legitimate suspicion of bad faith in the eyes of otherwise disinterested third parties.
This principle does not mean that if another accuses you of bad faith that you must cease the activity in question. Rather, articulate your honest motives, conduct yourself in an honorable fashion, and trust that the community process can vindicate you.
WP:AGF vs Wikipedia:Vandalism
The exception that we should only assume bad faith if there is strong evidence was removed with the edit summary indicating that we block for bad edits not bad motives. However WP:Vandalism is still clear on the subject that judging an edit to be vandalism is a judgment of motive. Ie. vandalism is edits made with the deliberate intention of harming the project. Bad edits made for good faith reasons is explicitly not covered by the policy. Taemyr (talk) 14:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, I get the impression that "Assume good faith" is a talking style that is so designed so as to by itself not being inflamable, while "Vandalism" is a real life judgement. "Assume good faith" could also be interpreted to be some kind of reluctance to cock the bazooka immediatelly, but instead use lighter weapons in a well-ordered escalation sequence, politely telling: "now I'm using my hand gun, stop or I'm going to shoot!" Immediate-bazookism would of course have a funny shock effect, but elaborate escalation is considered more polite, kind of. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 13:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Bias against IPs
Due to an as-yet unresolved issue in which cookies from Wikipedia are not being saved on my computer (which otherwise accepts cookies) I find myself often getting logged out without realizing it. I continue editing and of course the edits come up as IPs. This has given me an interesting scenario in which I have been able to view first-hand the bias that exists with anonymous IPs. I'll grant you that I also look at IP edits with a closer eye because 99% of all vandalism comes from IPs. However on more than a few occasions I've had IP edits reverted that, frankly, I don't feel would have been reverted if I had made them while logged in. Only as an IP have I ever, for example, received notification that an edit I've made was unconstructive, or vandalism even though virtually identical edits I've made while logged in have passed without comment. I wonder if this guideline should address the issue of IP bias and stress that IPs are not necessarily all bad faith editors. Some are individuals who wish to remain anonymous (which is why we allow IPs to edit in the first place), while others are folks like me who are experienced WP editors but, for whatever reason, happened to be logged out. The issue becomes even more complex when you encounter shared IPs where some users post in Good Faith while others don't. Thoughts? 23skidoo (talk) 14:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah. In those cases, it might be helpful to address, anonymously or while logged in, the person who reverted your IP edits. Editing this page won't do much to change the behavior of established editors, because they're not reading this page. Talking to individuals might seem fatuous given the number of editors here, but it's by "chipping away" that problems such as this are best addressed. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
This whole page has a patronising tone
Hmmm, reading through this page is like a dull lecture from a pseudo-intellectual (i.e. someone who thinks they are more intelligent than they in fact are). I would personally recommend re-writing it entirely, removing phrases such as "You can demonstrate good faith by articulating the honest motives behind actions and by making statements and taking actions that show willingness to compromise, sincere interest in improving Wikipedia, and other good faith motives." that frankly insult the intelligence of the reader. If I had to sum this page up in one word, I would pick 'pompous', which is not how the rest of the site reads.
Another disaster of a sentence for you: "Making unwarranted accusations of bad faith (as opposed to explanations of good faith) can be inflammatory, and is often unhelpful in a dispute." Does the writer of this sentence realise that this could logically be rewritten as: "Making unwarranted accusations of bad faith (as opposed to explanations of good faith) can be inflammatory, and is sometimes helpful in a dispute."??????? Well???? SoxSexSax (talk) 15:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
- As a guidelines page and specifically one about interacting with others this page has a very different purpose from most of the others on the site. For example, as far as it sounding like a dull lecture - this is unsurprising, since the purpose of the page is not to entertain. Guidelines, policies, rules, regulations, etc. aren't usually entertaining documents to read; their virtue is in clarity and specificity. It's possibly this writing style that you find pretentious is a consequence of that purpose - this document isn't going to pull back from clearly articulating simple things that everybody knows, because making those kind of articulations is its job.I'll disclose that I'm the author of the first sentence you cite. That sentence serves to articulate what is meant by "demonstrating good faith". You may find what it's saying insulting to the intelligence but one way or another - through thoughtlessness or intention - it has been my experience that Wikipedians very, very frequently neglect doing the things mentioned in that sentence when they're working with others. If that were to be removed it would have to be replaced with another sentence explaining what is meant by "demonstrating good faith" otherwise that entire section would become pointless - we'd be telling people they should DGF without saying what DGF is, which would probably lead to all sorts of needless arguments about what DGF basically is and WP:GAMEers interpreting it to manipulative purposes.As far as your second example of a sentence, your reasoning looks to me to be
- if X is often / sometimes Y(unhelpful) doing Z, then there are occasions of both X→Y→Z and X→¬Y→Z
- ¬Y can be expressed as "helpful"
If I've got your reasoning right there, the misstep you're making is in number 2, that ¬Y / "not unhelpful" is the same thing as "helpful". But that clearly isn't true; someone can easily be not unhelpful to me while I'm painting my deck - my brother might sit under a tree in a hammock drinking beer while staring at me, not hindering the effort - but he being not unhelpful is not the same thing as him being helpful to me. So the above syllogism is fallacious due to the breakdown of step #2, so I don't agree with you that the latter sentence you quote is a disaster, at least not with regards to being logically mutable in the way you suggest.But anyways, your overall criticisms could be valid - this document is by no means perfect and it may be possible to communicate the same behavioral guidelines with equal clarity and specificity without the writing styles you're seeing as pseudo-intellectual and pompous.So feel free to take a crack at it - the entire document, or a section at a time. For major rewrites, though, I'd recommend you make a gesture of trying to establish consensus beforehand by providing a version of your changes here and offering discussion of them before actually changing the document. You must expect to be opposed by people who could see your edits as altering the meaning of the document and not just its writing style.Also, if you ended up looking at this page because you were in a dispute with another user it would be orthodox to disclose that before making changes to the page. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 06:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
good faith
how can good faith be applied? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.14.218.194 (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
- Comment about actions, not intentions. I will frequently revert edits with the summary "revert unexplained removal of text", even though it seems prety clear that the edit was vandalism, because anyone who checks can easily see that text was removed with no explanation, while no one, except the editor him/herself, can say what the intentions were, עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
- I agree, but I use to go one step further and avoid everything but the facts presented: are they correct or not. I criticise edits seldomly, and then only to vandals and newbies. In the latter case I try to tell the newbies how they should behave, much more than tell how much wrong they've made. OK, sometimes I fail, and treat the facts sarcastically by long elaboration of the illogics of those facts. That might be inflamababble, while formally still keeping the policy "Assume good faith". (Funny how many loopholes there are!) ... said: Rursus (bork²) 13:41, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Faith and faith and faith
English dictionaries agree that the word faith has multiple meanings. That ambiguity can be a weakness of our WP:AGF guideline. Faith is a devout girl. When she hears of faith she recalls Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." which would please her faithful father who, though himself an atheist, had faith that it was best for his daughter to be raised in what, he was told, was a respectable faith; though unable to confirm this information directly he nevertheless had faith in the advice because he had faith that his informant spoke in good faith, while that one spoke convinced that his own was the only True Faith.
As though to exacerbate the issue, the faith page is almost exclusively about religious meanings, and even includes a section for propositions that faith is irrationality or ignorance.
There are several "hot button" subjects where some editors feel their belief system is challenged. Debates about who is right then become heated. Where religion is involved, calling on disputants to WP:AGF can be like throwing fuel on a fire.
One may deconstruct AGF further by noting that "Assume!" is equivalent to "Have faith in...".
How about adopting a new guideline: WP:RHE - Respect Honest Effort ? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 17:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
- Do you think that, after reading the page, an editor would be confused as to what we mean by "assume good faith"? Does the problem only arise when the three words are taken in a vacuum? -GTBacchus(talk) 04:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
- GTBacchus no. A word has no meaning in a vacuum because words are only keys to other associations, directed by their actual and historical context. When an editor reads and is persuaded by this page he understands a kind of definition of GF (good faith) as being innocent of any wish to harm. However the intention of the guideline creator is not to define GF existentially but instead to use GF in a reproval formula AGF that I paraphrase as "You may say that editor X is deluded but you must not say why X is deluded!". There is weakness in this aproach where WP:AGF exists in two forms 1) a background concept that is hopefully a self-evident ethic that hardly needs to be enunciated, and 2) a criticism of someone's disrespectful posting made after it has occurred. I don't know whether that kind of finger pointing is any more effective than the simple admonition "Please be nice!".
- I think the failure of WP:RPA to survive as a real policy shows what is not working here. An editor has been blocked because he removed personal abuse directed towards him, while leaving unchanged the rest of the other editor's post. He was condemned for using RPA as a proxy method for refactoring.
- I believe that persisting failures to Assume GF that infest Wikipedia article discussion pages are due to weakness of the WP:AGF concept. It is vague and is applied too little and too late. I would like to see active moderators on discussion pages. I don't know whether the fiercely anarchic Wikipedia community could countenance having that, but I contend that it is better to have a ruling at the source such as "As Moderator I deleted what you tried to post. Please discuss improving the article." than to wait for someone to use WP:DR procedures to call in administrators who probably have better things to do than getting up to speed on someone's heated arguments.
- If the idea of having DMs (Discussion Moderators) is palatable, I suggest further that volunteers for DM should not be administrators, they must have contributed significantly to Wikipedia but not significantly to the page to be moderated, and hold DM power on one given page for no longer than 3 months or shorter if dismissed from it by unanimous vote. BTW it will be a thankless job but someone needs to do it. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:46, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- I think the sequence "Assume good faith" is just a phrase denoting the policy. First expansion of the phrase is "Assume [that the coeditor makes his edits in] good faith". All words and phrases are just approximations of real life. I think "Assume good faith" is established in the WP:community, and that it should be changed just in very exceptional cases (not defined by me). ... said: Rursus (bork²) 13:47, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Quote of the Week
I wish I had thought of these
"I don't assume bad faith. I think that you mean to do good; I just don't think you are." [6] - Drilnoth 15:52, 19 November 2008
"I don't believe he's acting in bad faith. However, his good-faith contributions are starting to cross the line into disruptive, and his general unresponsiveness to criticism isn't helping to defuse the situation." [7]-Jéské Couriano 20:39, 1 December 2008
Has anyone come accross any similar examples of Doublethink? --Gavin Collins (talk) 23:13, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
- Gavin.collins you are involved at AN/I[8] concerning a dispute. It is inappropriate of you to attempt to label disparagingly as Doublethink a post by an editor to that thread on this page. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
And anyways, those aren't examples of doublethink. They don't demonstrate mutually contradictory ideas. Good faith means intending to do good, not necessarily actually doing good; one can act in good faith, yet one's actions may not accomplish good and might be disruptive.
--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 02:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
When to cite AGF?
For reasons addressed by Wikipedia:Assume the assumption of good faith, I think something should be added to this guideline about when to invoke and when not to invoke AGF. I have seen how counterproductive constant reminders to AGF are. My feeling is that in general, it should only be cited in response to a clear, unmistakable, and as far as is apparent, unwarranted assumption of bad faith. Short of that, other applicable guidelines could be noted which mention AGF, such as WP:CIVIL, WP:BITE, and I'm sure there are others. PSWG1920 (talk) 16:43, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
- Another relevant question is How to cite AGF. One should want to encourage collaboration rather than signal that someone is already guilty of disruption. The following formulation is proposed in Norway for children to use when reminding adults of the consequences for the environment of their behaviour: "I'm not angry, just very very disapointed. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:49, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
- I personally don't think that anyone should ever say "you have to assume good faith!" to someone else in the course of a discussion. If an individual is genuinely acting in good faith it ought to be fairly easy for them to WP:DGF demonstrate their good faith. Telling someone that they must assume good faith (remember that this article is a guideline anyways, not a policy - it's simply a recommendation) seems to me in the least to be a punt, a cop-out to avoid having to actually demonstrate and articulate one's good faith, and at worst saying that is an attempt to conceal bad faith.Even a third party to a dispute ought to be able to point out good-faith behavior, or at the very least hypothesize about good faith motives behind behavior, rather than simply telling either party "you must assume good faith!!!11"--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 00:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
- I mostly agree with that. I think however there does come a point when someone may need to be told, preferably by a third-party, "Practice around here is to generally assume good faith. If you continue to show no hint of doing so, you will soon find yourself blocked". PSWG1920 (talk) 00:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
- For my part, it doesn't seem at all kosher to block someone for not assuming good faith. That seems like blocking someone for holding the wrong opinion, which seems completely antithetical to the spirit of Wikipedia.I'm not familiar with the process of blocking nor have I been involved in previous discussions of blocking, but looking at WP:BLOCK the only context in which violating guidelines or even policies is described as justification for blocking appears to be when disruption of Wikipedia is occurring. That says to me that there would need to be something other than simply expressing a belief in or making an argument for bad faith having occurred; I should think that there would need to be some sort of harassing or vandalizing or other behavior going on to justify blocking.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 03:04, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
- To give another example of what I'm saying, in the guideline WP:ETIQ the reader is urged repeatedly to "Forgive and forget." But you wouldn't block someone for failing to forgive, would you? That's kind of like what it would seem like to me, if a user was to be blocked exclusively for failing to AGF.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 03:14, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
- PSWG1920 has provided a possible way to threaten someone with a block. Such a threat should be given, if at all, only by an Administrator i.e. a person who is actually able to apply a block. It should use the active voice, and give a more specific reason than "not showing a hint of GF". Example: I warn you that I shall block you if you repeat the (name calling / inflammatory language / accusation /.... whatever) that I see in your last post (specify diff). (Signed by NAME - Administrator). The last is needed because it is not obvious who is an Administrator. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I hope that this revert will not be accepted. PSWG1920 (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, I think Ronz ought to better explain why he or she decided that PSWG1920 was simply making a point rather than a good-faith edit. That revert appears to be in danger of being substantially ironic, since per the edit comment it appears to explicitly assume bad faith.On the other hand, I do see that PSWG1920's edit did change the meaning of that sentence. But what he did changed verbiage that was assuming bad faith - that a newcomer's vehemence is due to a demand for respect from others - into verbiage that assumes good faith. I don't know if that should be the final form of the sentence but I'd endorse it because it's a move in the right direction - this guideline certainly ought to adhere to its own advice!--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 00:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
- That revert also removed an entire section, which up to that point seemed to have silent consensus. To let you know what is going on, Ronz is the one who motivated me to create that section in the first place. PSWG1920 (talk) 01:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that citing AGF is generally a bad idea if you're involved in a dispute. Coming is as an outside, neutral party, and mentioning it in a non-accusatory way is probably the safest way. Otherwise, the trick is not to cite it, but to live it. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
"Psychologist finds Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded"
From this article on newscientist.com:
- Amichai-Hamburger speculates that rather than contributing altruistically, Wikipedians take part because they struggle to express themselves in real-world social situations. "They are compensating," he suggests. "It is their way to have a voice in this world."
This is consistent with previous research on online communication, says Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware in Newark, who suspects that heavy users of sites such as Digg and Twitter may have similar characteristics. "People who prefer online social behaviour tend to have higher levels of social anxiety and lower social skills," he says.
A recent study of YouTube users also suggested that contributors - people that upload videos - have egocentric rather than altruistic motives. Users whose postings received more hits were more likely to continue uploading videos.
- Face 13:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you Face for posting a Hamburger's speculation about 69 Israeli students. Oi vay! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cuddlyable3 (talk • contribs) at 00:03, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- Hamburger is stating something obvious, but nevertheless, I think it was worth mentioning. When you are interested in feeling powerful and obtaining social status instead of contributing content and helping others, you will more likely fail to assume good faith. I think it's something to keep in mind. - Face 17:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
- Face I understand the connection you observed to the subject of assuming good faith but I don't see how it relates to improving the main page. Also Hamburger in Israel
sounded suspiciously un-kosheris a real person [9]. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:22, 7 January 2009 (UTC) (updated)
- Face I understand the connection you observed to the subject of assuming good faith but I don't see how it relates to improving the main page. Also Hamburger in Israel
- Hamburger is stating something obvious, but nevertheless, I think it was worth mentioning. When you are interested in feeling powerful and obtaining social status instead of contributing content and helping others, you will more likely fail to assume good faith. I think it's something to keep in mind. - Face 17:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
AGF and newcomers
I think the version reverted here made more sense than the current version and did a better job of actually Assuming Good Faith on the part of newcomers. I don't understand the revert. PSWG1920 (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- The edit removed information, changing the meaning. This was done multiple times without relaying this in either the edit summaries or discussion.
- I think it's important to prepare editors for the fact that though such behavior from newcomers should be treated with good faith, the same behavior from established editors is often considered disruptive, hence "sometimes inappropriate behavior." While we can expect newcomers to "expect immediate respect," we certainly do not respect the same behavior from established editors. --Ronz (talk) 20:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with PSWG1920 that the 2nd sentence of that paragraph ought not assume bad faith (a demand for respect) on the part of newcomers per the discussion above, but as far as the final sentence I agree with Ronz that the bit about inappropriate behavior ought to be retained as well as the wording of the 3rd sentence. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 21:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
- My reading of the 2nd sentence is that it is an example of the type of behavior that we can expect from newcomers and is something that we shouldn't bite them over - similar to the examples in Wikipedia:Bite#Common_newcomer_errors. --Ronz (talk) 17:48, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with PSWG1920 that the 2nd sentence of that paragraph ought not assume bad faith (a demand for respect) on the part of newcomers per the discussion above, but as far as the final sentence I agree with Ronz that the bit about inappropriate behavior ought to be retained as well as the wording of the 3rd sentence. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 21:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Ronz, for not simply reverting. I don't really have a problem with these deletions. In regards to discussing it further, I think this rewrite was needed because the only specific behavior which was mentioned before was the suggestion to change policy, which, even when misguided, is not in itself inappropriate. PSWG1920 (talk) 20:32, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- NP. I'm concerned that the examples may not be very good, that it's becoming too long and complicated when it should be just a summary of WP:BITE, and that the new elaboration and advise at the end are getting beyond both AGF and BITE. --Ronz (talk) 21:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- Maybe it will help to look at how this was stated originally. PSWG1920 (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- I like the tone and the way much of the section is phrased at this point but I think some of the changes have gone too far; "don't question their motives", for example, is something not in the original text and seems to me to go beyond what is characterized in the rest of the guideline and in other WP policies and guidelines. So I think that the meaning expressed in the section needs to be nudged back in line with what it said previously, whether that's done by rewriting or reversion.
- I also agree with Ronz that it shouldn't become a duplicate of WP:BITE and should be relatively brief. The bulleted list seems too much to me; I think all it needs to say is something approximately like "Newcomers may behave in the sorts of ways described in WP:BITE and as it states in that guideline these behaviors are unlikely to be malicious." --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 00:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- Since you both felt the new version was excessive, I restored the earliest version of the section and took it from there. I see now that at some point, two distinct ideas became garbled together into a sentence which made little sense, by itself or in context. That sentence was a large part of what I had been trying to fix. Looking through much earlier versions of pages can be very helpful when you notice something incoherent. PSWG1920 (talk) 07:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Maybe it will help to look at how this was stated originally. PSWG1920 (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Incorporating the idea of WP:AAGF
I'd like to get opinions on the section which was deleted here. I will point out first that that did not go nearly as far as the essay itself, which advises that AGF never be mentioned in discussion. The reality, however, is that constant reminders to "assume good faith" are generally unhelpful and insulting, and violate at least the spirit of that very tenant. PSWG1920 (talk) 17:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- I very much agree with WP:AAGF and Carbonite's Law as referenced by it. But I think that incorporating it into this page might make the guideline kind of confusing, particularly for first-time readers. I also think that including stipulations within a guideline for when the guideline itself should be mentioned or discussed starts to get kind of weird, so if any such directives were going to be specified I think it would be better for them to go in a separate guideline or policy like WP:ETIQ. (Though perhaps, alas, they're the sort of things that will need to remain in essays because of their very nature.)
- I also think the important thing is to remember that this is only a guideline. It's recommending that you assume good faith, not requiring you to. When I have evidence that someone is not acting in good faith, or that some aspect of their behavior is not consistent with good faith motivations, I do not hesitate to mention that evidence and describe how it's incompatible with good faith.
- As I said above, it's not like you can get banned for not assuming good faith when another editor wants you to. This guideline is not about mindcrimes or controlling people's thoughts or anything like that; it isn't prescriptive (or proscriptive, for that matter.) It's simply affirming that most of the time, people are acting in good faith, and observing that it's best for the community and for each of us as individual editors if we assume that and try not to get too suspicious of one another.--❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 01:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Demote?
I see that in the past, AGF was demoted from policy to guideline. I would now suggest that it be further demoted to information page. I submit that "Assume good faith" is very similar to "use common sense"; while its essential meaning is clear, its application is anything but. Moreover, while it is good to do your best to follow those tenants yourself, it is rarely if ever helpful in Wikipedia to tell someone else to do either one of those things. I see a similar relationship between WP:AGF and WP:AAGF as I do between WP:COMMON and WP:NOCOMMON. There have been some attempts to promote WP:COMMON to a guideline or policy, but so far that has not happened, mainly because of the aforementioned issues. PSWG1920 (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- AGF is a bedrock principle. It allows there to be a Wikipedian community. Demoting it from something there has community consensus to something that a lot of people buy into would be denying — and undermining — the existence of the community. Pi zero (talk) 04:10, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- "Use common sense" is also essential to the functioning of the community, yet that is currently classed as only an information page. Note that said template indicates that the page "describes communal consensus" even though it is not a policy or guideline. Now ask yourself why something which has clear community consensus is not classed as a guideline or policy. The answer, I believe, is that citing it is a problem. In one instance, telling someone to "just use common sense" is insulting because it assumes that they are not doing so. Telling someone to "assume good faith" is similarly problematic. PSWG1920 (talk) 04:56, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
- I think that there are some major issues with this guideline, so I definitely hear what you're saying. But I think that the essential problem is that this is a poorly-crafted articulation of the principle: the guideline's spirit is a real and important part of Wikipedia but the letter of the guideline as written is IMO anemic and ineffectual in describing the actual community consensus which drives it. (Probably because it's a difficult principle to articulate.)
- So I would oppose a demotion but I think it needs to be significantly changed, so I think the best thing to do is try to kick off a process of in-depth analysis to accurately describe what the problems with the policy are. The problems with it are themselves complex and difficult to articulate and hence I think cataloging and accurately describing them is an important first step before we try to achieve any remedies.
- Here's some brainstorming to try to get us started:
- Literally assuming good faith is just manifestly not the way Wikipedia operates: it's quite clear that good faith is only the assumption sometimes and it's by no means the default right out of the gate. If the assumption of good faith was really where we started in respect to an editor with a clean slate, then editors would start off with admin accounts and only ever get to the point of having an account with limited capabilities after they displayed a pattern of bad faith usage of admin capabilities. But we know that if new accounts started off with the ability to, say, delete other users, that would probably be used in bad faith quite frequently. So the Project itself is not assuming good faith in this instance and in others.
- This is a problem because it creates cognitive dissonance if you genuinely try to assume good faith - you know that there are at least some things you shouldn't assume good faith on. If, for example, an admin receives a request from another editor to delete an account the admin can't just assume good faith, he or she must demand concrete evidence of good faith.
- When you genuinely believe that someone is acting in bad faith this guideline immediately and directly conflicts with WP:IAR - "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." That's the entirety of the text of the WP:IAR policy, and this is just a guideline. So it seems like it's going to be a non-starter in many of the situations where the principle is most needed.
- The guideline enjoins editors to assume that others are being responsible - but it doesn't actually enjoin anyone to be responsible. In the five pillars it does actually say "Act in good faith" but this is unlinked and it does not seem to be a topic that is really developed anywhere. It just seems obvious to me that if you know that other people are enjoined to assume you're acting in good faith, you have a responsibility to merit that assumption.
- Particularly it seems obvious to me that any Wikipedian who would instruct another editor to assume good faith has an especial responsibility to actually act in good faith and I would say there's a responsibility to show good faith if you're going to demand that another assume it. (I should note that I don't actually think the guideline even as written now sanctions one editor making that demand of another, but it seems to happen all the time.)
- When I added the WP:DGF section I had to use extremely watered-down language and there seemed to be opposition to anything actually stating that editors have a responsibility to act in good faith. I never figured out what the nature of the opposition was, and because I was adding it in the course of a conflict with another editor I have felt it would be improper for me to further develop that concept myself within the guideline. (Though considering that even the editor with whom I was having the dispute conceded that the final form of the text I added was valid, in that sense it seemed like a bit of an achievement.)
- As a corollary I think that there ought to be a distinction made between newbies who have never heard of or read this rule and editors who have - especially editors who are familiar enough with it that they'd demand that someone else follow it. Once one is aware that acting in good faith is expected within the WP community and how central a principle it is, I think there's an increased responsibility to act in good faith oneself, avoid acting in bad faith, and to help others to assume good faith by explicitly demonstrating it. To do anything else is adhering to the letter while ignoring the spirit.
- I think it's telling that WP:AAGF is not incorporated into the guideline and is labeled as an essay. That in and of itself indicates to me that someone familiar with WP:AGF does not have the right to assume the assumption of good faith. I think that editors need to act toward and work with others in a manner that earns a belief in their good faith. The point of this guideline is not to make it easier for anyone to intentionally act in a manner that looks like bad faith or make it so that when someone questions your motives you don't have to explain them. Nor is the idea to make it so that editors don't need to try to persuade others that they're acting in good faith.
- It's endorsing an attitude that you ought to have towards others to successfully understand their motives and work with them - it's not saying anything at all about how others should treat you or saying that you deserve an unearned assumption of good faith. It's not a quid pro quo, not an exchange of favors or something: it's not proposing that other people are going to be required to assume good faith on your part because the community wants you to assume good faith on the part of others. But the guideline doesn't explain this well, it seems to me, because people often do appear to believe that some sort of quid pro quo is involved in it.
- That's all I've got for now. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 13:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- I would argue that the numerous difficulties in laying this out are themselves a good reason to demote this to an information page. Again, this is very similar to WP:COMMON. It's essential to the functioning of the community, and the basic meaning is clear, but the application is decidedly not. PSWG1920 (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- So basically you're saying, "forget a comprehensive analysis of the problems, just demote it"?
- Is there any source for this "WP values whose applications are complex should be information pages rather than guidelines or policies" principle besides its extrapolation from the single example of WP:COMMON among all of the different pages labeled as information pages? It seems somewhat manufactured for this proposal, rather out of thin air I must say.
- It also doesn't appear to me that your proposal has anything to do with actually addressing the lack of clarity in its application. It ought to be clarified whether it's categorized as an information page or a guideline. It seems like you aren't advancing a solution to the clarity issue but rather a way to try to avoid dealing with it.
- And in fact, come to think of it, I'm not so sure that its basic meaning is very clear as you say there, at least not without a major rewrite of the page - particularly if, as it seems to me, some people interpret it as a quid pro quo or think that there's no responsibility to act with good faith yourself when it says so right in the Five Pillars.
- On the whole it seems to me like it would be punting to deal with these problems by sweeping it under a procedural carpet to reduce its level of significance within the Wikipedia code of conduct. You also aren't dealing with the many fundamental differences between WP:AGF and WP:COMMON. I think AGF is mentioned in many more places in other policies than COMMON is. AGF is mentioned in the Five Pillars and COMMON is not, for example; in the Simplified ruleset the phrase "common sense" is used but not as a link to WP:COMMON - what it actually says is that all of the core guidelines and policies are essentially common sense, which would actually mean that we have quite alot of clarity and specificity in regards to what common sense is and how to apply it.
- How about we try to clarify the rule and its application first, which I think is entirely possible if we go about it in a patient and methodical way, and then re-examine whether it looks like a behavioral guideline or a merely informational description? --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 20:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
- I would argue that the numerous difficulties in laying this out are themselves a good reason to demote this to an information page. Again, this is very similar to WP:COMMON. It's essential to the functioning of the community, and the basic meaning is clear, but the application is decidedly not. PSWG1920 (talk) 18:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
Added new essay to the links. DurovaCharge! 20:17, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
- Durova your new essay "Wikipedia:Assume clue" contains only an anecdote from which the reader is expected to draw this conclusion: "Assume that maybe other people have clue, and check whether you do too." I think one could draw various conclusions about the anectdotal discussion between 2 editors but without the prompt "This page in a nutshell..." I would not have thought of that one. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Diplomacy (especially Admins)
Telling people to "Assume good faith" is hardly diplomatic, something I feel that is lacking sometimes. People accused of this can react by admitting it, and are then blocked. In reality, they have never even though about peoples' motives before they get that message. The thing is that people "see red" when this sort of accusation is made. Could the person issuing such a message actually be the real culprit! Wallie (talk) 07:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
- I don't follow (and I would like to). What accusation are you referring to? An accusation of not assuming good faith? (It souns to me like an instruction, not an accusation; granted, people don't like to be told what to do.) Or, perhaps, did you mean an accusation of assuming bad faith (which is not actually implied by telling someone to assume good faith)? Pi zero (talk) 14:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
- Someone could not be blocked for not assuming good faith. AGF is not some sort of mental hygiene regimen that controls your thoughts, it's just a guideline for what to do when you initially encounter someone. If you look at the criteria for blocking I don't even think anyone can be blocked for not following guidelines in general, much less for not agreeing with them if you have a different interpretation of AGF from the admin in question.
- People shouldn't see red when an accusation like this is made, they should probably regard it as silly and ignore it.
- Another thing to note is that lots of people appear to think that bad faith can't be proven: that you can't demonstrate with diffs that someone has been deceptive or disingenuous. Well, you certainly can, and you certainly cannot be blocked for doing so.
- (I mean, you can't be blocked for doing that alone, for saying such things on the basis of proof and citing others' words and actions. But if you make extremely negative or critical statements you can't back up with diffs, that could constitute a WP:Personal attack that isn't tolerated. But don't let people try to scare you into thinking they can't be criticized, if they vaguely use the word "personal" again and again without actually accusing you of making a "personal attack".) --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 11:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- "People shouldn't see red when an accusation like this is made, they should probably regard it as silly and ignore it." – Are you sure you are describing what people in general should do rather than your personal practice?
- "[L]ots of people appear to think that bad faith can't be proven [...] Well, you certainly can [...]" – And lots of people think they are proving it when they are not doing any such thing. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:58, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- There is nothing we do, including RFC, RFAR, Topic Ban, Community Ban... there is nothing we do that requires us to ever drop AGF. People are not blocked for being disingenuous; they're blocked for disruption. In order to show that someone is disruptive, no mention of their motives need ever be made. If you claim that someone is disruptive, and then go on to talk about their motives, then you make your case weaker. There is simply no good reason to ever talk about another editor's motives. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- Q: Could the person issuing such a message actually be the real culprit!. A: yes sometimes it can. But I think the essay as it is catches it well: "be careful about citing this principle too aggressively". Someone mentioned above that WP:GOODFAITHing doesn't work for one part in a conflict, but is more relevant from a neutral third part. I agree 100%. Every neutral third part referring to WP:GOODFAITH should also be careful to criticise as diplomatically as possible. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 14:09, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
I've never seen the encyclopedia improved by someone accusing someone else of acting in bad faith. Therefore, I have a hard time seeing the point of such accusations. -GTBacchus(talk) 14:08, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, Wallie didn't imply that. And else, sometimes refering to WP:GOODFAITH doesn't work. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 14:11, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Copyright and AGF
Added a brief section based upon a confusion that arises periodically. AGF means we assume people want to comply with copyright, not that they actually have done so. Some people don't know how and make mistakes; AGF is not a substitute for proper documentation. DurovaCharge! 20:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Nullifying statement should be removed - no such thing as evidence of lack of good faith
I propose that this part in the current revision be changed:
This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. Assuming good faith does not prohibit discussion and criticism, but instead editors should not attribute the actions being criticised to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice.
The first sentence effectively nullifies this entire guideline. Anyone who feels justified in suspending AGF about someone believes that evidence of lack of good faith in the other is present. This is license to ignore this guideline in practically every situation, including when it is probably needed the most.
There is no need to ever suspend the assumption of good faith about anyone. It's much more effective and productive to always assume others are acting in good faith, but (when there is conflict) are simply mistaken, uninformed, wrong about something, or just have a different POV, and to always leave open the possibility that you might be the one missing something. This is the essence of WP:AGF, is it not? There is no need to suspend AGF even to deal with the most egregious behavior in Wikipedia. That sentence completely misses the most fundamental aspect of AGF, renders AGF to be effectively useless, and needs to go.
The second sentence makes a similar error, but is salvageable. I suggest:
Assuming good faith does not prohibit discussion and criticism, but editors should never attribute the actions being criticised to malice, regardless of how strong the evidence may appear to be.
That is, behavior needs to be judged objectively based on how consistent it is with policy and guidelines. The true motivations of any editor can never be known, and it is always best to assume they are not malicious. That's what AGF is all about. In practice, WP:AGF means that if someone needs to be sanctioned, blocked, banned, etc., it should be entirely because of their actions, and should have nothing to do with what anyone's perceptions of their unknowable motives are.
There is simply no justification to ever assume anyone else is not acting in good faith. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- I boldly went ahead with the change and a few other related edits. For posterity, a link to this completed revision is here. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- Restored the old version. A good idea up to a point, but not really credible. If an IP address posts a death threat to the article about a high school, we do not assume it was a good faith joke. We report it to law enforcement. That's an extreme example, but there certainly are instances where good faith need not be assumed. DurovaCharge! 20:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- I urge you to reconsider in the strongest terms possible. Allow me to explain.
- Show me a situation in which you believe someone has good cause to conclude someone else is not acting in good faith, and I'll show you a situation that could only improve, and certainly couldn't get worse, if good faith was assumed nonetheless.
- Heck, sometimes identifying one's own motivations is challenging enough. Speculating on the motivations of others, including whether they are acting in good faith or not, especially about essentially anonymous people communicating exclusively through computers across the internet, is simply untenable.
- Even in your extreme hypothetical example, there is no need to not assume good faith, and there might very well be value in assuming good faith. Assuming good faith does not mean assuming it was a good faith joke (even if they claim it was a joke). It might be a disturbed schizophrenic acting in good faith (from his perspective). In any case, assuming good faith or not, notifying law enforcement would be the right thing to do, based on the action taken without regard to the motivation, about which we can only pointlessly speculate. Death threats are not tolerated, period, regardless of motivation. There is simply no justification to ever assume anyone else is not acting in good faith.
- So there is simply no upside to allowing the caveat. And the downside is immense, as it essentially renders the guideline to be useless, especially for situations in which it is probably most needed.
- When we say, "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence" (or provide any similar caveat), we render the guideline useless, for the guideline has no practical utility in the absence of contrary evidence. That is, it's trivial to assume good faith when there is no contrary evidence. It's only when there is contrary evidence that continuing to assume good faith becomes a challenge, but that's exactly when this guideline is needed! (been there, done that)
- In its present form, the guideline has little if any value, and the caveat is probably why it is often neglected so quickly in so many disputes. One side or the other comes to believe that they see evidence of lack of good faith in the other, and all hell breaks loose. I urge you to restore to the version I last edited. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
In considering whether I've fully addressed Durova's concerns, I reviewed my changes and noticed that in the version I last edited, I missed something, in the following paragraph:
Violation of some policies, such as engaging in sock-puppetry, violating consensus, and so on, may be perpetrated in either good or bad faith. Since there are processes for dealing with all of these, and sanctions for repeated violation of policy apply regardless of whether bad faith was involved, there is never a need or justification to suspend the assumption of good faith. It is much more effective and productive to always assume others are acting in good faith, but (when there is conflict) are simply mistaken, uninformed, wrong about something, or just have a different POV.
I would reword it and expand it as follows:
Violation of any policies and guidelines, including engaging in personal attacks, not assuming good faith, sock-puppetry, violating consensus, and so on, may be perpetrated in either good or bad faith. Violation of guidelines or policy never necessarily implies bad faith, about which only pointless speculation is possible. Since there are processes for dealing with all violations, and sanctions for repeated violation of policy apply regardless of whether bad faith was involved, there is never a need or justification to suspend the assumption of good faith. It is much more effective and productive to always assume others are acting in good faith, and, when there is a dispute or conflict, to assume the other is simply honestly mistaken, uninformed, or just has a different POV. If there isn't enough evidence in what someone has done to justify taking some action without suspending the assumption of good faith, then there simply isn't enough evidence to justify taking that action. The impossible-to-determine factor of whether someone was acting in good or bad faith should never be a consideration, as acting in good faith should always be assumed.
I believe this should address Durova's concerns, and am almost certain that this rewording, applied to the version I last edited, would go a very long way towards helping reduce the incidence of escalating conflict in disputes throughout Wikipedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Any examples of where suspending AGF is beneficial, much less needed?
I'm curious as to whether User:Durova or anyone else who oppose my proposal above to remove the guideline caveats has any (preferably) real or hypothetical examples in which suspending the assumption of good faith was somehow beneficial, or necessary, to accomplish something good for Wikipedia? Maybe I'm missing something, but I've been around for a while, and involved in a fair number of disputes, and I just can't think of any good reason to not assume everyone is always acting in good faith, no matter what they're doing. I just don't see how assuming that the reason someone is doing something is bad faith (even if it's true, which can never be known for sure unless they admit it) could ever improve any situation, but I know it will almost certainly always make it worse. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:04, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- If you assume bad faith at any point in time, you are obviously acting in bad faith. Assuming that people act in good faith 90% of the time, this means that if you assume bad faith at any point, you have a 90% chance of becoming the agressor/initiator in any particular negative situation. If your actions are subsequently reviewed, you will likely be sanctioned, and rightly so. This alone should be sufficient reason to never be the first to assume bad faith.
- Assuming bad faith also starts a vicious circle, where both sides get nastier and nastier. Don't start the circle.
- A more positive reason to assume good faith is that people tend to act the way you treat them. If you AGF towards people even if they don't deserve it, they often end up changing their behaviour, to ensure that they keep getting treated in good faith.
- In the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma with unknown number of moves (a fair approximation of the agf/abf choice) the best first move is to cooperate - assume good faith. If you think of yourself as Superrational, you will also (almost) always assume good faith.
- I cannot recall a single situation where suspending the (initial) assumption of good faith was ever a good idea. I know of several situations where it ended in disaster. --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- Okay, so you agree that even "in the presence of contrary evidence" (evidence indicating the other appears to not be acting in good faith) the assumption of good faith should not be suspended, right? Can I take that to be an endorsement of my suggestion above to remove the "in the presence of contrary evidence" caveat language from the guideline? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Well, if you warn or try to discuss with someone several times, and they simply ignore you, that's about the time when you can start to assume bad faith, I guess. "in the presence of contrary evidence" is rather broader than that though.
- I looked at your edits, I think they're fairly good. By contrast the "contrary evidence" language seems somewhat new, if you look back in page history.
- Finally, I think I recall one or more people being desysopped over too-broad reading of the "contrary evidence" exception... ;-)
- I think the death threat example given by Durova is a case for WP:COMMON; most edits are not like that at all. Durova (or others): are there any more common situations that I'm forgetting? --Kim Bruning (talk) 02:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Even if someone continues to ignore you after you warn or discuss several times, is there any benefit or purpose to assuming bad faith? The point of my proposed changes is that suspending AGF can never do anything of benefit for Wikipedia, and will almost always only make matters worse. But I too am interested in knowing if anyone knows of situation where good came from suspending AGF. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- "Even if someone continues to ignore you after you warn or discuss several times, is there any benefit or purpose to assuming bad faith?"I would say at that point assumptions are a non-issue. By definition you only assume when you don't have a whole lot of actual evidence one way or the other. Also see Wikipedia:Don't go out of your way to be diplomatic. PSWG1920 (talk) 03:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- You think you can really determine, without making assumptions, that the reason some anonymous stranger on WP you've never met continues to ignore you (or whatever) is bad faith? We're talking about judging the motivations of another human based on what they post via edits in Wikipedia. No amount of evidence is ever going to be definitive in such an endeavor, and so assumption is always required, and WP:AGF should always apply. The righteous indignation (etc.) that naturally arises when one comes to believe that he "knows" the other is not acting out of good faith -- and acts accordingly -- is exactly what WP:AGF seeks to eliminate. It is always an assumption, and I really don't think there is ever a need or a benefit to suspend it.
- Wikipedia:Don't go out of your way to be diplomatic has more to do with WP:NPA than WP:AGF, and it makes a good point. But, one can easily avoid "strained politeness" without suspending AGF (in case you were saying it required ceasing to assume good faith). --Born2cycle (talk) 04:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- The specific case is where for instance someone has been vandalizing or POVizing, or what have you, and has ignored any and all communications from their peers voicing their concerns (eg. at least 3 warnings). While theoretically you are still quite correct, in the end wikipedia must be pragmatic, and you do need to draw a line somewhere. --Kim Bruning (talk) 11:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see a reason or benefit to treating someone who has been vandalizing or POVizing as if they are doing so in bad faith. There could be a multitude of reasons for someone to do what he or she is doing, and why they are doing it (and why is what assuming good or bad faith addresses) is irrelevant. Garbage added to articles needs to be reverted. There are rules against POVizing. Users who do so repeatedly are sanctioned. Whether they are doing this stuff in good or bad faith is irrelevant and ultimately unknowable anyway. I see nothing pragmatic about drawing the line anywhere -- I just don't see how ever suspending the assumption of good faith can bring any benefit to Wikipedia. Can you? Why draw a line at all? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I'm referring to the "sanction"s you mention. Sooner or later you do need to stop people from doing things that apparently harm the wiki. --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- It'd be great if there weren't "trolls", but some folks make a joke out of seeing how far they can get people to assume good faith while they're up to no good. While assuming good faith is an effective operating principle, the main goal is creating an encylopedia so if bad faith is shown then it should be acknowledged and dealt with appropriately. Will Beback talk 20:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I'm referring to the "sanction"s you mention. Sooner or later you do need to stop people from doing things that apparently harm the wiki. --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I don't see a reason or benefit to treating someone who has been vandalizing or POVizing as if they are doing so in bad faith. There could be a multitude of reasons for someone to do what he or she is doing, and why they are doing it (and why is what assuming good or bad faith addresses) is irrelevant. Garbage added to articles needs to be reverted. There are rules against POVizing. Users who do so repeatedly are sanctioned. Whether they are doing this stuff in good or bad faith is irrelevant and ultimately unknowable anyway. I see nothing pragmatic about drawing the line anywhere -- I just don't see how ever suspending the assumption of good faith can bring any benefit to Wikipedia. Can you? Why draw a line at all? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Kim, of course we need to stop people from doing things that harm Wikipedia. I just don't see any reason to ever assume they are doing those harmful things in bad faith. Do you?
- Will, are trolls necessarily acting in bad faith? Are they really trolls? How do you know in any given instance? Is there any purpose to suspending the assumption of good faith (even about suspected trolls) other than to justify taking action that otherwise would not be justified? If it's justified without suspending AGF, then there is no reason to suspend it. If a given action is not justified without suspending AGF, then don't you think that has to be a situation where more evidence is required before that action should be taken? Suspending AGF can never be beneficial, might be neutral, but is almost always harmful.
- What is the effect of leaving the caveat in WP:AGF to remain other than to create a loophole-excuse for anyone and everyone to suspend AGF in their particular "special" circumstance? --20:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I'd have to spend a long time to find it, but some time back Jimbo Wales said that Wikipedia's policies are not a "suicide pact". At the time, there was a plan by members of a White nationalist website to take over Wikipedia. Wales said that if our policies were too lenient then we'd change them to cope with the threat. That's consistent with the idea that we assume good faith until that assumption no longer makes sense. Frankly, this discussion seems philosophical rather than practical. How would your proposed changes affect outcomes? Will Beback talk 20:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Will, I don't see how "if our policies were too lenient then we'd change them [to be less lenient] to cope with the threat" is consistent with "assume good faith until that assumption no longer makes sense". My problem is with the very idea of "that assumption no longer makes sense". Even Hitler and the 9/11 terrorists were acting in good faith (from their perspective). Whether someone is acting in good faith or not hardly matters in the real world, I don't see why it should matter in the WP world at all.
- I have no interest in a purely philosophical suggestion. I honestly believe that removing the WP:AGF loophoole (which renders it pointless in the very situations where it is probably needed the most) will have a very good chance of transforming Wikipedia interactions for the better. Currently, things go south all too often, because, IMHO, people come to believe that it "no longer makes sense" to assume good faith. That's why I believe if the guideline clearly means: no matter what, yes, it does make sense, and it always make sense, to assume good faith, it will help. If another editor is doing something inappropriate, continue assuming good faith, and focus on what they are doing, and why that is inappropriate, not why they are doing it (which is unknowable), and take action accordingly. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
The standard we've traditionally known on Wikipedia is to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. It's true that some people are quick to abandon good faith on the basis of slender evidence, and that's a problem. Classic example. Editor A tells Editor B something. B checks the facts and discovers that A was incorrect, so B accuses A of lying. Well, actually there are plenty of ways to get a fact wrong without deliberately lying. A could have made a typographical error, or misremembered, etc. An assumption is the default position when there's room for doubt; rational people abandon assumptions and change their minds when they see conclusive evidence. AGF is like keeping a checklist where 'lying' is the final choice among reasonable possibilities. DurovaCharge! 20:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Durova, yes! "Rational people abandon assumptions and change their minds when they see conclusive evidence". But the guideline does not call for conclusive evidence before abandoning AGF, and, frankly, I don't think conclusive evidence is possible to obtain with respect to determining whether some anonymous stranger you've never met in person is acting in good faith or not with respect to WP edits. So the only effect of leaving the caveat in the guideline, as far as I can tell, is to serve as an excuse/loophole for someone to prematurely (which is always since conclusive evidence is not possible) suspend AGF. I ask again, how does that caveat/loophole provide any benefit to Wikipedia? Let's remove it and see what happens, shall we? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, but doesn't WP:SPI reach conclusions all the time? BLP gets violated by POV pusher, POV pusher gets blocked for 3RR, new account appears and edit wars the same POV, checkuser confirms. The first time that happens we maybe cut slack if the editor apologizes and says he doesn't know. The third time around, after promises have been broken and he's switched to AOL in a failed effort to foil the checkuser, people do reach conclusions about negative intent. "You can't stop me [expletives]; I'll just go to Starbucks! [more expletives]" DurovaCharge! 21:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- WP:SPI nor anyone else (certainly no individual editor) needs to conclude anything about whether intent in someone is negative or not. If someone has been legitimately banned, and they are getting in via a sockpuppet, then they've broken the rules. The same appropriate action can be taken, based solely on an individual's actions, without assuming bad faith. The title of this section is, Any examples of where suspending AGF is beneficial, much less needed?, and the discussion is long... do we have any such examples yet? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, yet admins weigh evidence of intent when making discretionary decisions. X files a noticeboard complaint accusing Y of personal attacks. Y responds and accuses X of personal attacks. X links to a thread full of personal attacks on both sides, but X's are borderline and Y's are extreme. Then someone reads the edit history and discovers diffs where X had altered Y's posts to make them worse. Both editors have committed personal attacks. Do they both get the same block? Or does X get a longer block for deception? DurovaCharge! 22:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- X gets a longer block for the act of altering Y's posts, of course, but not for "bad faith". X almost certainly feels he was justified (for whatever perhaps twisted reason) in doing what he was doing. In other words, even deceptive acts are not conclusive evidence of bad faith, at least not to my understanding of bad faith. Bad faith means the person knowingly and intentionally did something harmful. To determine that, you really have to look inside that person's heart, something that is hard enough to do with oneself, much less with a stranger tethered to you only through electrons. Whether bad faith is involved in any given incident or series of incidents is never really known, and should never be relevant to how the situation is treated. Since whether another is truly acting in bad faith is never ultimately knowable and always irrelevant, how can it ever be appropriate to abandon AGF? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- While it's usually unhelpful, editors often accuse others of having ulterior motives for their edits. Why just today, an editor wrote to me, BTW, you're not exactly an impartial person on this matter. Did that comment asume good faith? No, it assumed that I was acting in bad faith. Was it helpful? I don't think so, but maybe the editor in question can explain why assuming bad faith in some circumstances furthers the project. Will Beback talk 23:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Will, I can assure you that the person writing that comment did not think that you were knowingly or intentionally doing something harmful (acting in bad faith), just reminding you that, because of the history involved, you're not impartial. I don't even think the person who made the derogatory comment was acting in bad faith. That is, he probably felt justified in making it, probably not even realizing how derogatory and therefore inappropriate (per WP:NPA) it was. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- So saying that someone is biased or not impartial isn't an assumption of bad faith, and it isn't a personal attack either? Making negative remarks about people's views could certainly be viewed as a failure to assume good faith, because it looks at their motivations. Likewise, if we see someone committing sneaky vandalism, is it inappropriate to call it "vandalism", or should we continue to assume that it was a good faith introduction of false information? I think the current policy language is appropriately flexible to handle both situations. Will Beback talk 00:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Will, I can assure you that the person writing that comment did not think that you were knowingly or intentionally doing something harmful (acting in bad faith), just reminding you that, because of the history involved, you're not impartial. I don't even think the person who made the derogatory comment was acting in bad faith. That is, he probably felt justified in making it, probably not even realizing how derogatory and therefore inappropriate (per WP:NPA) it was. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- While it's usually unhelpful, editors often accuse others of having ulterior motives for their edits. Why just today, an editor wrote to me, BTW, you're not exactly an impartial person on this matter. Did that comment asume good faith? No, it assumed that I was acting in bad faith. Was it helpful? I don't think so, but maybe the editor in question can explain why assuming bad faith in some circumstances furthers the project. Will Beback talk 23:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- X gets a longer block for the act of altering Y's posts, of course, but not for "bad faith". X almost certainly feels he was justified (for whatever perhaps twisted reason) in doing what he was doing. In other words, even deceptive acts are not conclusive evidence of bad faith, at least not to my understanding of bad faith. Bad faith means the person knowingly and intentionally did something harmful. To determine that, you really have to look inside that person's heart, something that is hard enough to do with oneself, much less with a stranger tethered to you only through electrons. Whether bad faith is involved in any given incident or series of incidents is never really known, and should never be relevant to how the situation is treated. Since whether another is truly acting in bad faith is never ultimately knowable and always irrelevant, how can it ever be appropriate to abandon AGF? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, yet admins weigh evidence of intent when making discretionary decisions. X files a noticeboard complaint accusing Y of personal attacks. Y responds and accuses X of personal attacks. X links to a thread full of personal attacks on both sides, but X's are borderline and Y's are extreme. Then someone reads the edit history and discovers diffs where X had altered Y's posts to make them worse. Both editors have committed personal attacks. Do they both get the same block? Or does X get a longer block for deception? DurovaCharge! 22:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- WP:SPI nor anyone else (certainly no individual editor) needs to conclude anything about whether intent in someone is negative or not. If someone has been legitimately banned, and they are getting in via a sockpuppet, then they've broken the rules. The same appropriate action can be taken, based solely on an individual's actions, without assuming bad faith. The title of this section is, Any examples of where suspending AGF is beneficial, much less needed?, and the discussion is long... do we have any such examples yet? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I suppose that saying that someone is biased or not impartial might be an assumption of bad faith, but it's certainly not necessarily that. Even if the someone is correct, being biased or not impartial does not mean acting in bad faith.
- Yes, making negative remarks about people's views could be viewed as a failure to assume good faith, but I wouldn't view it that way unless they indicated quite clearly that good faith was no longer being assumed. For example, if A writes to B, "You're intentionally doing X in order to disrupt our efforts to do Y" - that would clearly indicate that A was longer assuming good faith about B. In that case, by the way, I would encourage A to consider that perhaps B feels justified for doing X for some other reason, and regardless of the reason he's doing X, is there anything intrinsically wrong in A doing X? That's where the focus should be. This is what I believe would come much more naturally if we removed the caveat-loopholes from WP:AGF.
- In the case of the redacted comment, whether the comment was made to intentionally insult is irrelevant. All that matters was whether it was derogatory. It was clearly not a complement. One might argue that it was neutral, but that's a stretch. It also puts the insulted editor in the position of having to defend himself against an inflammatory comment which completely misrepresented his position, which I assume is the reason anyone (including the insulted party) is allowed to remove derogatory comments by WP:NPA.
- is it inappropriate to call it "vandalism", or should we continue to assume that it was a good faith introduction of false information?. This is something of a paradigm shift. Consider this carefully: Why even bother making the distinction? False information needs to be repaired. Anyone who repeatedly inserts false information is in violation of the rules. That's all true whether it's done in good faith or not, whether it's labeled as "vandalism" or not.
- The current policy handles both, but so would the policy after incorporating the changes proposed above. If you disagree, what situation do you believe would not be handled if the proposal is adopted?. The only difference would be is that the current caveat-loophole that effectively allows anyone to suspend AGF at any time they feel justified (in other words, when WP:AGF is needed the most) would be removed. I see all upside, and no downside. How about you? --Born2cycle (talk) 02:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Will, you wrote above, "So saying that someone is biased or not impartial isn't an assumption of bad faith, and it isn't a personal attack either?". This is a quote from WP:NPA: "pointing out an editor's relevant conflict of interest and its relevance to the discussion at hand is not considered a personal attack". --Born2cycle (talk) 03:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) In general, when one editor accuses another of bad faith it ought to be accompanied by evidence. And it's a very good thing for uninvolved/neutral parties to step forward and say "Could you substantiate that accusation, please, or else withdraw it?" Among perceptive Wikipedians, unsubstantiated bad faith accusations say more about the accuser than the accused. DurovaCharge! 23:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
- I totally agree. I just think it could work much better if we take it a step further. This section keeps getting longer, and there are still no examples "of where suspending AGF is beneficial". So it appears that even substantiated bad faith accusations serve no beneficial purpose to anyone, or to WP overall. The focus should be on whether the actions that comprise the substantiations are appropriate, or warrant reaction/sanction/etc. in and of themselves, never on whether they substantiate a bad faith accusation. That's ultimately unknowable, irrelevant, and serves no beneficial purpose anyway. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Examples? Will try.
- Threats of real world harm.
- Blatant onsite harassment.
- Specific declarations of malicious intent.
- Verified offsite harassment.
- The fact is, in certain instances it does serve beneficial purpose to abandon the assumption of good faith: when it protects people from actual harm. I write this as someone who actually opened an FBI case due to harassment that resulted from Wikipedia volunteer work. DurovaCharge! 01:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Examples? Will try.
- I've repeated myself on this same point too many times already, so this is the last time: there is no reason to abandon the assumption of good faith in order to properly deal with any of these situations. In fact, dropping the assumption of good faith will probably only make matters worse (it might not, but how on Earth can it improve anything?). For example, there is no reason to drop AGF in order to report threats to law enforcement authorities. The threat is the reason. Whether the threat was done in good faith or not is unknowable and irrelevant.
- Do you believe that these matters could not be handled as effectively if the proposed changes to remove the caveat-loopholes from the guideline were adopted? If so, how and why? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Actually there is good reason: the let's AGF and assume it was just a prank shows up as a minority argument at noticeboards in situations where law enforcement actually needs to be notified. Your proposed changes would bolster those arguments, and could tip consensus into inaction in situations that have real world consequences. So of course that proposal is unacceptable. Would gladly strenghten the wording toward a more moderate compromise: there are editors who are too quick to abandon good faith, so would support strengthened wording that encourages people to ask questions and explore good faith options when doubt exist. DurovaCharge! 04:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Great! A good example. Let's see if we can work towards a compromise. Perhaps the best approach is to treat such a reaction as a misapplication of WP:AGF, and something that might be handled with a notice like this:
NOTE: Assuming good faith does not mean assuming threats are necessarily harmless pranks. Threats should always be treated seriously.
- The wording could be better, but you get the idea. The idea could be repeated once or twice, where appropriate, to make sure it's not missed.
- Would such a modification to the proposal make it acceptable to you? --Born2cycle (talk) 04:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I get the impression that Born2cycle thinks there is a need to improve the guideline because of its deficiencies as a rule (eg., talk of This is license to ignore this guideline in practically every situation). I think that, considered as a rule, AGF has no value at all, because if it is directly applied to criticise another editor's interactions, it will have very little chance of improving things. Instead, the value of the guideline is to help promote a shared understanding of what is considered to be constructive in interactions with other editors. In general, I am for being vague about the scope of the guideline, and instead saying more about why AGF is good for WP, and giving directions to guidance on how to handle difficult situations. Durova's point might suggest that the article would benefit from an "When you can't assume good faith" section. — Charles Stewart (talk) 10:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- Charles, you obviously have read my commentary. Thank you. Your comments inform me that I have not been clear about one important point. I agree that in any given instance directly applying AGF to another editor's interactions has very little chance of improving things. My concern is about its value to "promote shared understanding of what is considered to be constructive in interactions with other editors" (I love the way you worded that). It is precisely from within that "shared understanding" that I think the "[the perception of a] license to ignore this guideline in practically every situation" (especially where it is needed most) needs to be excised. Perhaps this was a poor use of the term license on my part, for I did not intend to imply at all that I was seeking for a way to apply AGF more effectively during disputes. For me, this is all about seeking a way to make AGF more influential in preventing disputes from starting in the first place.
- I would like to see a proposed "When you can't assume good faith" section, and am particularly curious about what might be listed in there. I already have explained why I don't see why good faith cannot be assumed even in cases of blatant vandalism and physical threat. AGF should not in any way inhibit anyone from taking appropriate action in any situation (perhaps this should be stated explicitly in the guideline). But the basis for taking appropriate action should always be exclusively the nature of the activity at issue, not at all on one's perception of whether those actions were made "in good faith" or not. It seems to me that that gets to the essence of AGF.
- The alternate interpretation, that is reflected in the current version, is that one should only assume AGF up to some vaguely defined "reasonable point" ("in the presence of contrary evidence"), and I sense that that point for most people is only slightly beyond wherever it would be for them personally in that particular (usually heated) situation if AGF were not here. That's the issue I'm trying to address. Does that make sense? --Born2cycle (talk) 14:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
- "When you can't assume good faith" - I suggest three topics: first, when someone's out to get you beyond WP (ie., direct threats or legal action), where the point is that WP editing isn't likely to help, and could easily make things worse, and should indicate what avenues should be pursued to handle the attack; second, when your patience is exhausted, then should say something about how attacking someone's intentions isn't likely to transform the situation to one's advantage, and suggest avenues like WP:EAR; third, how to handle the aftermath when you didn't WP:AGF, eg. apologise & WP:EAR. I think this section would be more constructive (ie. more solution oriented) than the current "Dealing with bad faith" section.
- Existence of "reasonable point" - a rule that says one must always AGF, regardless of circumstances, is a rule that prescribes saintliness. By not interpreting it as a rule, issues of the rule's scope ceases to be an issue.
- The current guideline in places seems to reflect a fear that if we discussed frankly the nature of bad faith editing, then other editors would no longer be persuaded to follow the guideline. — Charles Stewart (talk) 11:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
This debate confuses me a bit. The policy name basically has as much clarity as can reasonably be achieved: assume good faith. Which is to say, start with the clean-slate assumption that everybody is actually striving for a neutral point of view about a particular issue. But assumptions are subject to disproof by evidence. In this case, the assumption should be maintained as long as possible, even as evidence accumulates that the assumption is false. Further, frequently even when it's reached the point that there is substantial doubt about the assumption, it's still better to act as if you believe it, because (a) you might be wrong and (b) even if you're right, it's generally not going to help to say anything. Basically, maintain the assumption unless you're willing to seek sanction for alleged misbehaviour. Disembrangler (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with your interpretation about what WP:AGF should say, however I think it falls far short from discouraging abandoning good faith as compared to how you worded it here, and I have no reason to believe very many others interpret it that way. For example, the sentence, "This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence", seems to make it all too easy to stop assuming good faith (simply the (apparent) presence of contrary evidence is all that is required). As I said above, the effect of this guideline currently seems to merely encourage most folks to assume good faith a bit longer, but not much longer, than they would if WP:AGF did not exist. I think it can do much better, hence my proposal in the previous section. The purpose of this section is to illustrate that there really is no downside to continuing to assume good faith, even "in the (real or apparent) presence of contrary evidence". --Born2cycle (talk) 06:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
- Fair enough, it's quite possible wording can be improved to better convey spirit and practice of the policy. Reference to "never" is I think a key Bridge Too Far, because it is so common that we do - with justification - assume Bad Faith, and act upon it (eg vandalism, topic bans, etc). I don't have time now, but I think wording based on my comment above might be more likely to gain agreement. Disembrangler (talk) 07:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
- Everyone keeps bringing up vandalism, topic bans, etc., as if dealing with these issues requires suspending the assumption of good faith. It doesn't and I've explained why several times, though apparently not persuasively. But no one has explained why they think it is necessary to leave these loopholes in the guideline. I suspect everyone subconsciously wants to retain the right to suspend AGF when they feel it is justified - which is exactly what WP:AGF is supposed to inhibit.
- You don't ever have to stop assuming anyone is acting in good faith if you focus appropriately on their behavior and edits, and address that, no matter how egregious their actions may be. That is the essence of AGF, as I see it, and what I would like to see it clearly say. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
It's not black and white
There seems to be a feeling here that if you're not assuming good faith, you're assuming bad faith. Is there no gray faith? If an editor continues to make bad edits in the face of all attempts at communication should we just smile and skip along our merry way claiming "This editor is doing what they feel best for the project?". I don' think so. I may not assume they're doing something because of malice, but we have to be practical and realize in certain situations after certain concessions and attempts have been made by users to rectify a situation that if an editor is continuing to make problem edits, we shouldn't be trying to excuse their behaviour with "AGF". We need to apply a "reasonable person" test to these kinds of situations. Think about the following situation: Editor A comes to an article and creates some kind of problem with their edit, (not vandalism, just a problem, poor sourcing, bad grammar, something like that) Editor B reverts/fixes it and leaves editor A a note about the problem they've caused (possibly a template if one applies) Editor A comes back the next day and either reverts that article or introduces similar problems in another article Editor B reverts/fixes makes another attempt to communicate Editor A comes back on the third day and repeats the same scenario Editor B reverts/fixes makes another attempt to communicate
Throughout this time Editor A never responded to a message nor left an edit summary. Should we blindly excuse the behaviour of editor A indefinitely? or if this cycle is maintained does there come a point where we say "Something is not right with this editor. He might not be violating any rules, but he refuses to communicate and is creating more work for others than the amount of content he's actually adding". Nowhere in that thinking is any of his actions attributed to malice, but some people would see that as a violation of AGF. There has to be a time limit in some scenarios where we stop saying "Its okay, AGF"--Crossmr (talk) 07:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Move back up to policy
I may be killing any political capital by posting this, but dammit it seemed like such a good idea.
It was dark and I was horizontal. I tend to come up with the best ideas in this situation. And then I fall asleep. I had the strategy all mapped out... contingencies, strategies, etc.
But I woke up and forgot what they were. So I'll just get to the crux of my thoughts: let's bump AGF back up to policy. There are good reasons for this, though I'm not entirely clear what they were... only that there are.
I know some of it had to do with IAR, albeit not in an immediately tangible way. IAR oldies might want to consider this proposal. Xavexgoem (talk) 22:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
- I was thinking about it, and while I wasn't horizontal (or even strictly vertical, figure that out!) I think I've got it worked out... And I say... No. I'm not sure why exactly, but I'm pretty sure no is the right answer.
- On a serious note, though - there is no point in having a policy that can't possibly be enforced. No one can enforce good faith, nor the assumption of good faith, and when anyone has tried its just been trouble. Best to leave it as good advice. Nathan T 01:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, some of it's coming back to me! One of the elements: we have a horrible time enforcing CIVIL and NPA. Both of these are largely a result of assuming good faith only after civility has been established. If a poor communicator says something that is both A) good, and B) nasty... it's much too easy -- particularly as this remains a guideline -- to cling onto the nasty bit and ignore the good. What say you? Xavexgoem (talk) 01:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC) I'd argue that Civility and NPA is actually only enforced 50% of the time, at best.
- I think if the primary use of AGF as a policy is to moderate the enforcement of other policies, then the concept should be integrated into those policies instead. Policies should really govern actions specifically; AGF strays into legislating a philosophy. It's great as advice, but not so great as law. I think we've found that laws that primarily regulate thought are unevenly, even haphazardly, applied - and vulnerable to manipulation and a great deal of subjective interpretation. Wikipedia policies aren't law, but the idea of regulating a society is essentially the same - why repeat errors here that modern societies have learned from already? Nathan T 01:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- Sound arguments. Would you repeat that when someone tries to demote WP:CIVIL from policy to the "gamed-up" essay it really is? Or would you be afraid of the wrath of Wikipedia's most CIVIL editors? --78.34.98.119 (talk) 01:22, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- (@Nathan)In what ways would it be subjectively applied moreso than it is already as a guideline? I'm going to be straight out: this is purely rebranding. A policy has more weight. This is a largely dysfunctional community, one that will ignore AGF because it's merely a guideline. Being that our options are limited, could this help? Xavexgoem (talk) 01:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- I think if the primary use of AGF as a policy is to moderate the enforcement of other policies, then the concept should be integrated into those policies instead. Policies should really govern actions specifically; AGF strays into legislating a philosophy. It's great as advice, but not so great as law. I think we've found that laws that primarily regulate thought are unevenly, even haphazardly, applied - and vulnerable to manipulation and a great deal of subjective interpretation. Wikipedia policies aren't law, but the idea of regulating a society is essentially the same - why repeat errors here that modern societies have learned from already? Nathan T 01:16, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- Ah, some of it's coming back to me! One of the elements: we have a horrible time enforcing CIVIL and NPA. Both of these are largely a result of assuming good faith only after civility has been established. If a poor communicator says something that is both A) good, and B) nasty... it's much too easy -- particularly as this remains a guideline -- to cling onto the nasty bit and ignore the good. What say you? Xavexgoem (talk) 01:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC) I'd argue that Civility and NPA is actually only enforced 50% of the time, at best.
- Excellent idea: AGF should be policy again. Durova347 01:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- If you'd be so kind as to expand on why? I'm still connecting my neurons :-p Xavexgoem (talk) 01:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- Because it's all to easy to thwart serious discussions with rumormongering nonsense that cloaks itself in the guise of wisdom. We've all seen it: User:Sensible writes "I disagree with this proposal because of...(pertinent diffs and reasons)", then User:Gossip follows with "The real reason Sensible opposes is because because I didn't support his FAC last month." A bump back up to policy would help short-circuit that kind of thing. Adds weight when third parties respond that last month's FAC is irrelevant. Durova347 01:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
- If you'd be so kind as to expand on why? I'm still connecting my neurons :-p Xavexgoem (talk) 01:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
When others cast doubt
The third paragraph of the lead started very awkwardly - both these versions;
- When others cast doubt on their own good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can.
- When others cast doubt on their own good faith or yours, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can.
This describes someone, weirdly, saying, "I have doubts about my own good faith", or, "I have doubts about both my own good faith and yours."
I've changed it to one of these;
- When doubt is cast on good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can.
- When you see doubt cast on good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can.
I would suggest that the whole of the lead needs re-written. It uses a mixture of first, second & third person narrative (is "Just as one can incorrectly judge ..." third person?). I would recommend second person narrative throughout - this is an instructional piece. HarryAlffa (talk) 21:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC)