User talk:Atcovi/Essays/Guidelines for a strong wiki community

Essays
These Essays are User Essays, made by users and are in userspace, that describe there views of Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia is a "battle ground", and not an interactive wiki.
 * とある白い猫's essay on Wikipedia
 * GoneAwayNowAndRetired's (Rootology) essay on Wikipedia
 * Anonymous Dissident's essay on Wikipedia
 * DangerousPanda's Essay on Civility, a main focus

My plan is to read the essays, and then take notes of them on this talk page. Then after proofreading it, I'll write it down on the main article. --atcovi (talk) 17:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The reason why I'm reviewing these essays is to find out what made them leave, and the solution to it. Then compare them to Wikibooks, and see if any of these "bad" actions take place here. I honestly doubt Wikibooks is a "battleground" like Wikipedia is. But just to make sure, I will be reading these essays and taking notes. --atcovi (talk) 17:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

NewPak2 evaluation
NewPak2 was a very young editor on Wikipedia, who has been globally locked by Pathoschild on April 14, 2010, along with his other 11 accounts. NewPak was a clueless user, who didn't know anything about Wikipedia. If the users at his talk page did not shower warning templates on his talk page and other accounts, he probably would've been a productive user. But no, the unfriendly environment at Wikipedia just showers him with templates, thus leading him to being forever blocked by Fastily. There were no real interactions with him, just templates. Possibly the vandal-welcome template would've been counted as friendly, but still wasn't really "interacting", just smashing a template down.

The next users didn't talk to NewPak, but showered him with warning templates. NewPak was roudy, and decided it was best to keep on going with his "Aaqib" pages. He created more than 10 accounts, who all worked on their main focus, Aaqib. Again, no interaction, just templates, and a sock puppet tag.

Nothing went well for NewPak at Wikipedia for him, thus he left. This is a great example of unfriendly welcoming to a clueless, young editor, on Wikipedia.
 * Yes. However, Wikipedia is not designed to welcome very young editors. To the users and administrators who templated NewPak2, they had no clue that this was an extremely young editor. The contributions looked like vandalism. NewPak2, under a new name, came to Wikiversity, if I'm correct, and I recognized what was going on. This was a very young user learning how to use a computer and edit a wiki. Because Wikiversity is for "learning by doing," as well as for the creation of educational resources, I welcomed the user, at the same time as I moved created pages to user space and warned the user about creating pages in mainspace. I was a sysop at the time, and used that occasionally to conceal personal information that the user put up. I think I even blocked one of the socks once, telling the user to stick to one account, and then I took steps to protect that account when the global Wikipedians attacked it for vandalism. A steward knew what I was doing and cooperated. The user figured out that I wanted him to have fun and learn, that I wasn't angry with him or thinking he was bad, and started keeping to user space. (He was quite smart enough to move around anyone who just tried to stop him without respecting him.)
 * Not every Wikiversitan was in favor of what I was doing. Some thought that the user's teacher was not exercising proper control, it was demanded that I call the teacher. Maybe, but I also knew there was nothing useful we could do about that, and calling the teacher would effectively be harassment, and ... involved knowledge of age. These were some smart users who hadn't thought it all through. Some thought that I was coddling vandals. I predicted, however, that the user would indeed learn, and would eventually start helping out. And he did. He is still quite young, but more in the age range expected for young Wikipedians.
 * Back to Wikipedia. While the Wikipedia community says it wants to be welcoming, it does little or nothing about the many users who are far from welcoming. Wikipedia is not designed for "learning by doing." It is an encyclopedia, and improving the encyclopedia is paramount. It is not understood how important an open, welcoming community can be to the long-term health of the project. For example, policies and procedures could be set up to handle very young users. There are legal issues with that, though. What I could see happening is a policy that allows any user who was blocked when young to appeal for a fresh start, and generally receive it, without fuss. Many users, in many situations, could benefit from referral to Wikiversity. I've been recruiting people, but it is hit or miss. People who are blocked and banned on Wikipedia for "POV-pushing," may create useful educational resources on Wikiversity that explain and educate about that point of view. So, for example, there is a Wikiversity user with high interest in parapsychology. He knows the experts in the field, professors, though he is an amateur. He is busy creating a list of sources, as his own attributed section under a neutral resource on parapsychology. Nothing like this could be done on Wikipedia, Eventually, we will have academic-level resources on subjects like that, which *are* studied in universities. On Wikipedia, he was always in a struggle with "debunkers" and people he thought were "pseudoskeptics," that is, people who believe they are supporters of science, or scientists, but who forget to maintain normal scientific skepticism about what they believe. I know some of the behind-the-scenes activity, and he was right that something was going on that was contrary to policy. But as a single-purpose account, he could do nothing about it. He tried, with predictable results.
 * On Wikiversity, no problem at all. There was a Request Custodian Action filing a little while ago, complaining that this fellow was being allowed to edit Wikiversity. It went nowhere, because we don't ban people for having strange ideas, nor for being banned on Wikipedia. (It gives you a clue what is going on on Wikipedia, that someone who never edited Wikiversity before, came to tell us how horrible he was. He has been totally cooperative. He started out working at too high a level, maybe in mainspace. I just pushed it down and gave him his section and he was happy as a clam. We maintain neutrality, and we do it without deleting users' work.
 * Back to NewPak's Wikiversity incarnations. I avoided deleting his work. Rather, I preserved it, putting it in places where it could do no harm, and, in fact, diverting him from other activities that could cause problems. Such as inappropriate editing on Wikipedia or other WMF wikis. It mostly worked. It wasn't perfect, particularly when I was blocked for almost two years on Wikiversity, long story, so I couldn't help for a while, and I had plenty of other things to do.... A bit more than a year ago, I realized that there was some work I wanted to do on Wikiversity, so I thought of doing what was necessary to get unblocked there. It's not difficult to get unblocked for those who understand how Wikis work (and don't work). The next day, my email showed me an edit to my talk page, I was being asked by a bureaucrat if I wanted to be unblocked. The unblock template had sat there for almost two years, a sign of how far down Wikiversity administration went when I was blocked.... Again, long story.
 * So this precedent should be understood. Welcoming very young users to Wikipedia is problematic, at least at present. But it can be handled at Wikiversity. For legal reasons, users under 13 should not reveal their ages. The WikiMedia Foundation does not have an age restriction, but it can make trouble with COPPA.
 * ''The Act applies to websites and online services operated for commercial purposes that are either directed to children under 13 or have actual knowledge that children under 13 are providing information online.
 * And then what is required is an onerous burden, and that's why, say, Wikia has a policy prohibiting users under 13. Same with Youtube, and many other sites.
 * So the site should not have "actual knowledge" that a user is under 13. Individual users may know, that's not prohibited. Individual users may, by WMF policy, not solicit such information. However, there can be projects designed to accommodate very young users, without requiring age disclosure. Such could be use, for example, by kids with delayed development, or anyone. A common activity that I've suggested for possibly young users is creating writing, in their own user space, then I watch it to make sure they aren't creating something risky for themselves.
 * And an activity that I would suggest for the new NewPak2 is helping set up such projects, at the same time as he moves forward into maturity in many ways. Watching for very young users, by how they edit, and dropping them talk page notes, say suggesting Wikiversity, is a real possibility. Be aware it will fail most of the time. It is not likely to work with IP users. But they don't suffer particular damage from being blocked. Users who have registered, higher success, but probably still low. Still, when one is successful, that's a life improved. At least we hope so! It doesn't take much work. It was easy for me to help the new NewPak2. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:10, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * At least Wikipedia should expect children editing. Wikipedia needs more patience users, but since they aren't as much. We can possibly start a plan, for a few patient users, to patrol Wikipedia for any "child vandal", or hints of child vandals, and redirect them to Wikiversity.
 * But we don't want child vandals who are obvious child vandals adding disturbing/gross material on Wikipedia. But users like NewPak2, creating pages about them, and even making stories. That is what the NewPak2 in Wikiversity did.
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but shouldn't the users there expect children to pop in a while making edits not acceptable at Wikipedia, but are in good faith? NewPak2 didn't mean to vandalize Wikipedia when he saw his edits, but he did "vandalize" Wikipedia articles.
 * Now, I'm thinking if Wikibooks is a "learning to do" environment. But this suggests not, which isn't a bad thing tho, but if somehow a child stops by, who's going to be patient and understanding to help this user? And not shoot him down like a prey like Wikipedia has been doing to many of there vandals?
 * I strongly oppose to a policy that only under 13 year olds can edit btw. It's not fair for the mature underaged users, they might want to share some information.
 * Sorry if the above was irrelevant, but I'd like to point that out.
 * Abd, what do you think we should do to redirect child vandals to Wikiversity so they can learn the ways of the Wikiworld? Should there be a project? A plan? Or simply just patrol recent changes for any signs of child vandals?

Regards, --72.84.233.224 (discuss) 02:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Abd, I do not know as to what I would do in such a situation. After seeing what he had done and the warnings placed on it , I would also probably do the same if I was unaware that the user was young. I may mistake it to be vandalism instead.
 * I appreciate what you have written. It did make me think as to help the younger edits. But how do I differenciate an edit by a young editor(which I'll be gladly welcome to help) from a similar post meant only for vandalism(which I may start giving warnings of increasing severity)?
 * I myself am a baned English Wikipedia editor. They thought that the username 'Leaderboard' was a 'company' name that violated their 'username' policies. I tried sending 4 unblock appeals(including 1 through the UTRS) but they are firm on their so called username rules. My username is clearly not spam. I was a very new editor at that time(in the end of 2013) and got scared myself so I stopped editing for over 8 months after an initial unblock rejection. Then, when I came across Wikibooks , I found some errors in a page , logged in using my global Wikimedia account to fix it, and started to edit on Wikibooks. After some time I tried thrice to unblock my Wikipedia account but they seem unbothered by it(refer to my Wikipedia userpage for details). Their 'ground' for a block was that I had a webpage with the same name ((http://www.lead-board.com|here , may not work)) and that I just gave a description about my web browser(I'm a VB programmer) which contained my username. I had obviously no idea that it could've caused such a problem. They immediately blocked me. They wanted me to change my username or leave(they mentioned in the UTRS - You may not edit Wikipedia with your current username, ever). I , using that name as a pseudnyom for many sites , was not ready to do so. Why should I? Especially with the 4th appeal , I was a good Wikibooks editor and briefly edited on some Foundation sites including Mediawiki. I also wrote a description about my browser there. They did not ban me. I hope that you get my point.
 * atcovi, it'll be ridiclous if a 13-18 ban was implemented.--Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 17:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd just like to state that even multiple times when NewPak2 revealed his age, and the people dropping templates on him and threatning to block him, with knowledge that the user was underaged, they still dropped templates on him without actually finding the source of the problem he has, and helping him learn/fixing the problem. --72.84.233.224 (discuss) 20:53, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Simple English Wikipedia
NewPak2 turned into Faisal08.

Interaction finally starts here, at Wikiversity
empty --Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 17:59, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

page name
All wikis are interactive, so the word isn't necessary. "Wiki goals," I would suggest, but the subject matter already outlined isn't exactly goals, but operating guidelines. I think I'd just call it Wiki guidelines.

Or "Guidelines for a strong wiki community."

On Wikiversity, I'd call it Wiki studies/Guidelines for a strong community. Or something like that. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Changed. Thanks. --atcovi (talk) 00:20, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll be adding this to Wikiversity once I'm done with this. --atcovi (talk) 00:21, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

urls
I suggested a more wiki-markup way of specifying the urls... but you may want to revert most of what I did, because it does have a serious drawback: afaik, there's no way to use wiki markup to specify those links in a way that will still work if you import the text to a different wiki. For example, here will produce a link to Wikiversity page , but if you take that same code and port it to Wikiversity, it won't work right because the previx   doesn't work there (just as the prefix   doesn't work here). --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Will just change it when turned over to Wikiversity, thanks. --72.84.233.224 (discuss) 20:51, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Phase 1# of Ideas
"Patrol Wikipedia's recent changes to find any signs of PoV users who violate Wikipedia's PoV policy, child "vandals", and editors who are just clueless, then leave them a message suggesting that they take there editing "bags" and move over to Wikiversity, where they can write articles from there point of view, which is permitted on Wikiversity, or (for clueless editors) learn the "Wiki Ways" at Wikiversity.

I've already and gone ahead by doing this, I've only messaged two IPs. Both didn't seem to respond, also watching "new accounts" work as well. If so if this violates Wikipedia's policies, please let me know, thanks. --atcovi (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Referring them to Wikibooks is also helpful. Wikibooks can grow stronger and better with more members. --Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 11:35, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * But I don't think Wikibooks tolerates children as well, learning how to edit constructively. --atcovi (talk) 12:19, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * We have Wikijunior. A significant number of stray edits there seem pretty certain to be children.  (Wikijunior is, of course, the subject of a massive effort on our part to apply flaggedrevs in its strong form, as a way of preventing vandalism from appearing by default.)
 * Re young editors User:Kayau inevitably springs to mind. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:15, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Some thoughts
Alas, I'm going to ramble. I'll describe a really pretty minor experience I had on Wikipedia in fairly modern times, which feels to me like it has a profound lesson buried in in somewhere.
 * I've greatly curtailed my activities on Wikipedia in recent years, partly because en.wn consumes all my time and asks for more, partly because I've found the social atmosphere there pretty toxic. However, when I pass by a Wikipedia article and see something readily fixable, I fix it.  Sometime last year I passed by a disambig page with something-or-other in its lead that struck me as blatantly confusing; so, I fixed it, trying to leave an edit summary sufficient to make clear what the point of the edit was.  However, next time I came by Wikipedia, the Notification system told me my edit had been reverted.  I looked in on it, and found it had been reverted with an edit summary that came across as, well, mocking.  I was tempted to revert with an "rv vandalism" edit summary, but didn't because I wasn't altogether certain.  (I later got the impression, though I was never sure, that the reverting user had interpreted my original edit summary as flippant and had been attempting to respond in kind.)  Trying clumsily to find an edit-summary phrasing that would leave open the unlikely possibility it wasn't vandalism, I ended up with an edit summary that didn't really serve either possibility very well.  And I got reverted again, of course, and told rather brusquely that I should have raised the issue on the article talk page. Now, since this was just a good-Samaritan sort of edit, not something anyone would want to spend huge amounts of their time debating, the very idea of turning the matter into a Wikipedia-style debate-ad-nauseam seemed absurd to me, especially when the issue seemed a matter of common sense to me and my spider sense was telling me the other user involved was probably determinedly following chapter-and-verse of some obscure guideline somewhere, probably either ill-conceived or misapplied.  A little checking established that the person reverting me was an admin.  Right, so raising the matter on the talk page would be both an expenditure of time I had no interest in making and doomed to fail before it was even begun. However, there was something about the situation I was willing to put some time into.  This minor interaction had gone badly awry; edit summaries consistently made things worse, and the procedure being recommended was inappropriately ponderous for the most likely situation in which it would be recommended.  The good Samaritan editor in such a situation would likely be strongly discouraged from furture good-faith edits and the contribution they'd made would go comletely to waste.  From my efforts on Wikinews I'm accustomed to being deeply concerned with practical measures to make interactions with newcomers work as smoothly as is at all possible given their content, and since this was actually an interaction between two experienced wiki users, it seemed to me well worth while to discuss with the other user what sort of measures, in the short or long term, we might use to make such simple interactions work better.  That wasn't a matter for the article talk page, since it wasn't about that particular article at all; so I attempted to raise the meta-issue on the other user's user talk page. That didn't work at all well.  It became clear they were taking it as given that Wikipedia procedures were right, and I was simply at fault for not following them.

Although I don't subscribe to AGF (I follow the en.wn doctrine of never assume), I'm still of the opinion the admin was acting in good faith, for what that's worth. The admin was pretty abrupt/grumpy throughout, which could just be their personality but is I think also an occupational hazard of adminship; it's become clear to me, in the years since I got my mop and bucket, that admins see the worst of user behavior, which can make them pretty cynical about human nature, and they're also chronically overworked, which can make them pretty abrupt. I'm not a big fan of trying to improve social interactions by enforcement, though; this I think is one of the things that's gone wrong with AGF on Wikipedia: it can lead to a sort of thought police. I'd prefer measures that help users of good faith to do things better, without limiting them and without burdening them. In this incident, context-sensitive advice, of some sort or other, might perhaps have aided both users in phrasing their edit summaries more effectively (at least in the second and third out of the four edits); and the recommended procedure of taking-it-to-the-talk-page might conceivably have been made easier for the user in the good-Samaritan role, by some sort of context-sensitive semi-automated help. There's definitely a place for stating, in an essay, what social behaviors one wants to end up with; perhaps the broadest lesson here has something to do with the need for practical measures of the aid-without-limiting variety. I freely admit that sort of aid is extraordinarily difficult to finesse. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you Pizero, for sharing this situation with us. This further proves my point of how Wikipedia isn't friendly, not to young editors, but even to editors in general. I understand as well the admin was acting in good faith, but seriously... Aren't admins suppose to be helpful, accommodating, and kind? That isn't what I see here in this story you have shared with us, alas, proving my point of how Wikipedia simply uses the "undo"/"rollback" tool to solve content issues with editors, rather than discussing on their talkpage of what they are trying to do, thus solving the problem instantly, with cooperation and kindness.
 * Is it possible if you'll allow me to add this to the "Example" section. If so, do you have the revision of this issue? Maybe the page will help as well?
 * Once again, thanks for sharing this story, I have taken into account, and taking notes on this so I can add it to the "Key Points" heading in this essay. --atcovi (talk) 16:20, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And I do agree, maybe a couple years ago Wikipedia Administrators were possibly more kind/cooperative, and less grumpy. If only I knew how to edit Wikipedia back then :/ Cheers and regards, --atcovi (talk) 16:22, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Well.
 * It probably wouldn't be too difficult to locate the incident and produce diffs. I hesitate to do so, though; I've really no animus toward the admin involved, and it would feel rather like placing blame.
 * On the other hand, right now you've only my side of the story. I notice, rereading my account above, that it clearly leans in favor of me being in the right, which ain't necessarily so.  I was probably grumpy too (I'm not a Wikipedia admin, but I've been an admin on two other projects for several years; as the saying goes, doctors make the worst patients), and as for the edit itself, well, we didn't go into a big discussion of it.  That doesn't make the lessons less valid, of course.
 * As I recounted the story I was wondering why I've read so much into a relatively small incident. It now occurs to me, perhaps I latched onto a small incident because I was already looking for small solutions.  That is, not some big sweeping principles, but little things that might affect each individual action taken and add up to a pervasive change in tone.  Water (as I learned years ago helping to redirect seasonal runoff streams) flows downhill, following the path of least resistance.  Change the topology of the land, and the water will follow; it's no good telling the water it ought to go uphill, because it won't do it.  By the nature of the software interface of the wiki, reverting is a really easy thing to do; writing an informative, helpful edit summary is not nearly so easy, and leaving a helpful supportive comment on someone's user talk is relatively speaking quite a lot of trouble to go to over a single edit.  Taking the discussion of such a thing to the article talk page is also quite a lot of trouble to go to.
 * Changing the software interface is, of course, not easy to do. To be blunt, I expect it would be disastrous to entrust such a change to the WMF; they've no intuitive understanding of wikis, and over the years I've come to expect their software enhancements to do only damage.  Thankfully, they also consider the non-Wikipedian sisters unimportant, so their software enhancements usually only damage us somewhat randomly, whereas they're apt to damage Wikipedia systematically.  Hence my own ongoing efforts to effect change to the software myself.
 * --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Aside: I'm aware that my thinking on these issues tends to focus on technical properties of low-level interactions on-wiki. But, while I maintain that's a necessary component of a solution, it does not diminish my appreciation of medium-to-high-level social objectives.  Wikis are self-organizing systems, and self-organizing systems are shaped by the dynamics of their low-level interactions.  The technical properties are key to how well those interactions serve our social objectives &mdash; but, even with an appreciation of the social consequences of technical properties, there's no way to select the right techncial properties unless we know what our social objectives are.  (Just to be clear on how these things relate to each other.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:02, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

AGF
I disagree, very strongly, about AGF. AGF sounds like a great idea, but in practice, in the long run, it and other related elements of Wikipedia infrastructure have wrought tremendous harm to Wikipedia. I used to have a list of three key reasons why AGF is harmful; I could conjure it up again (at some point in my copious free time). A fairly modern discussion has also alerted me that the word "assume" is understood in different ways by some people; my experience of English suggests the general meaning of the word is the one in the anonymous saying "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me"; that is, to asume something is to believe it incautiously, to make a certain kind of unwise presumption. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:11, 22 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Btw, for perspetive: n:WN:Never assume.  Keeping in mind, that's customized for a news wiki.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:16, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I did not get you properly. AGF might not be a good idea on Wikinews, but I am not sure what's the problem with it on Wikibooks. We do that here , right for the same reason as given in Wikibooks as why AGF is used.--Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 17:21, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Honestly it was a scratch up, I was going to explain later about in depth about AGF. Honestly I don't understand how assuming good faith is bad. You assume good faith that someone was trying to do something correctly, thus you discuss with the editor what is your reason for the edit? Could you then explain your three reasons why AGF in the long run is harmful? I appreciate it, btw you can strike off AGF and put your siggy there and discuss it on the talk page, they'll be a lot of twisting and turning btw. There needs to be valid/proper reasons for every point in this essay, I might as well list of and explanation of all the points, and I'll make a list of it. --72.84.233.224 (discuss) 17:25, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * My way is a broad, straightforward reason but alas can be explained. Is the situation different at Wikinews? --72.84.233.224 (discuss) 17:30, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I should try explaining some history, from a personal perspective. So here is the short-list I came up with, of negatives of AGF. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:19, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't take Wikipedia seriously at all for some years, because, well, having seen what people do to subway stations and public restrooms it didn't seem plausible anything useful could come of an encyclopedia anyone at all would be allowed to edit. In 2005 (iirc) I looked at it, and, noticing a typo on the page I was looking at, I fixed it.  In the process I was presented with reasons to register, and decided if I ever had occasion to edit Wikipedia a second time, I would register.  About a year later I did have occasion, and registered.  Wikipedia was a much, much friendlier place then.  Shortly after arrival I received a welcome message on my user talk page, which really did make me feel welcome.  It was immediately apparent to me that it would be impossible to read the mountain of policies, guidelines, help pages, essays, and whatnot, so I figured I'd have to just hang around, such as I had time for, help out a little here and there, and gradually pick things up by osmosis.  My attitude was that nothing in my past experience was necessarily applicable to Wikipedia, until I'd learned more about it; my previous experience failed to explain why Wikipedia was working at all, so I was very much inclined to reserve judgement.  I did immediately note some really major things, though, and one of them was AGF.  I want to do justice to the impression AGF made on me.  With those subways and restrooms &mdash; and my general experiences of human nature &mdash; in mind, I read about assuming good faith, and thought, Wow.  These people are insane, pie-in-the-sky idealists.  I want to be part of that!  Idealism is vital to a volunteer project; there's a question of what ideals a project should embrace, but embracing some form of idealism really is important.
 * About a year later I discovered WP:ZEN. Its advice to "assume good faith, even when you don't" was my first exposure to the idea that AGF doesn't mean what it literally says (as I understand the word "assume").  I wasn't entirely sure I fully grokked what WP:ZEN was saying, but I could see there was something to it.  About this time, btw, I also branched out to explore Wikibooks; I approached it with the same attitude that had worked so well at Wikipedia:  that nothing in my past experience was necessarily applicable to wikibooks, until I'd learned more about it &mdash; which included, nothing about my experience of wikipedia was necessarily applicable to wikibooks.  I noticed that AGF existed as a proposal but wikibookians had chosen not to adopt it; but since wikibooks was obviously a good place too, this didn't bother me.
 * About a year after that, I felt comfortable with my understanding of AGF, including WP:ZEN's commentary on it. But this is also when I branched out again to another sister, this time Wikinews.  Once again I took the attitude that nothing in my past experience would necessarily apply, including my experiences of wikipedia and wikibooks.  I did find it remarkable that Wikinews actively rejected AGF; I was by this time thoroughly indoctrinated in AGF, so much so that I now found it as strange to think a wiki could function without AGF as I had, two years earlier, to think a wiki could function with it.  At that time, there were deep tensions within the Wikinews community &mdash; not that I was immediately aware of them, as a newcomer, but the evidence was there and I can see it now as I look back on those times &mdash; between the hard-news people and, essentially, the AGFers.  The hard line was that assuming anything is anathema to good journalism.  Those tensions did, in fact, get worse as time went on, and eventually exploded; after the fireworks there were two waves of Wikinewsies leaving, one to join the anti-Wikinews subcommunity at wikipedia, the second to a "fork" of the project (but they never did fork our archives).  The fork had AGF as a major principle; but from all I've heard about them, what really held them together was anti-Wikinews sentiment, and that just isn't enough to make a news wiki work.  Classic journalistic ideals, that deep belief in the value of netural, accurate reportage?  That is powerful enough to hold together a community, and it stayed on wikinews.  At any rate, the fork died, wikinews goes on, and because the AGFers had left, with the hard-news faction left in purified form at wikinews, we were able to focus on various things that &mdash; in retrospect &mdash; we'd been distracted from by all the infighting with the AGF faction.  For one thing, we were finally able to formulate explicitly the principle the hard-liners had always espoused instead of AGF: Never assume.
 * Throughout the most turbulent years on wikinews, I had tried really hard to explain the differences between wikinews and wikipedia as being natural consequences of the differences in what the projects do. There are differences in workflow between those two projects that really are natural consequenes of the differences in what the projects do.  However, although it was always easy to make the case that AGF was wrong for wikinews, after years of trying I finally admitted that I was unable to make the case that AGF was right for wikipedia &mdash; only that its ill consequences were less immediately obvious in the wikipedian context.  The closest I'd come was the observation that on wikinews, technical considerations are paramount in the short term and social interactions take place over a comparatively longer term, while on wikipedia, social interactions are paramount in the short term while technical consderations can be dealt with over a comparatively longer term.  However, to complete this line of reasoning I needed to show that the net social effect of AGF on wikipedia is positive, and also that the negative effects of AGF on wikinews do not apply to wikipedia; and I was unable to show either of those things.
 * AGF, if its name is taken literally (and the short name is always the most important thing about such a principle), is telling the contributors to an information-providing project to assume something. Information providers shouldn't be in the habit of assuming things.  I've been writing a whole essay on the subject of the importance of critical thinking for the wikimedian educational mission; it's been in-development for the better part of a year now, and it's a really challenging subject.  But the simple bottom line here is still that information providers shouldn't be in the habit of assuming things.
 * If the contributor eventually achieves a deeper understanding of AGF (as, for example, I did after spending a whole year meditating on what WP:ZEN said about AGF), it turns out AGF doesn't mean literally what it says &mdash; and that means it's teaching contributors, by example, that it's just fine to say something different than what you mean. Information providers shouldn't be in the habit of saying something different than what they mean.
 * Users who are not acting in the best of faith can &mdash; and given enough time more and more of them do &mdash; learn to wield AGF as a weapon. In the hands of a skilled operator, AGF can be used first as a shield, making them impervious to attack for bad faith, and then for assault against their victims who they've managed to goad into reacting to them.  Here's a Slate article, from about a year ago, that might offer some perspective on the sorts of people one can encounter:.
 * Btw, a small postscript on the Never assume principle of en.wn. It might not sound like much, and it's written in a highly compact style, but it's highly nontrivial.  Never assume serves many of the same functions as AGF; and it's important that it's spelled out explicitly.  Once upon a time, en.wn had a social debacle in which the community as a whole was too quick to assume the worst, because at the time the principle wasn't spelled out explicitly.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 00:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ thanks for the input Pi Zero, much appreciated. --atcovi (talk) 15:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)