Wikibooks talk:Assume good faith

Adapted from en.wiki. This is just common sense, IMHO already in practice in the community, and should be an officially enforced guideline. -- LV (Dark Mark) 22:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I believed that the Wikibooks policy should somehow be different from the Wikipedia policy, so I edited it - but now it is a lengthy four-section essay. I added some content specific to Wikibooks, but I might also have misinterpreted "assume good faith" in some way. Other users should edit the policy, because a few users alone cannot represent how the community "assumes good faith". --Kernigh 03:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * If something is common sense, the last thing we want to do is create a rule to enforce it. If people can understand how something benefits them, the only purpose of also forcing it upon them is to create a hierarchy of power and control. Before we make ourselves little dictators of our virtual domain, perhaps we ought to think about the ramifications. Systems of crime and punishment are a failure state. They are an admission that we weren't able to work congenially as co-editors on a common project — that our little Animal Farm couldn't exist without making some of us "more equal." Do we really want to duplicate the system of punishment and vandalism that exists at Wikipedia? Is their instruction creep working for them? Perhaps we could learn something from our founder. --Zephram Stark 04:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

"The problem we are seeing, again and again, is this attitude that some poor victim of a biased rant in Wikipedia ought to not get pissed and take us up on our offer of 'anyone can edit' but should rather immerse themselves in our arcane internal culture until they understand the right way to get things done. I do not know what is going to change, but something BIG has got to happen and SOON about this issue, because the amount of time it is consuming for some of our best editors is getting way out of control."
 * ~Jimbo Wales May 3, 2006 WikiEN-l

Maybe this should not be a policy. AssumeGoodFaith is not policy on Meatball. "Assume good faith" is a good concept, but it might not make sense as a policy. (I do not see how Jimbo Wales's quote above is relevant.) --Kernigh 01:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Move To Reject, and include in Help Namespace
If it is common sense, and the last thing needed it to make it into a policy and enforce it, as it is an advice or guide of conduct it should be moved to a Help page in the help namespace. --Panic 01:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Strongly disagree! This isn't some how-to-use-a-talk-page instruction page. It is a statement of what the community sees as unacceptible behaviour. Past experience, from this venue and others like it, shows that when this principle is disregarded communication often soon breaks down and otherwise reasonable people cease to be able to work together.
 * It is imperative that users assume good faith. Repeated disregard of this principle is detrimental to a productive working environment. This policy/guideline will allow the community to discipline those violating it in order to restore more coolheaded debate. --Swift 05:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I support making this a policy/guideline, it is common sense to "good" users, but to others this is a way to define proper behaviour. --Cspurrier 23:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course make this into a policy and guideline, this is quite far the most important thing in any wiki project I think. If two people are in dispute over making a fact or what not, a moderator can mention this guideline to remind them that both are trying to help the wiki not hurt it. Those who want to hurt it probably don´t even have any idea that we have guidelines here. :) --Girdi 18:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * A policy "or" a guideline ?. I have a problem in making this a policy, as good faith can't be truly verified and so enforced (the basis for a policy) as it depends on the scope and personal observation of an action, it is not black and white or a fixed line in the ground . As for the above action it is more or less dead (last year) and was a response for the above discussion with strong arguments to drop it. I would agree in making it a guideline but the point remains is this something we really need ? Can't this be seen in itself like assuming bad faith for users ?  --Panic 20:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Cspurrier 100% (hello craig, long time no see!). This isn't common sense by any means. In fact, I think natural human behavior is to do exactly the opposite of this. I also agree with Cspurrier and Girdi here that this should likely be made into an official policy (i prefer policy to guideline, since there aren't any situations in which we shouldn't assume good faith, or where it would be acceptable not to). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:14, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Well put Whiteknight. I think when two people are arguing, on how an article should be designed, they take it too personal sometimes and start to attack the other contributing user. If they step back a moment and read the Assume Good Faith policy, they would be reminded oh yeah, lets work together for a compromise since we both want to help the wiki not hurt it. That is what makes a good wikiuser. :) --Girdi 20:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * reset

The problem is that it isn't enforcible (heck WK, me and a lot of users could have been targeted at several times in the past if this was a policy), the only reason to make this a policy it to have a punitive side to perceived abusers and this will open things up for witch hunts, any abuses resulting of activating the policy without "good faith" would it self be a violation, things will indeed be funny if this gets policy status...

"the road to hell is paved with good intentions" but the devil is mostly on the eye of the beholder, without assuming bad intentions how would we be able to identify and call them out as such. I'm not even considering levels of threshold that will not be the same across the community. As a policy this will be a problem not a problem solver. --Panic 20:45, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Panic2k4, you seem like you are quoting evil things and such. A healthy enviornment is those which people are open minded to others' ideas and such. Like now, we are assuming that you are assuming good faith now at the moment for helping Wikibooks, whilst you are stating that it is ok to have bad intentions, according to your quote. Hmm. :) --Girdi 21:00, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Not so... One thing is enforcing something tangible that can be fully attested or agreed upon (like for instance the BeCivil) even that policy has from time to time been used to shut down discussion (not altercations) or when something was said out of context or even in the heat of the moment and at least to my knowledge every attempt to make a point about that policy has failed (it would indeed seem be uncivil to call someone uncivil :), we already have a code of behavior and most people do behave, the problem with this assume good faith thing is that it attempts to enforce a policy on "perceived" intentions that is the problem and I think I have already covered all aspects of attempting to enforce (make policy) of this, and can't see a real benefit (unless we are already working against the policy itself). And yes if you put it into those words that is my point it is not ok but it the less evil to let someone have bad intentions we just have to make sure not to let people act on it and if they to the act itself will be the prof...
 * In simpler and very broad terms, it more or less the problem in starting a war with Iran. (just an illustration of the need for facts, perception can be worked on, I don't want to discuss that topic here, but whatever your side or view you have you should see the problem) --Panic 00:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * We make it a policy precisely because it's not part of normal human activity to make such an assumption about those around them. Also, since we are in a completely text-based medium, many of those "cues" from your quote above arent available to us. As an example of this, consider how difficult it is to portray something so common as sarcasm on the internet. It is for the purposes of making peoples intentions more obvious artificially that many things on the internet, such as emoticons, have been created. The point here is that all our members are volunteers, and it should be assumed that people are trying to work for the good of the project unless explicitly noted otherwise. We assume that people are doing their best to try and help, even when it appears that they are causing more harm then good. By making this assumption, we decrease the commonality of witch-hunts, and we put more emphasis on helping new users or assisting other wikibookians. Even a bad action can be assumed to be a mistake, mistakes can be corrected, and the people who made mistakes can be taught to avoid them in the future. Without a mandatory assumption of good faith, every mistake and every disagreement descends into another gigantic internet flame war. I think we can all agree that such descentions are not in the common good. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

For myself, I don't see the reason why we need so many policies and guidelines to cover what amounts to the same thing. Why do we need WB:FAITH, WB:BITE, WB:PROFANE, WB:CIVIL and WB:ATTACK? Surely creating one policy or guideline that covers all behavioral issues is enough? Most non-wiki websites have a "Terms of Use" policy that must be followed that covers all these issues and I think its something we could do too. I don't see a need or point in copying Wikipedia's lead on this. --dark lama  17:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There are some major areas of overlap in that list. For instance, I think that WB:CIVIL and WB:ATTACK are closely-enough related that they could be merged together. WB:BITE Is also similar, but it's a point that is worth making explicitly. WB:FAITH and WB:PROFANE aren't really covered by any of the others. What you are talking about, I think, is having fewer pages of policy, and not really having fewer policies. That is, if we took all these behavior pages and put them into one, we would have multiple policies on a single page. It's not a question of having more or less policy, but a question of whether we want multiple short pages or a single long page that contains all this information. Any behavior policy (or "policies") should cover the same general points: be nice to each other, assume that things are done in good faith, be supportive and helpful to new users, avoid profanity and obscenity, etc. However you prefer to organize these points, so long as they are made explicit, is of no concern to me. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 20:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I go back to the words of User:Zephram Stark above, "If something is common sense, the last thing we want to do is create a rule to enforce it." and reduce it to there is no need to point out the obvious (or be redundant), this will reduce the number of "unneeded" policies. Taking as example the BeBold policy it already does use a reference to good faith in general terms (even if the proposal was linked there), there is no real benefit on providing and enforcing a definition for it, as ultimately it couldn't be attested.
 * Guidelines are a different subject, and using more vague/general notions probably wouldn't create any new problem. Guidelines are mostly informative of the will of the community by having to fallow a formalized process for acceptance, in  using them no one can really abuse or unwilling cause harm with the texts, and so guidelines numbers aren't as problematic,  they serve to refine the understanding Wikibookians have about each others views and on how things should be...  --Panic 21:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * My point is that assuming good faith is not common sense, and that's exactly why we need a policy to enforce it. Your other quote, above, shows that humam common sense is to base our interpretation of another person's intentions on visual and verbal cues, not to have blind faith that all people have good intentions. You're really making my point for me here.
 * Also, as far as I am concerned, the difference between a "policy" and a "guideline" is nominal at best. The only reason why we have guidelines at all is because it seems to make some people feel more comfortable about making something "official". Historically, policy and guidelines are treated basically the same: Follow them as well as you can, break them only if you have very very good reasons to. And before you jump up on your high horse and claim that this is only my "opinion", I'm basing this on the way things have been done around here. From a practical standpoint, whether we should or not, guidelines and policies have been treated the same. With that in mind, the question here is whether we make this "official" or not. Once we have decided to make it official, we can affix any label that makes you feel good about it. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I (and others) do think that it is common sense to expect that people willing to contribute time/work/money in a Wiki environment to collaborate in writing content for free to be doing so in good faith, even more with all other very similar policies already in place. Good faith can also have a limited scope or be very general (toward the final goal), I can act according to some priorities and goals that are not share by you or even actively opposed (vocalized objection, expressed distrust), the way this clash of opinions is expressed can have a myriad of deferent interpretations depending on the position of the observer regarding the parties or in it's relation to the topics.
 * In any case your reference to my high horse is incorrect, I never claimed to have any higher moral ground or any special power to make any claim, only the right to state what I think when I think is best.
 * The tricky part is simple to demonstrate, for example on this subject of Policy vs Guidelines (and your view versus mine) I can prove that I'm at least not alone and provide some historical and even logical facts, I doubt you could do the same, but I for one accept your right to disagree with my view but again will not subscribe as having the rouge view on this.
 * I will point you again that your view in fact is not consensual and is without supporting facts, from our previous discussion on this (here) I make again a historical reference to User:RobinH using the same distinction I do. Don't doubt I could find more examples like:
 * policy - This refers to an official policy document or some other generally accepted policy.
 * guideline - This refers to a less strict guideline, or convention.
 * From Decision making Revision as of 20:22, 20 October 2005, but this is not the core of what we are addressing here now, and Darklama raised even the point that this text may not even be necessary that has a higher contrast to you validating it as a policy, I for myself would not have a problem making it a guideline and since you see them as almost the same thing our positions are really closer :) this time. --Panic 01:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, the fact that policy and guidelines have been treated identically is not my "view". In fact, I haven't said what my "view" on the issue is. All I'm saying is that they have been treated identically here. A distinction has never been made, that I know of, between the way policies and guidelines have been administered here. Present me evidence to the contrary, of course, I would love to see it.
 * Also, I would be fine with making it a guideline. That certainly is better then being lost in the hell that we call the help namespace. Better still, I think, would be to make a "Wikibooks Behavior Handbook" or something that would include all our behavior policies in book-form for easy readability. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you think this subject is important to this discussion I will point out that your view even if not expressed here extensively can be resumed to that there shouldn't be any distinction ("as far as I am concerned, the difference between a "policy" and a "guideline" is nominal at best.") and this was also the basis of our previous discussion on this topic (should versus must), and my claim that only policies are enforcible, to what you disagreed giving the similar status to both. As for evidence of use I already gave it, in discussions and previous text the distinction is prevalent, but to date there hasn't been any practical challenge to it (if so probably done buy myself). Was there any punitive action as result of breaking a guideline ?
 * Ok, so since from all the expressed opinions so far only Darklama expressed a contrary view to this text, let's see if he will be ok with your compromise. In any case the text should be tweaked to reflect some of what was said here, probably simplified, checked against what is now linking to it and altered as a guideline.
 * I'm ok to any action that would make the behavior text more easily available and understandable to Wikibookians, my proposal to use the help namespace was because the proposal seemed bound to be denied and that namespace is were new users will probably look for it (due to our search limitation). --Panic 02:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The case against
I realize that this has not been discussed for quite a while, but with the page remaining classified as a draft proposal there is still a chance it could be promoted at some point, so I thought I'd make my opposition known. "Assume good faith" is a very good principle to follow yourself while working on a collaborative project such as Wikibooks, but having it as a policy or guideline is problematic. Telling someone to "Assume good faith" is often itself a violation of the principle behind that very concept, as it seemingly assumes that bad faith is being assumed&mdash;see this Wikipedia essay. Moreover, when exactly is it all right to conclude that someone is not acting in good faith? Then again, what does "good faith" actually mean in the context of a project like this? If, even after being warned, someone continues to believe sincerely that effectively going against community standards improves the project, and acts on that belief, are they acting in good faith or not, and does it matter at that point? The amount of qualifications and clarifications this page would need hardly seem worth the trouble. No personal attacks, Be civil, and Please do not bite the newcomers should be more than sufficient to articulate what is expected as far as interaction with others is concerned, and if they aren't, it is doubtful that a separate "Assume good faith" guideline would be. Belteshazzar (talk) 09:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I have yet to look deeply in your post, and even if I also don't believe this was a good proposal and it seems you aren't promoting the readdressing of the text or any specific changes to it, I find somethings on your posts that I don't agree.
 * I don't see any issue on a guideline that promotes the assumption of good faith (on the intentions of others), a guideline is just that it is not enforcible and provides some latitude to exceptions or mitigation. It promotes a common starting ground and can help defuse some rash interpretation of the actions of others before it escalates. (Much like the Please do not bite the newcomers guideline)
 * Establishing good faith doesn't by force imply that bad faith is/was expected, it just promotes an understanding that without bellicose activity any action should be considered well intentioned or at least non destructive, it raises the bar to the response that can be given to any perceived (but unclear) bad action.
 * As someone that has actively engaged in civil disobedience on the project in the past and been target of colluded attacks, I don't wish that anything like this gets passed as an enforcible (policy) but on the other hand see in it some benefits as a proactive extension to the Be civil (that indeed is an extension of No personal attacks as one implies the other). But I assure you that even those policies can have the standing of a guideline at times as they rest in a thin gray line... --Panic (talk) 10:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess I wouldn't be upset if this became a guideline, as long as it includes a caution about citing itself in discussion. My preference, however would be for it to be an essay. The problem with making it any more than that, besides the points I made above, is that it tells you how to think. Belteshazzar (talk) 17:23, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I would be fine with it being an essay for now. I think it could be made a guideline later. I think there should be more emphasis on not telling people to assume good faith. I think people should never tell people to assume good faith, but rather explain specifically the motivation or reasoning behind the belief for thinking a person is not assuming good faith instead. Telling people to assume good faith does not allow the real issues to be addressed. I think the proposal was never intended to address how people should think. I think the proposal should focus more on how the actions/edits/contributions people make should be treated with good faith. In other words the proposal should be related to how people behave towards one another rather than how to think. Maybe this is why it seems to me as though you and I are working against each other to some degree. --dark lama  14:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Off topic material?
It seems to me that the Correcting mistakes section gets a bit off the topic of this page. Yes, mistakes are made in good faith, and that is worth mentioning here, but none of the items on the bulleted list seem particularly likely to be taken as bad faith editing. Perhaps the list could be moved to WB:BITE or somewhere else? Belteshazzar (talk) 16:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I think providing some practical examples of how to assume good faith is good to have as part of this page. Seasoned contributors might be less likely to assume bad faith with the examples given than new contributors, but I think proposals are rarely for seasoned contributors to begin with. --dark lama  16:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That said, I did notice there was some overlap between the Correcting mistakes and Practical Application sections, and figured a way to reduce the overlap by merging the two sections. Does that help to address your concerns? --dark lama  16:37, 11 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I still don't really see how any of the mistakes in the bulleted list relate to assuming good faith. It doesn't seem likely that anyone will perceive the addition of out-of-scope material as a deliberate attempt to harm the project, and the other four items seem even less likely to be perceived as malicious. Those things could be responded to inappropriately, but that doesn't mean that anyone is assuming bad faith. That is rather an issue for WB:BITE or WB:Editing guideline to address.
 * I also think that the first section's second paragraph now gets off-topic after the first sentence. Often your best choice is to help preserve information by further editing well-intentioned edits as other people may find some value in those edits. Reverting well-intentioned edits can often cause frustration for everyone, cause valuable and potential contributors to leave Wikibooks, and cause fights for control over the current revision to persist. That tells you how to best handle content problems, but that is only peripheral to "Assume Good Faith". Once again, that would be better addressed by WB:Editing guideline or other pages.
 * I feel that this page overall still has an illogical flow, and removing the off-topic material would help to streamline it. Belteshazzar (talk) 21:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the bulleted list consists of the more frequent examples of problems that people can encounter where it is easy to at times forget to assume good faith. Out-of-scope material and the rest can be deliberate vandalism at times, and people can forget to take a step back and assume good faith when it isn't deliberate, which has lead people to assume bad faith where none existed. That is also why in one form or another the page has mentioned vandalism.
 * Reverting good faith contributions has historically at least been frowned upon at Wikibooks as assuming bad faith and as something that must never be done. I don't actually know this still holds true, but I think its worth including in the proposal for the community to decide on because if it still holds true, it is a major factor in how people believe assume good faith should be applied at Wikibooks. I think that rule is the equivalent of the "zero revert rule" that some people follow at Wikipedia and I've tried to reflect that as I think it applies to assuming good faith here, although probably not as absolute and as enforceable as people might prefer, and to include some of the motivation behind that approach to assuming good faith as I thought was relevant to this proposal. I think this could make sense in WB:BITE too, but I think the problem is this isn't really limited to being polite to new contributors, even though it is one possible factor. I think it isn't really about guidelines for editing either in that its more to do with Wikibooks' etiquette on assuming good faith than it does with editing specifically.
 * I have no objections to trying to improve the logical flow of the page, but I think its important to preserve the information included in the proposal within the proposal, one way or another, unless there is a consensus that both the bullet list and the rest doesn't belong here. dark lama  02:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I will note that the bulleted list of mistakes was long ago removed from this page's "unstable branch" and hasn't been re-added, so whether it has consensus to be here is questionable. I would agree that this page should have some reference to not assuming vandalism, but I think the details should be left to WB:VANDALISM, WB:Editing guideline, and possibly WB:BITE. Belteshazzar (talk) 09:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the diff you pointed to represents the initial fork of this draft where another proposal was to be drummed out as an alternative to this one due to incompatible and conflicting opinions. At some point an attempt was made to incorporate perspectives from that other draft back into this one and to find a balance between the two so the community could agree on a single proposal instead of being split in two on what the policy should be. This occasionally happens and can be a good way to allow people to iron out proposals which appear to conflict with each other and look for a middle ground later. I could point out things in this draft or that draft to try to prove consensus or lack of consensus, but the fact is neither draft actually represents any sort of official consensus yet, otherwise one would already be a policy/guideline and not just a draft. --dark lama  16:23, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I wasn't trying to say that the absence of the bulleted list from the fork proves that it doesn't have consensus to be here, just that it calls that into question. I won't try to remove the bulleted list without feedback from more users, but my opinion is that it shouldn't be here. Belteshazzar (talk) 17:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Applying WB:AGF to itself
Regarding this edit, I think the problem with this logic is that "when people are mistaken, treat it as an honest mistake" doesn't quite get the point across. If you are inclined to think that someone is intentionally spreading misinformation, "when people are mistaken" doesn't apply to the situation in your mind. "When you encounter misinformation" is a more practical characterization in this regard. Belteshazzar (discuss • contribs) 21:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the wording needs to be more neutral in tone. AGF should attempt to demonstrate through its wording how to assume good faith. Patent nonsense and intentionally spreading of misinformation is to assume a person does not have good intentions. The wording may also cause people to entertain ideas they had not thought of before. I doubt examples of changes people disagree with are needed too, because in general changes should not be treated as vandalism. Also there may be no need to revert a revision in order to correct mistakes. I think a far better assumption overall is that any changes are meant to improve factual accuracy, and more changes may be needed in order to achieve factual accuracy. --dark lama  14:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

AGF and vandalism
To let people know, the unstable branch of this page now almost directly contradicts what we say here regarding vandalism. Belteshazzar (discuss • contribs) 07:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Any idea why this is pending approval?
I've seen pretty much everybody follow this policy. 15:28, 28 January 2023 (UTC)