Wikibooks talk:Assume good faith

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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. Meatball: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)

[edit] 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. --darklama 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 Wikibooks: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)