User:Thorncrag/Stop assuming good faith

One of the pillars of Wikipedia, and fundamental to maintaining a functional and collegiate atmosphere is to assume good faith. This is pivotal, because with all of the complex machinations of contributing to Wikipedia, it is perfectly reasonable and even expected that editors—particularly new ones—will ultimately make a mistake at one point. There are a lot of guidelines and policies to become aware of, which can take some time to become familiar with. It is for that reason, that we offer liberal and generous amounts of good faith to users who make these honest mistakes.

An assumption is to hold something to be true when given no reason or no evidence to hold to the contrary. As with assume good faith, we assume that a new user's intentions were good because a lack of a user's contributions do not give reason to doubt their good faith.

However, there are some obvious and not-so-obvious limitations that should be applied to this guideline.

Assume does not mean presume

To presume something, is to hold something to be true based on the probability of it being true. This differs from assumption because whereas to assume would be completely absent any evidence, to presume would be based upon the probability given an editor's positive or negative contribution history.

Assume does not mean deduce

Assuming good faith does not mean we ignore a user's editing habits. If a user has shown to be disruptive then it is no longer possible to assume because there is now evidence to the contrary. It is therefore inappropriate to expect or instruct editors to assume good faith of other editors whom have shown to be disruptive. A reasonable person standard must be employed here: if a user's history shows a pattern of becoming disruptive—even if that user has made visible efforts to modify their behavior—at some point, a reasonable person must weight the user's behavior to deduce whether their contributions have been a net positive or a net negative.

Assume good faith should not be employed as a bludgeon

Sometimes it is easier to tell an editor to assume good faith when raising concerns than to actually look into the claims of that editor. We must however be cognizant of the possible circular reasoning we may be employing here: to claim that the complaining user is not themselves assuming good faith is in fact failing to assume good faith with regard to the complaining editor. We should be very careful as reasonable editors not to fail to assume good faith when suggesting that others do.

Assume good faith does not apply to trolls

Because Wikipedia is open to editing by all, it is ripe for being invaded by trolls. These users, as discussed in this ARBCOM opinion of trolls, employ sometimes intricate tactics of disruptive behavior, purely for the sake of relishing and or gauging the reaction generated by their actions. These users should never be offered an assumption of good faith: doing so only delays the eventual and inevitable outcome which is removal of the troll. Once a troll is identifying, their editing privileges should be revoked, and they should be ignored under the denial guideline.