“Assume good faith” is really hard work in an environment of massive collaboration. (It’s as hard work as “neutral point of view.”) I believe I am the first person to have noticed that “assume good faith” translates as “never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.” Although calling the stupid stupid violates the “no personal attacks” rule.
You know how Wikipedia can’t keep idiots out of experts’ faces? Wikipedia can’t keep idiots out of anyone else’s faces either. This is a special case of “people are a problem.”
I think a more complete translation would be something like “never assume malice when stupidity will suffice; never assume stupidity when ignorance will suffice; never assume ignorance when forgivable error will suffice; never assume error when information you hadn’t adequately accounted for will suffice.”
This is quite excellent. I’d copy it to the Wikipedia project page if I thought it had any chance of lasting more than a second. (So I’ll put it on RW, where you get a free lesson in French as well.)
“Assume good faith” is really hard work in an environment of massive collaboration. (It’s as hard work as “neutral point of view.”) I believe I am the first person to have noticed that “assume good faith” translates as “never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.” Although calling the stupid stupid violates the “no personal attacks” rule.
You know how Wikipedia can’t keep idiots out of experts’ faces? Wikipedia can’t keep idiots out of anyone else’s faces either. This is a special case of “people are a problem.”
I think a more complete translation would be something like “never assume malice when stupidity will suffice; never assume stupidity when ignorance will suffice; never assume ignorance when forgivable error will suffice; never assume error when information you hadn’t adequately accounted for will suffice.”
This is quite excellent. I’d copy it to the Wikipedia project page if I thought it had any chance of lasting more than a second. (So I’ll put it on RW, where you get a free lesson in French as well.)
Great heuristic!