Wikipedia talk:Assume good faith

Abuse of AGF in AfDs

Related to the above: several times now, I have seen arguments in AfD discussions that go like this: "There's a source of this article, but it's print/behind a paywall, so we have to AGF that it demonstrates the notability of the subject". I would like to add a statement to this guideline making it clear that this an incorrect application of AGF. The only good-faith assumption one can make about an inaccessible source is that it supports some statement in the article, not that it demonstrates notability (i.e., by being independent and offering significant coverage), unless the editor who added that source explicitly stated such. I propose to add a subsection to "About good faith", as follows:

@Czar and Rubbish computer

Good faith and inaccessible sources

When an editor has added a source to an article, they are implicitly asserting that the source supports one or more statements in the article, which may be indicated with inline citations. Unless explicitly stated, the act of adding a source does not imply an assertion that the source meets criteria of the general notability guideline; i.e., that it is independent of the subject and offers significant coverage of the subject. Assuming good faith in this case means assuming that sources support the statements they are claimed to support (though that is still subject to requests for verification). It does not entail assuming that sources meet criteria which the editor adding the source has not asserted they meet.

—swpb^T 18:20, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

After nine days without comment; I'm adding this to the page under WP:BOLD. —swpb^T 17:45, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Oppose. Sorry,you have to seek a broader consensus on that, not just ping one or two colleagues, who may be busy in real life or don't care. This is your interpretation which I disagree in many respects. For starters, I fail to see which kind of serious problem it tries to resolve which would deserve a separate section. Also I disagree with your interpretation of you AfD case. In AfD we cannot AGF nothing like that. It is a burden of the person who adds information to make sure it satisfies all wikipedia rules. We assume GF up to the point when something is contested. From that point on, the contested issue must be resolved by arguments, not by trust in wikipedians we do not. Yes, we AGF even up to the point of innocent mistake, which may include misinterpretation of notability, reliability, and what's not. This guideline is a generic polite way to resolve conflicts by not turning natural human error-prone nature into a drama. We don't have to write a separate rule for each and every possible accidental misinterpretation of our guidelines. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:50, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Nine days is more than long enough when no one says anything: we'll obviously have to have a discussion now that you've objected, but I completely and vehemently reject the implication that I did anything wrong by BOLDing after more than a week of silence; that is exactly what WP:BOLD and WP:BRD would have me do. Now, to your actual, valid content concern: This really does come up in AfDs all the time; enough, IMO, to warrant mentioning here (unlike "each and every possible accidental misinterpretation"). To your other concern: I'm totally fine with saying don't AGF that a source supports article content; the important point is, really don't AGF that a source meets GNG. If you want to counter-propose some text that would make that clearer, it would be appreciated. —swpb^T 14:37, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

I am not saying that you did something wrong. I say you could have done a bit better.

I dispute with equal vehemence that I could have done anything better. I handled the proposal exactly as it should have been handled. —swpb^T 16:12, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

re "does come up at AfDs" - May be I am stupid, but I fail to see how this may influence validity arguments in deletion besides poisoning the discussion. Please give a sample scenario to show why this is special. People accuse each other of bad faith all the time. If anything of really-really frequent AGF failure is accusations in vandalism, but we don't have a separate section about this, do we? Staszek Lem (talk) 22:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Staszek Lem. Also, I've seen people fake sources on this site. If I have even the slightest reason to believe that the source does not support the content in part or in full, I am going to make that suspicion known. And I don't think that doing so should be considered a violation of the assume good faith guideline. I'm not sure what you mean by the source meeting the "criteria of the general notability guideline"; sources and their authors don't have to be notable. The notability guideline is about creating articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

You don't understand: I'm not saying sources or authors need to be notable, or anything remotely like that. I'm saying that people use AGF to claim that, because a source is present, it contributes to establishing that the article meets GNG, which is a misuse of AGF. Like I told Lem, I'm not asking for any statement about how AGF applies to whether a source supports content, I'm only interested in stating that AGF does not support the leap from "a source is present" to "the source, by its mere presence, supports the case that the article meets GNG". Please take a look at this revised, shortened text and see if it makes more sense to you:

The act of adding a source does not imply an assertion that the source supports a case that the article meets the general notability guideline; i.e., that the source is reliable, independent of the subject, and offers significant coverage of the subject. Assuming good faith does not entail assuming that sources meet criteria which the editor adding the source has not explicitly asserted they meet.

—swpb^T 16:12, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

To editor Flyer22 Reborn: If you have a chance, I'd appreciate you considering the above revision. —swpb^T 21:07, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Since you've clarified, I guess I don't object. One editor above does, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:57, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

AGF and Copyrights

A fail to see why this section is necessary. The whole text is applicable to each and every rule. For example, about citing your sources:

"When dealing with possible WP:RS violations, good faith means assuming that editors intend to comply with site policy and the law. That is different from assuming they have actually complied with either. Editors have an obligation to provide adequate references, and material may be deleted if the references are inadequate. Good faith corrective action includes informing editors of problems and helping them improve their practices."

Unless there is a solid evidence of AGF-based civility conflicts due to copyrights, I move to delete this section as pointless instruction creep. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:20, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

RFC: A common abuse of AGF in AfDs

The consensus is against including the proposed text in the guideline. Cunard (talk) 05:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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@Czar and Rubbish computer (see #Faith and verification above)

There is a fairly frequent argument in AfD discussions that goes like this: "There's a source of this article, but it's print/behind a paywall, so we have to AGF that it demonstrates the notability of the subject". I would like to add the following statement to this guideline, at the bottom of the section "About good faith", making it clear that this an incorrect application of AGF. —swpb^T 16:43, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Good faith and inaccessible sources

The act of adding a source does not imply an assertion that the source supports a case that the article meets the general notability guideline; i.e., that the source is reliable, independent of the subject, and offers significant coverage of the subject. Assuming good faith does not entail assuming that sources meet criteria which the editor adding the source has not explicitly asserted they meet.

Comments

• To elaborate on what I said above, yes, there is a confusion that AGF means "take claimants at their word" instead of "assume good intentions". As part of the fallible editing process, editors (including myself) have interpreted and paraphrased sources incorrectly. We're closer to trust-but-verify in this way—in the spirit of verifiability, I try to make scans of offline sources available for verification purposes when requested by fellow editors. Imagine the implications otherwise. For example, I quote an offline source and no one checks the ref or feels that they can ask → no one catches my error in interpretation. Another example: I cite a pull quote from an Amazon page as proof that the item was reviewed in some specific journal → if no one checks the actual source, we're believing an unreliable source rather than the actual material. We have a good precedent in giving other editors good faith and the benefit of the doubt in at least not assuming malice on their behalf. But we would be quite lost if we "assumed on faith" that other editors are beyond reproach and that their due diligence is the final word, or something that should go unchecked.  czar 18:09, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

So that's a support? This is a different issue from "trust-but-verify that a source supports given content". In this case, there is no claim, even an implicit one, for AGF to adhere to; this isn't about whether a source supports adjacent content (which would be expected), but whether it counts toward GNG, which individual sources are not required or expected to do. We could add language about the relationship between inaccessible sources and content, but I'm primarily interested in the first point: that the mere presence of a source does not imply notability under AGF. This is an "it shouldn't have to be said, but apparently it does." —swpb^T 20:09, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support This seems reasonable. This policy is about the intentions of editors, not the veracity of their claims. While I don't really like the need to insert this, it clearly exists, so... Tamwin (talk) 04:58, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
• Support. I have come across fake reference hundreds of times. Some article creators, especially those who have a COI (paid advocates, other spammers, rappers) assume no one is ever going to check up on the veracity of the sources. Particularly barrel-scraping source-bombers who think it will take too much time and trouble for anyone to check them all.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:01, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
• strong oppose - instruction creep. If the source is inaccessible and there is a doubt about anything the source is claimed to say, WP:V requires that the person who added it (or whoever else) provide a quotation to prove it says whatever it says. We can assume AGF on anything up until the moment something is challenged. The editor acting in good faith may mess up almost everything. AGF is a behavioral guideline to prevent bitter fights upon honest accidental mistakes, but it is not the content guideline. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose instruction creep, because it's unrelated to this guideline, and because the rationale for adding this language seems to be a support for deleting articles at AfD when the available sources are paywalled, which runs against WP:V (there's no requirements that all readers can access a source, only than some can; it's no different from an offline reference). As Staszek Lem stated, the proper procedure in AfDs would be to request someone to quote the most relevant portions of the article (which should be clear fair use). If there is no one who can access the source at that particular time, the AfD should be paused until someone can do it later; we are not in a rush. Diego (talk) 10:23, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose  I don't see any examples of the problem, so it is not possible to review the underlying issue.  The fact that sources don't in and of themselves speak to WP:GNG doesn't change any evidence that they do speak to WP:GNG.  So this text would only be used to note that we don't assume that all sources contribute to WP:GNG, which is irrelevant in a context in which there is evidence that a source does contribute to WP:GNG, and is unhelpful anyway because we already know that not all sources in an article contribute to WP:GNG.  Unscintillating (talk) 18:06, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. I agree with other editors that this becomes instruction creep. And it really just seems to me to be a case of imprecise choice of words. If someone disagrees with the paywall argument in a particular discussion, it's not like they are going to be taken to ANI for an AGF violation (at least not successfully). As noted, just ask someone with source access to provide a quote. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:53, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. While I agree with the sentiment AGF can get misued in this instance (that's for editor actions, not sources), there isn't a concise why to codify against it, and it does appear to be unneeded instruction creep. If someone asks for a quote from someone who does have access, and they simply respond by saying please AGF, that isn't valid in any AfD discussion. We already have WP:PAYWALL, which is policy. If there is a reasonable suspicion that the source does not support the content (or a question of notability for AfD), then a quote should be provided from the source for talk page discussions. If someone really wants to curtail misuse of AGF here, paywalled/inaccessible sources would be better addressed at WP:V or WP:GNG. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:36, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose: Clear instruction creep. While I can understand the reasoning, I think it is misplaced. Assuming good faith is a criteria found in the fundamental principles of Wikipedia under Editors should treat each other with respect and civility. WP:GNG states "If a topic has received "significant coverage" in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list.". If there is only one source, behind a paywall or not, there is a good chance notability is in question. If content related then such content may not conform to a neutral point of view, or other policies and guidelines. Even some community supported essays might carry weight. An error in judgement can certainly be made in good faith, and we can all make errors without malice, so questioning notability, or article content, does not in any way breach good faith as long as there is civility. Wikipedia has many dispute resolution procedures already in place. Concerning GNG; remember, ""Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject should be included". This, as well as article content, is governed by consensus and BLP's are scrutinized more carefully. Otr500 (talk) 12:08, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose While we can all (mostly) agree that this is something that should not be done, i.e. using AGF to defend inclusion of an article with inaccessible sources by GNG—it's also important not to bloat the AGF page with every possible case to which it does and does not apply. I don't see a compelling reason to make an exception for this specific case. I believe the proper procedure would be to inform users that this argument is a misapplication of AGF. AlexEng^(TALK) 19:25, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comment from 101ramsumer

Dear Sir,

Why have you stated that pasi caste occupation is pig rearing. In India whereas different states has different types of pasi caste. As I am kayasth pasi caste, it means I have also in occupation in pig rearing. What have modified in my pasi caste page is correct and hence delete the humiliating word of pig rearing with immediate effect. Who has given you evidence that all pasi caste is untouchable. How many proof you want about pasi caste. Pasi caste were of royal clone in old age and were emperor of a particular region. Maharaja Bijalee pasi KILA is exist just can see as evidence. Maharaj Lakhan pasi had established which is now capital of UP. and many more like this. At old age because of Muslim assailant on Hindu caste they safe life to rear the untouchable pets at home. Now these habits have been stopped. So I request you delete the unwanted word that humiliate the my pasi caste.

Regards 101ramsumer — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101ramsumer (talk • contribs) 08:58, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BioPseudo (talk) 22:46, 26 March 2017 (UTC)