[WikiEN-l] Assume bad faith, for banned users.

[William Pietri]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> Banned users have been banned for a reason. That reason makes the
> assumption of bad faith valid. The policy of "Assume Good Faith" says:
>
> "Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume that people
> who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it."
>
> The fact that they've been indefinitely banned *is* strong evidence to
> the contrary.
>   

I think it depends on how you mean that.


Even when dealing with people acting in an obviously dangerous or 
harmful way, I think it is worth treating them as if they were good 
people temporarily doing something wrong, either because of good 
intentions gone wrong or temporary insanity.

There are a lot of reasons for treating bad actors that way. One big one 
is that most people are very reactive. If you treat them in a way that 
they perceive as friendly, sympathetic, and respectful, they are much 
more likely to respond in kind. Another reason is that a lot of people 
like fighting: if you don't fight with them, they'll eventually go find 
somebody else to scrap with.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't deal firmly and strongly with people 
behaving badly. But you can still do that with love and respect, the 
same way you can firmly handle a toddler having a screaming fit.


So if you're saying we should assume that banned people will probably 
continue to misbehave, I'm all for that. Leopards rarely change their 
spots, and the same goes for WP:TIGERS. But a number of our banned 
contributors aren't banned because they actually mean ill. Some mean 
well, but define "well" differently. Some have trouble doing good when 
they mean well. And some are just troubled. None of that is bad faith.

William


-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri