Wikipedia:Assume bad faith

"WP:APF" redirects here. For April Fools Day jokes, see WP:April Fools.

“ 'Can you direct me to the railway station?' asks the stranger.

'Certainly,' says the local, pointing in the opposite direction, towards the post office,

'and would you post this letter for me on your way?'

'Certainly,' says the stranger, resolving to open it to see if it contains anything worth stealing.

” — Amartya Sen

Everybody is acting in bad faith except for me and my monkey (and I'm not too sure about him either.)

Here signs that you should take some time off away from edit wars, or at the very least, a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Or walk the dog if you're more of an outdoorsy type.

Reactions to admin decisioins

If an admin has done something that you disagree with, such as removing a typo in your post or deleting a page that you don't want deleted, they must be a vandal who has taken the time to become an admin so they can troll you. Make sure to send an ALL-CAPS SCREAMING EMAIL to the Wikimedia Foundation. They will probably respond in a manner that you didn't want them to, or not at all. That's because they are in league with the rogue admin. In that case, hack their accounts and take over Wikipedia. If you can't hack them, sue them. Legal threats are never not allowed!

Additionally consider following the BOLD, Revert, Revert, Revert cycle.

If all else fails, consider climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man. We here at Wikipedia show substantial concern interest in these sorts of events.

Reactions to other editors

• "That editor is a/an..."
  • Sockpuppet
  • Meatpuppet
  • Edit warrior
  • Cliquish POV pusher
  • Power-drunk admin
  • Drunk admin
  • Rouge admin
  • Vandal
  • Troll
  • Activist
  • (insert profane language here)
  • Spy
  • Social engineer
  • Liar
  • Buzzkill
  • School kid
  • Chūnibyō
  • Stalker
  • Conspiracy nut
  • Strawman with an agenda
  • Zionist
  • Nazi
  • Nazi Zionist
  • Gay
  • Homophobe
  • Homophobic homosexual
  • Radical liberal
  • Radical conservative
  • Radical centrist
  • Stormcloak
  • Imperialist
  • Communist
  • Anarchist
  • Communazi
  • Socialist
  • Capitalist
  • Socialist capitalist
  • Social Justice Warrior
  • Privileged White Heterosexual Cisgender Male
  • Tool
  • Idiot
  • Animal
  • Enderman
  • Gungan
  • Aminal
  • Vegetable
  • Mineral
  • Florida Man
  • Philosophical zombie
  • stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking, Nerf-herder!
  • Anthromorpic discoball
• "That sucks!"
• "That's gay!"
• "That's doodoo!"
• "That's fascism!"
• "That's communism!"
• "That's fascist communism!"
• "That sounds like Traitor Talk!
• "That looks Un-American!
• "This is the work of the Cabal!"
• "I'm a BAWSS, and you're not!"
  • This line is quite a normal thought when you are involved with the Mediation Cabal.
• "This is all to promote the ________ agenda!"
• "This editor tells lies!"
• "This editor needs to be banned!"
• "Go to the military and get a life!"
• "This editor needs to be slapped with a trout!"
• "Go fry your hat; I have more edits than you do."
• "Anyone who edits my words is committing censorship."
• "The other editor is only doing this because they hate me."
• "If I compromise, they'll know it's a sign of weakness."
• "You must have intentionally made that little innuendo."
• "Only partisans of attack sites would have that opinion!"
• "I can do whatever I want, even if policy goes against me."
• "This editor edits in a way that I don't like. They must DIE^[ironic]."
• "This editor is too young, too simple and sometimes naive. This editor lacks knowledge of history."
• "I don't like that quoted passage – I'll rewrite the quote!"
• "Well, yeah, I make up my references. Don't you do that too?"
• "This editor moved pages quickly, therefore they must be a vandalbot!"
• "If all else fails, I'll complain to Jimbo. That'll shut them up."
• "Damn it, Justin Bieber on Twitter is notable because I say so!"
• "I didn't breach the 3RR policy! My edits were over 24 hours and 1 second!"
• "I didn't breach the 3RR policy! My edits were over 24 hours and 2 seconds!"
• "I didn't breach the 3RR policy! My edits were over 24 hours and the amount of time it took for me to see a revert, feel intense, overwhelming anger, click the 'edit' button, switch to source editing, unedit that other person's edit because I can't be bothered to revert it via History and save my edit!"
• "I don't care if NPOV is a policy, that admin is just bullying me!"
• "I don't care if NPOV is a policy, that IP/user has something against me!"
• "Prove it. (As soon as you do I'll raise the bar a little higher)."
• "I have my own Prime Directive: Ignore all rules."
• "If three editors revert my edits it's not consensus. It's a cabal."
• "If an administrator joins them it's an abuse of power."
• "Everybody is wrong, crazy, stupid or all of the above. Except me."
• "OH! I'm at 2 reverts, they're at 3, so 1 more revert, and they go over!"
• "Policy was misused against me and even if it wasn't, the policy sucks."
• "That policy page is wrong because it doesn't describe what I do. I'll fix it."
• "Policy says talk pages shall never be edited by someone smashing the edit link, and since that admin edited my talk page in that way to fix a typo, he shall be blocked and lose admin and edit privileges"
• "While I'm at it I'll alter another policy that I'll cite as precedent."
• "My opinion becomes encyclopedic if I keep repeating it on the talk page."
• "I assumed you were neutral party. Since you disagree with me, apparently you are not."
• "Don't you people have anything better to do than to keep asking for sources?"
• "Terible grammer and spelling is what you hav. 4 u I fizxed the whol artical."
• "I can still accuse you of original research if I don't read your citations."
• "I'll find an obscure publication using Google Books, then cite that for my own POV."
• "It isn't original research if I vanity publish and then cite myself anonymously."
• "I don't like where you moved this page, so you were doing it to provoke an edit war."
• "I know! I'll do the most trollish, evil or assholish thing I can, because it'll be funny!"
• "Instead of driving to the library and looking up that page number, let's just quarrel for weeks."
• "Filling a user's talk page with the word 'fuck' 1800 times will persuade them to my point of view."
• "How many people really fact check a citation? I'll make up some footnotes for my beliefs."
• "That was a false consensus! I couldn't participate because I was blocked for reverting and disruption."
• "That's not the consensus version, only my version can be the consensus version. I know, I'll revert!"
• "Somebody with similar opinions to yours was a troll that got banned. Therefore, you're a troll too!"
• "An article formerly here was deleted, so this new article must be a re-creation of deleted content!"
• "That editor knows NOTHING about what they're writing about, what business do they have with this article?"
• "If I change this . to a , in WP:OMG, section 23, 42nd paragraph, line 1337, policy will cover my ass!"
• "Policies are only guidelines! Unless they support my position, in which case they are, of course, set in stone."
• "I can disguise my own history of blocks and warnings if I just keep accusing the other editor of breaking policy."
• "If you can't cite it via a web link, it's an unreliable source and should be removed! Dead trees are for grandpas!"
• "This 'copyediting' idea is wonderful: those other editors don't know what a gerund is. Now I can write things my way."
• "[If an admin] My foes need a lesson in humility. Their user pages shall be replaced with long strings of insults, then locked."
• "How dare you accuse me of quoting from memory! Just because I keep misspelling the author's name and can't give a page number..."
• "That so-called 'fact' presented is just the author's POV. After all, truth is a whole, and on the whole, only I have the truth."
• "That editor is an utterly pretentious bastard, a bledger and old fart, a worthless steaming pile of cow dung, figuratively speaking."
• "Anyone who wants to contribute positively would have registered an account; therefore, all edits by anonymous IPs should be reverted."
• "Somebody already put a footnote at the end of this paragraph. Sweet! I can write anything I want here and it will look referenced."
• "[If an admin] I feel OK permblocking somebody because they won't personally work with me even though there's a whole section of the site devoted to this issue."
• "You apparently live in the same arm of the Milky Way as a notorious banned troll, so you're probably one of their meatpuppets."
• "That editor who's supporting my opponent is either a puppet or a friend called in to help. After all, could more than one person oppose my natural good sense?"
• "If I cite this to a book that doesn't have a web link, I can make up absolutely anything I like and cite it. Nobody ever checks book references, after all!"
• "If two editors revert my edits they must be violating WP:OWN. Never mind that I refuse to counter their references or respond to them on the talk page."
• "Lots of people think my article should be deleted. I'll post sockpuppet tags on all their talk pages and then go nominate articles they've created for deletion."
• "I categorically reject your analysis of my advertising DVDs in Wikipedia articles as false and itself biased! Wait till my organization gets a hold of you..."
• "They're a disruptive troll! I'll follow them around to warn others about their disruptive trolling! (Please ignore the fact that I have no proof of them being a disruptive troll.)"
• "This experience [of having my POV edits reverted, and getting blocked for a 3RR violation] has severely tainted the image of Wikipedia and unless justice is served I doubt I will ever use Wikipedia again."
• “Reverting a SOCK. They are at SPI now, but they reverted an admin's SOCK removal edit earlier. 100% a SOCK.“
• "If a featured article has 70 footnotes to 26 different sources and I disagree with one footnote (but don't have any citation of my own to refute it with), then the integrity of the article is compromised by too much reliance on a single source."
• "I know exactly what it means because I can read English and follow blue links that explain technical terms. The fact that an article could not be understood by a medically illiterate person who can't be bothered to follow blue links or use a dictionary does not mean that it is gibberish."
• "Wikipedia should accept my claims without reliable sources because my local library is too small to cover the subject. If someone suggests I try interlibrary loan or concede the point, then they're violating WP:CIVIL by calling me lazy."
• "This editor made a few dozen edits to one article in one day right before they submitted the page for a good article nomination, but I'm in a dispute with them. I'll cite that number of edits as evidence of trollish behavior."
• "If someone asks me to assume good faith twice, then the appropriate response is to insist that I obviously can't communicate with them because they keep throwing policy at me. It is also appropriate to call the request a defense mechanism."
• "Yes, I'm an irrational troll. And yes, any third-grader chosen at random could see that my edits are made with a desperate need to control my surroundings and browbeat all opponents into submission. BUT YOU CAN'T DRAW THAT CONCLUSION! YOU HAVE TO ASSUME GOOD FAITH, OR YOU'RE AN EVIL MONSTER!"
• "Wikipedia should accept my claims without reliable sources because the universe is too small to cover the subject. If someone suggests sticking to topics where there is some trace of existent reference materials, then they're violating WP:CIVIL by calling my work original research."
• "This [having links I inserted to my own Web site removed and getting blocked after re-inserting them] is just another case of an abuse of privilege. You feel that since you have power over someone who disagrees with your policy that you are entitled to discard rationale and impose your will. By chance, are you a communist or related to Fidel Castro?"
• "I see what you're doing there. By changing one letter in my article, you have hereby performed something tantamount to slander of my good name, and therefore, you should be distrusted, nullified, and, from here on out, sacrificed to the Total Perspective Vortex. I might recommend a cup of tea, mate."
• "If I don't like a well-referenced article I'll nominate it for deletion and call it fundamentally unencyclopedic. If the consensus decides to keep I'll slap the article with a POV flag. If an editor requests an explanation for the POV flag I'll explain nothing for two weeks, but revert instantly if they remove the flag."
• "If all of Wikipedia doesn't shape up and remove everything that doesn't reflect the truth as I know it, and change all of its policies and structures to ensure that none of the stuff I don't like ever makes it back again, it's certain to get sued and/or prosecuted for libel, slander, defamation, product tampering, DUI, global warming, treason, blasphemy, buggery, defenestration, privilege, and/or genocide. And, no, this is not a legal threat."
• "Obviously all those editors who disagree with me must be sockpuppets. I am so completely, obviously, gigantically, and undeniably right that even one dissenting opinion is shocking; two or more are totally unthinkable. On the other hand, anyone perverse enough to disagree with me and my magnificent rightness is exactly the kind of sneaky snivelling wretch who'd stoop to running a sock farm."
• "This page is unencyclopaedic! Hot damn it, it's just not notable! I don't like it anyway! It's got no reliable sources! You can't verify a single damn thing in it! Right, that's it, I am officially losing my temper over this and I'm nominating this crock of crap for deletion, and so help me who ever gets in my way! Get rid of this rubbish! Now! Now! It's just not funny. What do you think this place is anyway – Uncyclopedia or something? This place is supposed to be a serious matter! And get those kittens out of my face before I scream my head off and climb the Reichstag dressed as Spiderman so you can all hear me!"
• "That editor is as dumb as a spider! He can't even upload an image and put correct captioning! And are you serious?!!! You are a using "u" for You??! Hey, Go to Preschool again and learn the damn alphabet! Get a mind! And hey, don't even THINK about trying to edit! You just aren't good enough! In fact, Your even stupider than a spider like i said before! You're stupid as a blind fish! Hey, why don't you go to the center of the earth and then come back up in 20 days and then you'll be good enough! OH!! And I forgot! You have such bad spelling! Did you even go to 3rd grade?! You wanna fly somewhere? Well your skills are so bad you can't book a flight without even the best understanding man alive know what it means ya dumb horse! Why don't you just leave Wikipedia and go back to school and watch Mickey Mouse Cartoons and maybe learn. For Pete’s Sake, get a life! What some motherfucker you are! And holy mother freaking Frack, You saved your edits without previewing?! Oh for freaking sake! Your edit is horrible, it looks like a baby who took a dung in the pool that edited! I'm literally having a freaking temper tantrum! And hey, why don't you edit UNCYCLOPEDIA?! I just hate this junk truly. GTFO!"
• "What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo."
• "RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH!"
• (insert something that will flag the edit filter)

The end result?

This is the serious part of the essay. Everything below this line should be taken seriously.

Congratulations, you just deceived yourself. Now enjoy your Wikipedia block while it lasts. Even if you try to appeal with the admins saying yes and yet you keep assuming bad faith...well...it's game over for your IP address. You may want to sockpuppet by swapping IP addresses with another user, well, sorry to say this but your ISP has caught you red-handed, and your ISP has now banned you from Wikipedia.

Now you might think you can still assume bad faith on other Wikimedia projects since you're blocked only on Wikipedia...well...BUSTED! You are now banned from all Wikimedia projects permanently!

Tempting it may be, but in reality please consider reading and following Wikipedia:Assume good faith, before editors start viewing you as being obnoxious.

See also

• m:How to win an argument
• m:Assume bad faith
• m:The Wrong Version
• Wikipedia:The Last Word
• Wikipedia:Assume good wraith
• Wikipedia:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you
• Wikipedia:Yes legal threats
• Badfaith userbox