Wikipedia:Assume high intelligence
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This essay is currently orphaned. Few or no project pages link to this page. This may result in the page having low readership and little or no improvement. Please help by introducing links to this page from other related project pages. |
To assume high intelligence should be a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. Although we may not know many of the other people who edit Wikipedia articles alongside us, it is likely that they have a curiosity about life that derives from high cognitive ability.
The purpose of this policy is to address a perceived gap left by Wikipedia:Assume good faith, which allows us to assume that someone had good intentions, but lacked the brains to implement them, potentially leading to implied insults and degeneration of the social environment of Wikipedia.
When examining other people's edits, it is important to remember that they, like us, sometimes make mistakes in spite of "knowing it, really", and that it is possible that they are aware of the mistakes they've made, but were not able to correct them before somebody else did. This can be due to any number of reasons, including slow connections, network failure, computer failure, inefficient peripheral devices, and sudden demands of our real life environments.
Things to avoid
[edit]Sometimes, when an editing debate gets heated, one may send talk page messages which question another editor's intelligence, education or training. These types of messages can easily become uncivil and disrespectful. If you are puzzled by another editor's removal of text or images, rather than sending a snarky message suggesting that they are not intelligent or don't understand Wikipedia, why not simply ask: "I was wondering why you removed text or images on Jan 30?". Just eliminate the "you obviously are not intelligent" comments. : )