Wikipedia:Forgivist

While forgiving is good and well, someone who chooses a side completely along friendship lines in a civility dispute and then attempts to redefine language and policy to suit their friend is engaged in a battleground behavior. Forgivists take great care to ignore and forget huge infractions by their friends while meticulously picking out the most minor or even non-existent issues of others in a dispute. They are incapable of being objective or rational. Forgivists can exists on either or both sides of a dispute despite whether it involves administrators, editors, or anonymous IPs.

Behaviors

Forgivists will not read the diffs provided against their friends. If they are administrators, they will unblock their friend right away despite ample evidence provided that a violation of policy exists and despite enumorous support of the Wikipedia community. In most cases, forgivists will claim administrator abuse, bias, or involvedness but lack any evidence to support the claims. They will repeat these claims over and over even in the face of overwhelming community rejection of those claims. They will often claim words have different meanings in their local region, they aren't 'that bad', or that they've 'seen worse' and no administrator dealt with it elsewhere. Even when they exist in a tiny minority, they will hold fast to their belief that everyone else is wrong. This isn't to say that the mob knows best, it's to say that it takes more than a rant to prove otherwise. Forgivists will stew and fester over an issue and often bring it up anytime there is a discussion about the other party. They will never accept that they've made a mistake or misunderstanding.

Forgivists will also point to areas where the editor has been beneficial to the community or insist that the editor has always been friendly to them. What they fail to understand is that these things are often not in dispute.

Danger

Forgivists are more of a danger to the Wikipedia community than the actual participants in the dispute. Forgivisits create political lines in Wikipedia and greatly skew policy to favor their friends and then change their perspective on that same policy when applying it to their enemies. They will quickly say policies and guidelines mean two different things and often Wikilawyer over the meanings of specific words and context. Their attitude is hostile. They are not engaged in discussion, they are engaged in war and will attack with their dying breath.

The real danger is that forgivists are more hurtful to their friend than anyone else. They stand in the way of rehabilitation. Their encouragement to their friend to continue the behavior will often embolden their friend which then ends in an indefinite block. Sadly, they and their friend lack the foresight to see this inevitable end and will blame it on the community. Simply, they lack the objectivity to see their own hand that led to the indefinite block. When an editor storms off in anger, forgivists will often be the first to apologize to their friend for the community's "mob rule".

Who are not forgivists

Not everyone who chooses a side in a civility dispute is a forgivists. When diffs are provided in ample supply, lack long rants, and fairly apply guidelines then you are most likely not dealing with a forgivists. While these folks might disagree, the key difference is they are open to collegial discussion and willing to be convinced otherwise.

See also

• WP:BATTLEGROUND