You may know him but I did not, so I erred on the safe side and added the "if there is any truth to it" as it's a much safer default to assume that everything I read on the Internet is possibly made up.

I don’t think assuming stories as untruthful is using good faith. I think this line of thinking heavily contributes to this post-truth society we live in; if everything online is a lie that leaves the individual to create their own truth from the lies leading to this idea of post-truth. Obviously there is more nuance than this because websites need views for ad revenue and people like lying online for imaginary internet points or attention, but I see little reason to lie on HN unless it’s for a company’s PR.

Whether it's "using good faith" is frankly beside the point. Default skepticism is the only way to not get fooled over and over again. People demonstrably don't need a reason to lie beyond craving notoriety; no one on Reddit gets paid for the tall tales they tell. This doesn't mean you just get to make up your own truth either. Rather, it means that finding the truth is very difficult and sometimes you need to explicitly maintain agnosticism, you know, like GP did.

To lean on "good faith" is just another way to lose your nerve and fling yourself on the mercy of blind belief.

Not believing everything you read that causes searching for additional credible sources for corroboration should be the healthy approach. It's quite disengenious to assume the original poster immediately jumped to any conclusion without additional research and landing that it was fake.

I personally think it is the other way around. If people didn't blindly take any story someone they have never met before says as truth, because of "faith" in humanity or whatever, then there would be far less reason for people to be untruthful all the time.

This is a general comment that is in no way related to this particular case, of course.

I know Les and I was also skeptical as to the truth of the story due to the creative style of writing. A bunch of computer nerds are into fiction writing.

I'd say it still sounds a bit hostile. I'd suggest "assuming it's true" as a nicer way of saying it.

Seeing the reply I'm getting, I think this is just the "English is my second language" showing on my side. I always assumed both expression were somewhat equivalent but clearly they aren't.

As a native speaker it appears to me that your audience is being a little uncharitable (they being, ironically, intellectually ungenerous toward you).

I wouldn't concern yourself with it too much. Both of your statements were entirely reasonable and polite in tone and candor. Hair trigger, induced outrage is common among Englisch. They are much less prone to such gewinsel in public, the knives only come out online for whatever reason.

Anyway, it is important to recall that with every move that is made, it will disturb someone else. Impudence should be avoided, but the trivialities and whims of Englisch are of little concern.

I think what /u/not2b was getting at in the bigger picture, is that we can decide for ourselves if something is not likely to be the truth.

But if you explicitly add "if there is any truth to it" to your post, then it suggests to the reader that the story is probably false and that's not a very useful premise to start from.

> I erred on the safe side

The safe side is giving them the benefit of the doubt. Possibly made up, sure, but your "if there’s any truth to it" gave a most probably made up vibe. Not only is that uncalled for, it’s pretty inaccurate.

I believe that this happened, but I don’t think that details are accurate. Specifically stories told by FBI agents. Memory is flawed, kids tend to exaggerate things(he was 11 at the time). As far as I understand, it was retold him by his mother, etc.