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.
