Good faith is a term used by the Wikipedia community itself.
Most prominently in the phrase "Always assume good faith".
As I recently learned, apparently this guideline (Gebot!) arose/took such a central position not from the very beginning of the existence of the collaborative encyclopedia.
It rather arose at a time when, after a significant growth in Wikipedia, it wasn't manageable to govern the project (and most importantly fight emergent vandalism which grew proportionally to the project's growth) manually anymore.
To counteract vandalism, a number of automatic measures as applied.
These, however, had also unforseen negative consequences: they drove newcomers away (quote literature) (since their edits were often classified as "vandalism", because they were not familiar with guidelines / wiki syntax / etc.)
In an attempt to fix this issue, "Assume good faith" rose to a prominent position among Wikipedia's Guidelines.
Today, in vandalism comabting (?), there are cautious guidelines and several escalation levels, before an editor is banned.
Users are urged to use the term "vandalism" carefully, since it tends to ofend and drive people away.
Not all disruptive behaviour is vandalism, the guidelines suggest (quote)
