Hey all,
In light of recent events concerning one of our communities (/c/vegan), we (as a team) have spent the last week working on how to address better some concerns that had arisen between the moderators of that community and the site admin team. We always strive to find a balance between the free expression of communities hosted here and protecting users from potentially harmful content.
We as a team try to stick to a general rule of respect and consideration for the physical and mental well-being of our users when drafting new rules and revising existing ones. Furthermore, we’ve done our best to try to codify these core beliefs into the additions to the ToS and a new by-laws section.
ToS Additions
That being said, we will be adding a new section to our “terms of service” concerning misinformation. While we do try to be as exact as reasonably able, we also understand that rules can be up to interpretation as well. This is a living document, and users are free to respectfully disagree. We as site admins will do our best to consider the recommendations of all users regarding potentially revising any rules.
Regarding misinformation, we’ve tried our best to capture these main ideas, which we believe are very reasonable:
- Users are encouraged to post information they believe is true and helpful.
- We recommend users conduct thorough research using reputable scientific sources.
- When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
- Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
- Single studies may be valid, but often provide inadequate sample sizes for health-related advice.
- Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
We reserve the right to remove information that could cause imminent physical harm to any living being. This includes topics like conversion therapy, unhealthy diets, and dangerous medical procedures. Information that could result in imminent physical harm to property or other living beings may also be removed.
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance, but we need to look out for both the individuals who use this site and for the site itself.
By-laws Addition
We’ve also added a new by-laws section as well as a result of this incident. This new section is to better codify the course of action that should be taken by site and community moderators when resolving conflict on the site, and also how to deal with dormant communities.
This new section provides also provides a course of action for resolving conflict with site admin staff, should it arise. We want both the users and moderators here to feel like they have a voice that is heard, and essentially a contact point that they can feel safe going to, to “talk to the manager” type situation, more or less a new Lemmy.World HR department that we’ve created as a result of what has happened over the last week.
Please feel free to raise any questions in this thread. We encourage everyone to please take the time to read over these new additions detailing YOUR rights and how we hope to better protect everyone here.
https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#80-misinformation
https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT:
We will be releasing a separate post regarding the moderation incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
EDIT 2 (2024-08-31):
We’ve posted a response, sorry for the delay.
👉 https://lemmy.world/post/19264848 👈
Oh man this ones got some flavour to sink ones teeth into 😅
I take the side of the admin. If someone can’t accept or understand that a cat eats a meat based diet then they deserve to have reality thrown in their face. Better than some poor animals being tortured.
If someone can’t accept or understand that a cat eats a meat based diet then they deserve to have reality thrown in their face. Better than some poor animals being tortured.
Dang, is that what happened? It’s sad to think that there are people mistreating animals that they care about accidentally, through trying to apply their own human morals and rules to them.
Cats are hunters, they eat meat. If that’s an issue for your home then fair enough, your house your rules. Just don’t get a cat, or a carnivorous pet in general. There’s lots of cool pets out there that are herbivores :-)
I think it’s less applying their morals to the cat and more not wanting to support the meat industry. That said, yeah just don’t have a cat. I expect many vegans aren’t too big on the concept of pet ownership anyway.
I don’t think this is the place for this discussion obviously but just know this subject has a lot of taboo and misinformation around it.
I recommend reading Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen if you are interested in digging deep into it.
I think all of this says more about the faith people have in the quality of their cat food.
Also people seem to love the words obligate carnivore but have not much understanding of the concept.
Oh and lastly, my favorite is discounting all evidence as anecdotal or “not good research”.
This is some of the stupidest dogpiling ive seen and really drives home how simple the average person on here is.
“Hur dur, if people talk about the possibility of a vegan cat then surely their owners will starve them and refuse to change course until they die!”
I’m just going to go ahead and stir this pot since I love cats.
~2003 Vegan roommate rented a room at my warehouse in one of the shittier parts of Oakland. Neat guy, lot’s of esoteric hobbies, bare him no ill will.
Watch vegan roommate mix up grey goo with water and microwave. Ask what is goo?
Goo is vegan cat food for Soni-chan that roommate gets from wise internet-vegans. Goo contains all essential nutrients and vitamins for vegan cat.
I mumbled something about cats being obligate carnivores without really knowing what it means. Vegan roommate clearly loves Soni-chan and Soni-chan loves vegan roommate.
Fast forward 1 month.
I don’t see the cat much, it stays in his room. I tell him he’s free to let it roam around the warehouse. Vegan roommate says he’s worried that the cat will slip outside… this seems sensible, it’s a small warehouse with roll up doors and no real way to keep a cat from escaping.
Fast forward 2 more months.
I come home one day. Hear vegan roommate sobbing loudly in his room.
Wait a few minutes, because privacy. Knock on door.
Soni-chan has become sick and died.
I offer what comfort I can and leave vegan roommate to grieve. Vegan roommate and friend drive to Los Angeles to bury cat in mother’s back yard. I am very sad.
Vegan roommate returns and accuses other roommate of poisoning cat. Says cat was happy and healthy for years living at victorian house in San Francisco. Cat only started to get sick after moving to warehouse.
I asked vegan roommate if vegan cat was inside/outside cat in San Francisco? Vegan roommate says yes!
My conclusion. Vegan’s are fucking morons. Except for that one guy up there in the comments who loves his cat… oh, and all the other vegans who aren’t complete ass douches… now please go away. 
I had no idea what this one was about. I got banned a few months ago for insisting in c/vegan that animals that eat a predominantly carnivorous diet should not be fed a vegan diet. I’m a cat lover and dog liker and believe that it is animal abuse. I’m glad to see this change.
Try reading some current information on it. It can be healthy for a cat to be vegan if it is done correctly.
The most difficult part is quote a lot of cats are picky to the point they won’t eat the one or two brands that are actually nutritionally complete.
Its absurd they are banning even the discussion of this when research keeps trending towards the possibility of a healthy vegan cat.
Mostly, I think its absurd to think these discussions will actually hurt real cats. If the owner is basing their information on this websites shitposters, they are already a horrible owner.
Try reading some current information on it.
Oh no no no, we don’t play that game here. If you’re trying to convince someone of your argument, the burden of providing reputable and scientifically accurate evidence is on YOU and you only.
And only if the other side won’t accept scientific evidence then you can blame them.
I’m not saying cats can’t be vegan but to the best of my knowledge their diet must be meat based. As it is you who are trying to convince me (and others) cats can be vegan, it is also you who must provide the evidence.
So there is a study that shows that forcing your quest for a sense of absolute moral superiority on a obligate or fecultative carnivore by feeding them an unnatural vegan diet may not kill them?
The issue is choice and the fact that you are taking it away. Obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat because that is what they evolved to eat and you are taking that away from them. These studies that say it may not be unhealthy are simply efforts to feed the self-satisfied circle jerk. Efforts to develop a vegan food that obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat are efforts to overcome their nature which is to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
Animal abuse.
I believe you in saying it’s possible if your cat isn’t a picky eater. However, what do most pet cats eat per day, 100 to 200 calories a day? Pet food is usually made with the cuts that didn’t make it into people food. I understand why people choose to be vegans (I see this choice almost like a religious choice). Making a few cats vegan doesn’t really help the “vegan cause.” Plus, there’s no point in forcing animals in making ethical choices.
I’m honestly not sure if a vegan cat diet is possible or not, but random people giving unqualified advice that could easily lead a less knowledgeable person to harm an animal is a problem. What should have been done in this case is for a mod or admin to shut the discussion down with a note telling people to consult a qualified veterinarian regarding any change to their pets diet.
I blocked all those vegan subs when this shit happened, they were already pretty bad tho.
Like if someone posted:
I’m not vegan but am looking to eat less meat
They were banned, so I figured out I was better off blocking than stumbling in one day.
But the original was just talking about feeding cats human vegan food. Then after admins stepped in, some mod went and found a single research article that said it could be possible with supplements…
But I think the supplements came from animals anyways?
So they advocated for something that would harm pets, then found the absolute bare minimum “proof” that in a very narrow situation no one was doing it might not harm the animal “significantly”.
It legit seems like they’re just trolling and trying to make vegans seem insufferable
This is less likely to help the cat than someone also saying the actual diet requirements
i don’t think you can say that for sure. best case you just get into a shouting match where most people will get lost in the weeds of logical fallacies.
My idea was that respectful, dissenting opinions posted in a small ratio should be allowed in all communities.
It works well in this situation because you can have ten vegans posting about how vegan diets are great for cats, but you’d still have at least one guy posting “This isn’t safe for your cat. Please find sources that aren’t biased before doing this.”
I don’t know if a vegan diet is safe for cats or not, and I shouldn’t need to. Having that one dissenting voice is helpful in prompting people not to trust everything they read on the internet. c/flatearth can still have their narrative, but a policy like this would help put the brakes on it a little.
Of course, do consider this policy in a community that you agree with. This would mean that someone would be allowed to post Russian propaganda in the Ukraine community. If they spam it, it can still be removed. If they’re rude, it can be removed. But if it’s just one Russian comment for every ten comments refuting it, I would hope the ten comments are enough to handle it.
Explicitly though, that won’t be what happens, particularly for something as small as the Fediverse. What happens is a post from a small community ends up on the main feed and the prevailing opinion of the entire Fediverse begins a long chain of comments about how dissenting opinions are dumb.
Yeah, fully agreed.
And beyond the specific situation - as disgusting as it is to let a dependent animal suffer because of a belief it doesn’t even hold - it also shows a very basic lack of self-reflection ability if, even faced with backlash, one cannot realize why others would be appalled by such opinions.
The idea of Obligate Carnivore is fully lost on some. And that’s quite a sad reality.
The idea of Obligate Carnivore is fully lost on some. And that’s quite a sad reality.
It seems to me that a lot of people are using that term without knowing what it means. That, too, is a sad reality. It means that cats in the wild aren’t able to live off non-meat sources that they can find there, similar to how humans can’t live in subfreezing temperatures without shelter or clothing. It says nothing about whether their dietary needs can be fulfilled without meat in a domestic environment. Maybe yes, maybe no, but you can’t just parrot the words “obligate carnivore” like a Fox News anchor and act like that gives you the answer. The world is more complicated than that.
In fact, based on other info, cats do seem to be able to survive on human-supplied vegan diets, but it’s less clear that they can enjoy optimal health on such a diet. So the reality seems to be somewhat shaded.
Even for humans, being a well-nourished vegan is somewhat difficult (you have to pay attention to stuff like protein combination). It’s even harder to be a so-called “raw vegan” (living entirely from uncooked vegetables such as in salads) but apparently it can still be done. Most human vegans consume a lot of beans and grains that are inedible without cooking.
You can imagine an animal species for which cooked beans and grains would be a completely healthy diet, and yet that diet is never seen in the wild because wild animals don’t cook. Thus they would get their protein instead from animal sources, i.e. be obligate carnivores, even though they would be fine on steamed rice and tofu. There is no logical incompatibility between “obligate carnivore” and “vegan diet”. It’s a question of biology that is species specific. In the limit, you could inagine a Star Trek replicator synthesizing perfect mouse meat from pure carbon and other elements, giving you a completely healthy and satisfied vegan cat that thinks it is eating freshly killed mice.
It doesn’t appear possible for humans to stay healthy for long periods as fruitarians (some people don’t want to cut or kill living plants for food, but instead live off of fruits and nuts that have naturally fallen off the plants). But that can only be known through experimental observation, not linguistic knee jerks. You have to examine the details to understand the real situation for any particular species, food type, and preparation method
“feculate carnivore” returns no results on google. Oblate carnivore returns results for obligate carnivores, looks to be that obligate/oblate is used interchangeably?
I haven’t heard either of these terms as a native English speaker. Perhaps they are regional terms, or terms from another language?
Sure, explain it to me. What is it that a cat can’t get from non-meat sources?
Unlike omnivores, cats are unable to synthesize arginine, taurine, methionine and cystine, arachidonic acid, niacin, pyridoxine, vitamin A and vitamin D from their own organs and must get it from other sources. Their livers and kidneys simply cannot make this material from other materials. For the most part this list of nutrients is not available in complete form in plants.
Our bodies for example make vitamin D from sunlight via our skin (d7). But can also get it in multiple base forms and synthesize it from animal based foods containing d3 or from compounds containing D2. Cats however only have the ability to use D3 and cannot synthesize D7 or convert D2 to D3 (omnivore liver)
In theory you could make food in a lab that is technically vegan and supplies the above nutrients. Nobody has done this.
Is that what this is about? Anyone that can’t grasp nutrition concepts that an 8 year old can understand, shouldn’t be taking care of any living being
Edit: After reading more into it, I realise I was wrong. In the past, I had heard of people trying vegan diets with cats and they ended up dying, hence my original opinion. It is apparently not that clear cut. I still don’t think it’s a good idea to put a cat on a vegan diet unless it’s necessary.
Respectfully, I believe this incident serves more as a learning opportunity for the admin team rather than a reason to amend the rules.
This isn’t the first time I’ve observed Rooki acting inappropriately for an admin of a community. As an admin of a (admittedly much smaller) corner of the internet, I’ve learned to interact with users in a way that is polite and ensures they feel safe and heard. This is at least the second instance where I’ve seen Rooki respond emotionally and rather adversarially towards users, which has, in my view, undermined their credibility, to the point that I hope to avoid future interactions with them.
I understand that managing LW, one of the largest and general-purpose instances, especially with Lemmy’s still rather limited moderation tools, is challenging, and I appreciate the hard work all of you, including Rooki, put into maintaining it and making it run as smoothly as it does. I’m NOT asking for their removal; however, considering that this is not the first time I’ve seen Rooki behave uncivilly and antagonistically towards users, I hope that this will be a formative experience for them.
(Edit for clarity)
Just want to pitch in as an outsider that I too have experienced Rooki acting inappropriately and frankly immaturely. This has happened multiple times and it doesn’t give a good light to the rest of the Lemmy.world administration that they seemingly tolerate Rookis behaviour. It’s not up to me, especially as I am not even a lemmy.world user, but in my opinion Rooki should not be an admin following these incidents.
I’ve experienced Rooki acting inappropriately and immaturely as well. This recent incident is part of a pattern of behavior.
It’s great that the admins are putting so much effort into getting this right.
Sadly, I don’t think this is the way. Adding this to the ToS means you admins will always be in the centre of every unwinnable situation that arises.
You need a committee to deal with these issues on a case by case basis. There are many advantages to this:
- You can be tough but flexible and adaptive
- you can enlist the help of people with more time
- you can enlist the help of people with experience writing policies
- committee members can resign or be discontinued when they become embroiled in some shit storm.
- you can retain veto power
I don’t want to be critical of the ToS because someone has put a lot of thought into it, but the most charitable thing I can say is that its unlikely to serve its intended purpose.
Walk into a vet office and tell them you want your cat to eat a vegan diet and watch their eyes roll at the speed of sound out of their skull
Ive done just this. They were very supportive in the attempt, despite it ultimately not working out.
Also, not working out doesnt mean a dead cat. It meant she didnt like the taste of it so I switched back to food she would eat, with meat in it.
She actually did like the vegan kibble but she’s a majority wet food eater and didnt like the vegan wet food.
Lemmy.world is not real life, its a shit posting board.
Also, not working out doesnt mean a dead cat. It meant she didnt like the taste of it so I switched back to food she would eat, with meat in it.
I’m glad you aren’t insane (really - I might think you’re crazy for trying, but thank you for seeing reason when it didn’t work out), but you have to understand that some people are. They will literally starve their pet out of their own foolish ideals.
Also, not working out doesnt mean a dead cat. It meant she didnt like the taste of it
She actually did like the vegan kibble but she’s a majority wet food eater and didnt like the vegan wet food.
Pick one
The biggest issue with Reddit and Facebook was that they let stuff like this stick around it and eventually consume it.
It’s a good policy imho, and I’m happy to see it
Science should prevail
Because the priority for them is engagement, regardless of how harmful the content could be to people. Engagement doesn’t mean shit here because nobody’s profiting off of it.
I think initially it was simply because Ellen pao might have wanted freedom of speech. The funny thing is that the people she defended turned against her
But this turned into an issue eventually Steve seemed to get rid of some communities, and allowed places like thedonald to flourish. I believe he just wants money.
So you could be right
Pickles is a cat? If so, yes, Pickles will prevail. Those guys are ninjas at finding meat, i.e., songbirds.
It’s from an It’s Always Sunny episode:
The science :
Considering these results overall, cats fed vegan diets tended to be healthier than cats fed meat-based diets. This trend was clear and consistent. These results largely concur with previous, similar studies. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284132
Sure might not be the best science but still science
quoting from your link: No reductions were statistically significant. Only one difference [re:disease] was statistically significant.
plus it was done by a pro-vegan group with obvious bias. so the results from the pro-vegan funded study are not terribly good at supporting veganism for cats as more healthy. it’s about the same, maybe less disease (severity of disease wasn’t covered in the abstract but would be a significant part of a decision). show me a study not funded by a pro-vegan group with similar or better results before I consider feeding my pet a diet very different from their natural diet.
Yeah like I said not the best science (maybe 99% of cats on vegan diet die the first day and the remaining 1% is slightly healthier).
But the point is that there is science
So are admins going to do literature reviews and have panels to discuss or just follow their own biases when deleting comments?
Do users need to publish a peer reviewed meta study before they are allowed to comment?
All studies on this will either be funded for or against it. You can’t just claim bias cause you connected a pair of dots in your head.
The same logic would disqualify papers that support your opinion too, as they are funded by companies that make money from selling meat.
Honestly (and I see you do recognise this in your comment) but this really seems like a kinda crappy study that I’m surprised made it into plos.
For instance I couldn’t find any evidence of them considering that the dietary choices of the guardian may affect the attitudes of the guardian to vetenarians (and thus the self-reported health of those animals). To take this further, in the scenario that a cat guardian believes their choices make their cat healthier, especially when going against vetinary orthodoxy, the guardian is probably less likely to take the cat to the vet for minor issues. This confounds the analysis of “healthiness” as performed by the authors.
Furthermore any cat that is not an indoor cat is likely also not fed a purely vegan diet (as they do hunt), so they should possibly account for that via a sort of bootstrapped approach. Generally the stats were okay though, and don’t make super strong claims from some pretty weak data. Though GAMs were a pretty odd choice and I’d have preferred some sort of explicit model fit with Bayesian fitting or NLLS.
In the end all of this points to the sort of thing where they should really have been doing perturbational research. I.e. feeding cats different diets in a controlled lab space. This is not the sort of research that lends itself to surveys and that seriously impacts the actual practicality of its findings.
Also as an aside, I really cannot abide anyone who includes a questionably inspirational quote that they said themselves in the fucking French Alps on their own website. That’s just pure wankery. The only people I usually see doing things like that are scientists like Trivers, which is not company one should wish to be in.
This is the limitation with policy made by people who just think “science” is when you quote an opinion with an article in a journal.
Decades of climate denialism, anti-veganism, and “race science” is perfectly acceptable under these rules because you could simply post studies funded by Exxon, meat and dairy lobbyists, and right-wing think-tanks which support their conclusion.
“Science should prevail” nerds could do well to consider that perhaps we have other means of identifying malicious behaviour. Any kind of checkbook exercise or algorithm that can pluck truth out of the air won’t work; the scientific method was never intended to declare X or Y as permanent facts the way we use it online.
lets say hypothetically your pet cat would be healthier and happier if you bypassed their stomach and digestive system entirely to simply feed them the required nutrients by direct injection. (doesn’t matter how this is done, it’s a hypothetical.)
Let’s just say for the sake of the argument this is a magic black box that infinitely produces these nutrients and injects them at no immediate or long term cost. It consumes no power, doesn’t require charging or reloading, it simply makes it so that your cat no longer has to eat.
Would this be ethical? We do a similar thing with humans on life support, and there’s lots of debate about this being highly unethical. There’s lot of push for medically assisted suicide/death in cases where it would be prudent.
