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 👈
This is a bit learning the wrong lesson from what happened, isn’t it? The problem is admin overreach. There was some disagreement on a sub, no big deal. I don’t even care what it’s about, I have no opinion on it. But now this admin comes in like Eric Cartman “Respect mah authoritah!”. What am I supposed to make of that? Nobody was advocating animal abuse. I worry about admins who can’t just let something go, who can’t handle disagreement, like a cop always looking to escalate.
So thanks for the rules clarification, I guess, but what about:
- won’t this general guideline of ‘do no harm’ stifle discussion in case it isn’t clear which is the harmful position? For example covid
- is there a process in place when an admin does something in the heat of the moment, that the admin team can let them cool off for a bit?
- is removing mods going to be the norm?
- will there be more rules when another admin disagrees with a mod?
- why was this escalated like this? Don’t you think removing mod status is an overreaction (procedure wise)?
- does the ‘anti animal abuse’ statute apply to animal consumption and animal products? Vegan community has a point there
- what about rooki?
All in all, please don’t kill this instance by telling people what to think. There is healthy discussion and people don’t always have to agree. That doesn’t make me a ‘free speech absolutist’. I think removing moderator privileges was quite out of bounds. Again, nobody was advocating animal abuse at all.
Mods and admins are here to keep discussion healthy, not impose their views on everyone else, right? So don’t! And don’t cover for others who do!
About the other topic there will be a another post dont worry.
About the points i will bring it up to the team.
The other post isnt going to change the new rules from this post.
Have you apologized yet?
I never saw the thread, but based on what I’m hearing, it’s animal abuse.
If you look at Reddit and Facebook they’ve both been mostly consumed by anti science communities which put people in real danger
We see communities like this create an echo chamber which grows and make it impossible to argue sanely.
The fact is, I have seen some increasingly toxicity in some vegan (and some other) communities on Lemmy too. And it is one reason why I left beehaw. Because they allow toxic communities to flourish (as long as they were driven by a minority).
I’d even go as far as the behavior of some of these communities look like femaledatingadvice/thedonald on Reddit slowly. It’s ok to have disagreements, but nobody and no animals should be put at risk.
Yeah, it was definitely Animal abuse. Switching carnivorous animals to plant-diets to satisfy their humanitarian urges, is straight up abuse.
When I argued sanely over there I was basically just called a carnal apologist and banned. Shit was wild. Glad Lemmy picked up this stance; because what they were advocating was entirely wrong.
I suppose if those plant-based diets were based on peer-reviewed scientific studies and shown to cause no nutritional, physical, or mental harm to the animals then it wouldn’t be animal abuse. But I haven’t seen the threads so I’m assuming that wasn’t the case.
The problem with that, is you can find a scientific study that will give you almost any result you want. Scientific studies exist at all ends of the spectrum, contradicting each other constantly. It’s rather hard to actually get unbiased information today. Additionally, it’s pretty common knowledge that cats eat meat in the wild; no scientific reviews needed for that one.
Sounds like its not settled science and we should be able to discuss the spectrum of studies and current science around the topic without fear a man-child will take this as their moment to protect all of the cat world from the evil vegans.
Its absurd. Current science does not say that a cat cannot be healthy or healthier on a vegan diet, which is the only reason vegans are considering it in the first place.
If you all haven’t figured it out yet, animal wellbeing is the whole point, noone was advocating for hurting a cat.
lol something like this is what made me stop participating at all on reddit. It was an atheism sub of all places and it was clear that some mod was sad that I had a different opinion. And I’m atheist too. It was straight up unnecessarily personal.
Every job has shitty managers, why wouldnt this one?
There’s a fine line between misinformation and “subjectively offensive information”. To me, this seems like it was a pretty clear case of abuse of power regardless of where you stand on the original issue and retroactively changing the rules to excuse that abuse does not bode well for this community.
You always have the option to move to another instance such as lemm.ee.
It takes a few clicks from the settings to export and import your subscriptions and block lists
You do know that everyone is aware they are not trapped here right?
Lmao all this over meat eaters getting mad at vegan cat food? I’m genuinely impressed that redditors are managing to turn Lemmy into a caricature of the godawful website they left.
GG
there is most certainly some level of ethical behavior to follow in this line, theoretically if the being is getting all of the nutrition they need and isn’t struggling to survive in that sense, it really shouldn’t matter, but at the end of the day, i guess it starts to come back to the ethics behind pet ownership more than anything.
IDK to me it seems like feeding a carnivore a wholly vegan diet is probably ethically dubious at best. Most vegans would probably agree here, ironically. Feeding livestock a generic grain mix is probably not the most ethical decision.
I have no context to the thread that caused this struggle session but as a vegan and someone who knows for a fact people will take that shit out of context anyway I know that most vegans will either not have pets, or if they do don’t go as far as to malnourish it.
Most vegans interested in a “vegan cat food” are purely seeing a bunch of tinned/pouch food that claims to be nutritionally complete. I know that for some here the assumption is that vegans are trying to force feed Mr fluffles a carrot and kale soup.
As for whether that food is nutritionally complete depends on the animal, the brand, the testing, and the regulations. Turns out there’s a lot less rigor in ensuring foods are safe for animal consumption compared to humans!
The takeaway overall, imho, is that this is one of those times where having an “/R/all” frontpage makes for a great opportunity for a pile on, followed by mod overreach, and then a weird ass ToS change that’s more to spite a few people than to do any good.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your (the site admin’s) interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
Leaving the rules open to interpretation only leads to disagreements and arguments. It is better for users to have concrete rules with a reliably consistent correct interpretation than for everyone to complain because their interpretation of a rule lets them do whatever they want. Just my two cents on that.
As a former site admin, I will say right now that leaving any kind of rule “open to interpretation” is the WORST thing you could do. The only interpretation of the rules of your site should be the your interpretation. That’s it. Rules should be easy to understand and easily convey the correct interpretation.
This might be a language-barrier thing, but that’s the meaning of “open for interpretation”.
It means that the admins and moderators are judging it on a per-case basis instead of a hard delineation that anybody could use to decide whether something is against the rules or not (and hence use technicalities to skirt the rules, naturally).
They are literally saying the opposite.
I didn’t consider admins any more qualified in parsing medical journals than mods are. I’ve got letters behind my name and am not supremely confident in that. That said, anything like a pro-ana community should be quickly purged.
I’ve got no idea about the context of the vegan drama though.
Okay, specifically ignoring fediaf language because they’re a vet nutritionist with strong understanding of amino acid profiles and bioavailability I take it (and I’m talking about the trigger happy admin here) https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/vegetarian-diets/
Apparently that organization in your link has no issue advising its possible to have a healthy vegan/vegetarian diet. Guess they aren’t afraid people will kill their cats over it.
I’m normally a Vegan hater but this is a whole new level. 👀
Yeah few vegans would steep as low as feeding a cat a vegan diet. So not really sad to see the particular individuals gone.
It’s perfectly possible to give animals vegan diets.
Sure. It’s also possible to feed your animal a bad diet. Notable, and in this particular case and for the particular animal, the two happen to go together, when you feed a cat a vegan diet, that’s a bad diet for a cat.
Will the cat immediately keel over? No.
Will some cats live long lives and be pretty healthy? Sure.
But on average, will your cat live shorter and worse if you feed it a purely vegan diet, respectively if you let it roam outside, will it be a seriously ferocious hunter as it tries to re-balance it’s diet? Yes, definitely.
Whether that’s consciable to you, that’s something you have to decide. I would however hope that especially someone who subsides on a vegan diet for their human diet would be against animal cruelty, and hence just feed their cat a mostly meat-based diet (not entirely, that’s not healthy either).
Yes, until the poor animal dies due to malnutrition. Just get a vegan pet
Stop it with the strawman.
Cats can be healthier on a plant-based diet.
-https://sustainablepetfood.info/
-https://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12917-021-02754-8
-https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/vetn.2022.13.6.252
-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0253292
-https://www.mdpi.com/2306-7381/10/1/52
-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0284132
-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402411609X
More animals die because non vegans decide that allowing one pet to live is fine but then go and pay in the supermarket to have some freshly slaughtered other animal.
Please don’t be a hypocrite.
Please don’t be a hypocrite.
It’s ridiculous that you don’t seem to realize how much this applies to your first post. 😂
Hahahah. This ignorance from the carnivores here truly knows no boundaries.
I’m not a carnivore? Been a vegetarian since for-fucking-ever, considering my age probably long since before most here knew about a word like “vegan” existing, on account of existance. Seriously, the fuck where did you take that from?
Don’t project, please.
lol, who’s the hypocrite here? People who openly admit to eating meat and not having a problem with animals getting killed for that purpose? Or maybe it’s a group of people who vehemently insist on animal rights but they end up abusing their own pets. What a twisted logic, mate.
Someone is misinformed.
You are incorrect. A vegan diet for animals is perfectly possible. You are thinking of vegans giving them salad, but vegans are actually carefully selecting and giving them the nutrients they need.
As I said, don’t be a hypocrite. You know jack shit.
I was under the impression that most criticism was directed not towards veganism per se but rather feeding a carnivore vegan diet which is animal abuse .
Obligate Carnivore: Cats, Dogs, and What it Really Means to be Vegan by Jed Gillen
Great read!
This rogue admin was absolutely not acting with the best intentions. Is he kicked out of the admin team?
He was abusing the term “misinformation” even though it was extremely obvious that he had a personal vendetta against vegans. A vegan pet diet is perfectly possible, and vegans were merely saying that. There was no question for a source by anybody, because the source is just a simply google search away.
This admin is just anti vegan and was on a personal vendetta. He saw an opportunity to classify it as misinformation, so he just started removing posts and banning people. Why was /c/Vegan specifically targeted by this person?
“Oh but this vegan diet for your pet might hurt it!!”, bro you’re literally the one paying others to slaughter living beings.
If you can’t feed a cat a proper diet reflecting their needs, don’t keep one.
Yep exactly. A vegan diet is perfectly possible.
But I’m not here to discuss that. I’m here to discuss how this admin this abused their powers.
Is this really about peoples inability to consider that cats could live long healthy lives on a vegan diet?
I don’t understand the aversion to it. Noones on here going to read any of the post in question and then go and kill their cat with an unhealthy diet.
Here’s an idea. Don’t base medical decisions solely on internet conjecture. If you think this is meant to be a place for only settled science from decades ago, then what is the point of discussion.
I have to say that the moderator team here doubling down is absurd and shows they take themselves too seriously.
This site is literally an opinion board, and they are now saying that these opinions are so scary and dangerous they might hurt someones cat.
Childish behavior from what I’m sure are actual children running this website.
Good thing theres a bunch of other lemmy providers because this one is proving to be just as awful as reddit was, which I guess I should have expected since thats where everyone here came from.
Its harder to get a vegan cat post through this site than posts covering pedophilia or sexual assault, so I guess which of those three things is too dangerous to talk about, really?
Keep in mind that these “morals” come from people that most likely are paying others to slaughter animals for their consumption.
A vegan diet for a cat is possible, but hard, which was exactly what the posts in question were talking about.
Anyways, look at the Admins actual behaviour: https://lemmy.world/post/18817262
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)
Thank you for being understanding about it 🙏
If you won’t admit Rookie made a mistake then it makes the whole site/team look bad.
Amending the rules puts out a message of: “we were right the whole time but you all just didnt understand it”.
Can someone explain to me the context behind the incident that caused this? I am entirely out of the loop.
This thread. Apparently the dietary requirements of cats is a contentious topic.
edit: Sorry also this thread that I hadn’t seen before.
It’s only contentious for vegans. No one else thinks cats can be vegan
Noone else has considered it, and they are going with their gut reaction rather than consider both sides. Isnt the internet a fun place!
If you are a vegan and want animal companionship, get a vegan pet!! Rabbits, birds, and guinea pigs are great options. Cats and dogs are not options for meatless pets, regardless of how avaliable they are.
Thank you medical professional who surely also has experience with nutrition.
Thank you all for doing this.
Thanks for banning discussion? Gonna have to explain that one.
You know what would be in the news, if a vegan forced their cat to be vegan until it died.
You know how many stories youll find about that. About 1 and the cat survived.
Now compare that to stories of healthy vegan cats, youll find plenty of those. Usually the stories are written from a skeptic point of view but the stories are there.
This doesn’t sound like free speech is welcomed here.
Am I wrong?
This instance gave me many signs of this happening, where only what one group of people think MUST be followed, but this kind of cements that now.
Define “free speech,” because contextually what you want sounds more like “speech without consequence” which is not the same thing, but rather a veil of plausible deniability in which to hide in, while being hateful.
How the hell do you know what I want?
Stop putting words into my mouth, and trying to gaslight me into being silent on mods here removing anything they want to at any time without repercussions.
Read: “contextually” and “sounds more like”
If you don’t like how you’re being called out then you should be introspective into why a generic statement made you so upset.
It’s not gaslighting when there’s a straight line of evidence.
To the wider world it looks like this: “Why do people think I don’t like dogs?! Just because I said I don’t like that you can’t kick dogs without getting a ticket nowadays! I didn’t kick any, I’m just saying!”
Who’s upset? The way I see it is you and others are the upset ones, because if you have to take the time out of your day to insinuate that others are horrible people just because they don’t see things the way you do, it means YOU’RE the ones with the issue.
(proof is in your above comment, again you try to gaslight saying there’s “evidence” when there’s nothing of the sort…lmao, it’s crazy how you all try the same tactics)
“how the hell do you know what I want?”
That’s an inherently aggressive statement.
It’s fine, but no reasonable person would think much differently.
Also, generalizing me with “you all” is a defensive catch-all to be dismissive of my point without actually making a stand for your own values.
It’s just a you-and-me conversation right now
If its just a you-and-them conversation why are you making appeals to popular opinion?
Do you believe having the popular opinion means its the right one?
Don’t these rules make communities about BBQ or cooking meat in general against the rules? BBQ does put “any living being in imminent danger”.
Don’t get me started on deep frying. And deep frying a turkey? That’s right out.
Deep frying a TURDUCKEN!
Health-related information should ideally be from peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific studies.
Note that even if a study is currently reproducible, it will only continue to be reproducible until it isn’t. There isn’t something fundamental that makes a specific scientific study objectively true or false — that isn’t how science works.
When in doubt, a policy of “Do No Harm”, based on the Hippocratic Oath, is a good compass on what is okay to post.
I understand that that’s likely well-intentioned, but, imo, it’s rather subjective — it’s more often a matter of relative perspective. That being said, it would be in your best interest to set as clear and precise definitions as you possibly can.
Non-peer-reviewed studies by individuals are not considered safe for health matters.
What does this statement mean? You are banning anyone from sharing anything that is not peer-reviewed…?
We know some folks who are free speech absolutists may disagree with this stance
That’s a bit of a stretch.
The rules are written so the admins and mods can maintain their positions and feelings without having to explain themselves. Its an insistence that whatever they do is right because they own the place.
Peer reviewed scientific sources for people talking about health stuff? I can understand modding out “cyanide makes everything taste yummy” but at the other side, this isn’t Wikipedia. It’s a discussion forum and a lot of the topics will be about users’ own experiences and perceptions. If you want to run an academic journal instead, this isn’t the right way to do it.
The parent post also offers no answer at all about what decision was reached regarding the c/vegan intervention and whether such things should be allowed to happen again. Is there any update about that?
Please see above. Thanks.
-
I don’t see anything there about what (if anything) was absorbed from the c/vegan incident. If you’re still working on it, that’s fine, just say so, there’s not a huge rush. The original post instead seems to imply that some kind of decision was reached, but leaves it up to user detective skills to figure out what it is. I’m an outsider to c/vegan, I’m not out for anyone’s blood, but I saw the intervention as a good faith error that should explicitly be called out as one. Any resulting policy change should be designed to prevent similar errors going forward. If you’ve decided something different from that (i.e. that the intervention was valid and that you want to see more of the same), that’s fine, it’s your server, but please tell us in so many words so we can react accordingly.
-
The same thing about the academic journals. “Encouraged” is one thing but it would help enormously if you tell us what the admins are going to do if someone posts based on direct observations, personal experience, etc. It’s well established now that the COVID-19 virus is transmitted through the air and that N95 respirators and HEPA air purifiers are hugely valuable preventive measures, but it took a ridiculously long time for health authorities to admit that fact (Science, Nov 2022). Thus in many cases, community awareness about health issues is ahead of the authorities and journals. We should be encouraging that, not trying to shut it down. (See for example r/ZeroCovidCommunity on Reddit).
Anyway, I’ve been under the belief that the instance admins are basically server operators or assisting the server operators, dealing with system maintenance and software problems, or sometimes, serious and obvious policy breaches like threats of violence. They aren’t supposed to be medical experts or pet dieticians, so (following Reddit, since Lemmy positions itself as a Reddit alternative) they should generally defer to community mods about discussions within communities. Community mods, at least, are supposed to have some kind of understanding of the topics under discussion.
If you’re saying that server admins should be able to override community mod decisions about discussions regarding stuff like pet diets, then fine, but again, tell us so we know what kind of environment we’re in.
Just because someone mods a community doesn’t mean they inherently have more understanding of a topic.
Everyone can have an opinion but Google-fu is not real research. Citing random websites that only support your view isn’t either.
If someone doesn’t like the administration of an instance they can find another one they agree with or spin up their own. Don’t complain you don’t like how something was handled just because you didn’t get your way when you don’t contribute anything to the maintenance or upkeep of the service.
They asked for clarity on the admin position, thats all.
The original post leaves a lot open for interpretation. There are a group of people who would leave over this decision, and they are just asking to be able to make a decision more easily.
I will say since this post was the admin team saying they did nothing wrong, that the followup specifically about the vegan post in question will be full of similar nonsense.
That’s the glory of the fediverse. If you’re going to caterwaul over a service that you don’t pay for and expect you have any sort of right to how the instance run you are probably best served finding an instance that aligns with you.
at least for now I have a right to express my opinion here. I never demanded the instance change. I’m sure most would leave rather than fight an admin team over something so trivial, theres plenty of other instances out there.
-
Internet has brought so many new social issues and yet no philosophers to ponder and find good solutions even though no one is working.
Strange
im here, and i do enjoy a good ponder, unfortunately the political right and some of the political left have consumed 100% of my philosophical pondering over the last 5 or so years.
The fundamental problem here in regards to feeding a cat a vegan diet is that you are forcing something onto an existing sentient (to some degree) being.
You as a human could live on rice and water exclusively, but it would most certainly not be optimal. The same is generally true for most living beings. The ultimate question here, once we get past feeding a pet whatever diet, is that pet ownership is to some degree, probably unethical at the source. Feeding them inherently brings up an ethical dilemma, as they are not a human, they cannot make a conscious choice about how their food is acquired. You as a vegan could theoretically raise and kill game to feed a cat which is probably the most ethical solution here, but that’s not likely to be popular. The alternative being farm grown game, although it’s likely to be off cuts and byproduct as humans eat the most desired parts, so the end result is probably fairly insignificant, unless you’re feeding your cat a rich mans diet or something.
There is no one rule to fit all vegans, every vegan has to evaluate their own situations. You are right that some vegans are against all pet ownership. There is another group that believes if you rescue an animal from being euthanized or slaughtered and improve their standard of living and length of life, then that is ethical.
A huge part of being vegan is repetitive self-reflection, always searching for moral inconsistencies and working to fix them.
This is what leads vegans to consider a vegan diet for their pet, as if it was at least as healthy as non-vegan food, then less animals will be hurt due to the vegans choices.
Contrary to popular belief there are plenty of studies and case reports advocating for both sides of the argument of vegan cat food. Even by the admins new rules, we would be able to argue for vegan cat food as long as we only referenced studies.
Since its not settled either way, and multiple pet health and food organizations have stated their interest in researching the viability of vegan/vegetarian diets for dogs/cats, I think its fair to say it should be open for discussion.
