Intro
We would like to address some of the points that have been raised by some of our users (and by one of our communities here on Lemmy.World) on /c/vegan regarding a recent post concerning vegan diets for cats. We understand that the vegan community here on Lemmy.World is rightfully upset with what has happened. In the following paragraphs we will do our best to respond to the major points that we’ve gleaned from the threads linked here.
Links
Actions in question
Admin removing comments discussing vegan cat food in a community they did not moderate.
The comments have been restored.
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse (https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#11-attacks-on-users). Rooki is a cat owner himself and he was convinced that it was scientific consensus that cats cannot survive on a vegan diet. This originally justified the removal.
Even if one of our admins does not agree with what is posted, unless the content violates instance rules it should not be removed. This was the original justification for action.
Removing some moderators of the vegan community
Removed moderators have been reinstated.
This was in the first place a failure of communication. It should have been clearly communicated towards the moderators why a certain action was taken (instance rules) and that the reversal of that action would not be considered (during the original incident).
The correct way forward in this case would have been an appeal to the admin team, which would have been handled by someone other than the admin initially acting on this.
We generally discuss high impact actions among team before acting on them. This should especially be the case when there is no strong urgency on the act performed. Since this was only a moderator removal and not a ban, this should have been discussed among the team prior to action.
Going forward we have agreed, as a team, to discuss such actions first, to help prevent future conflict
Posting their own opposing comment and elevating its visibility
Moderators’ and admins’ comments are flagged with flare, which is okay and by design on Lemmy. But their comments are not forced above the comments of other users for the purpose of arguing a point.
These comments were not elevated to appear before any other users comments.
In addition, Rooki has since revised his comments to be more subjective and less reactive.
Community Responses
The removed comments presented balanced views on vegan cat food, citing scientific research supporting its feasibility if done properly.
Presenting scientifically backed peer reviewed studies is 100% allowed, and encouraged. While we understand anyone can cherry pick studies, if a individual can find a large amount of evidence for their case, then by all accounts they are (in theory) technically correct.
That being said, using facts to bully others is not in good faith either. For example flooding threads with JSTOR links.
The topic is controversial but not clearly prohibited by site rules.
That is correct, at the time there was no violation of site wide rules.
Rooki’s actions appear to prioritize his personal disagreement over following established moderation guidelines.
Please see the above regarding addressing moderator policy.
Conclusions
Regarding moderator actions
We will not be removing Rooki from his position as moderator, as we believe that this is a disproportionate response for a heat-of-the-moment response.
Everybody makes mistakes, and while we do try and hold the site admin staff to a higher standard, calling for folks resignation from volunteer positions over it would not fair to them. Rooki has given up 100’s of hours of his free time to help both Lemmy.World, FHF and the Fediverse as a whole grown in far reaching ways. You don’t immediately fire your staff when they make a bad judgment call.
While we understand that this may not be good enough for some users, we hope that they can be understanding that everyone, no matter the position, can make mistakes.
We’ve also added a new by-laws section detailing the course of action users should ideally take, when conflict arises. In the event that a user needs to go above the admin team, we’ve provided a secure link to the operations team (who the admin’s report to, ultimately). See https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/#12-site-admin-issues-for-community-moderators for details.
TL;DR In the event of an admin action that is deemed unfair or overstepping, moderators can raise this with our operations team for an appeal/review.
Regarding censorship claims
Regarding the alleged censorship, comments were removed without a proper reason. This was out of line, and we will do our best to make sure that this does not happen again. We have updated our legal policy to reflect the new rules in place that bind both our user AND our moderation staff regarding removing comments and content. We WANT users to hold us accountable to the rules we’ve ALL agreed to follow, going forward. If members of the community find any of the rules we’ve set forth unreasonable, we promise to listen and adjust these rules where we can. Our terms of service is very much a living document, as any proper binding governing document should be.
Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm. We are firm believers in the hippocratic oath of “do no harm”.
We encourage users to also list pros and cons regarding controversial viewpoints to foster better discussion. Listing the cons of your viewpoint does not mean you are wrong or at fault, just that you are able to look at the issue from another perspective and aware of potential points of criticism.
While we want to allow our users to express themselves on our platform, we also do not want users to spread mis-information that risks causing direct physical harm to another individual, origination or property owned by the before mentioned. To echo the previous statement “do no harm”.
To this end, we have updated our legal page to make this more clear. We already have provisions for attacking groups, threatening individuals and animal harm, this is a logical extension of this to both protect our users and to protect our staff from legal recourse and make it more clear to everyone. We feel this is a very reasonable compromise, and take these additional very seriously.
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT: Added org operations contact info
I keep seeing this study y’all keep throwing around. It’s based on vegan cat owner’s self reported data AND it’s probably biased as it’s solely funded by a pro-vegan group
Self reported surveys of all kinds are notoriously bad to base studies on.
how else will you study quality of life from a cat?
I asked you to show peer reviewed studies that prove cats will not find vegan food palatable.
Is this not possible for you?
Empirically and with a structurally repeatable methodology.
Preferably with funding provided by a somewhat neutral party.
The meta-study you provided specifically calls out the problem with self reported studies.
The whole section : “4.1. Evidence Considerations” specifically points out the inadequacies and limitations of the studies under analysis.
As does the conclusion section : “5. Conclusions”
Which to my personal interpretation says
“We haven’t found anything overtly damaging, some benefits even, but the research is lacking in scope, sample size and length is largely from potentially biased sources”
“If you are going to feed your cat or dog a vegan diet, use the commercial ones as they are less likely to be problematic”
emphasis on the potentially there, lest you think I’m claiming absolute bias in my interpretation.
You asked for nutrition and palatability, the nutrition part is covered in the inconclusive nature of the meta study conclusion section, neither strongly for nor against until higher quality research is available.
Going back to a previous comment
Your provided studies made no mention of a particular palatability metric (i could have missed it however). The fact that they eat either type of food would imply a measure of palatability both ways, but if you have something definitive I’d be interested to see it.
so obviously provide your cat with nutritious food. if the cat is not eating the food then find something it will eat.
at the moment these are new fields of studies.
there is food available that is vegan, palatable and nutritious.
so there is no problem.
quality of life is subjective to measure at the best of time.
The findings so far so do not demonstrate a problem if the cat is cared for.
And that’s the issue, the short to midterm studies are relatively bias (as shown by your own provided meta-study), show you need supplements to stave off issues (taurine etc) and are somewhat inconclusive.
There are no long term studies.
It’s a “It doesn’t seem to immediately kill your pets in the limited studies that have been done, we have even seen some benefits, but we don’t have enough quality data to be that confident about anything”
Of an option between a known good and a potential good , one of those is more certain to produce a good outcome.
Agreed, and making potentially life altering long term decisions based on new fields of study comes with risks.
I’m not saying it won’t or can’t work, I’m saying it’s a gamble. At the moment it’s a sketchy gamble based on incomplete fields of study with limited quality results and it’s a gamble you are making on behalf of another life that can’t consent.
If you want to roll the dice on this, that’s on you.
For me, i would consider that kind of risk to be too great for the sake of my personal beliefs.
Either way, if you are going to be trying to convince people there is no risk you’re probably going to have a hard time with anyone who understands how to read the papers you provided.
A strong claim to be making when the meta study you provide specifically goes out of it’s way to say “we don’t really know yet”
Sure, no arguments here.
Your own citation doesn’t even show that , so unless you have another that definitely concludes this I’m not sure where you are getting this from.
As i said above, at best it’s stating:
“It doesn’t seem to immediately kill your pets in the limited studies that have been done, we have even seen some benefits, but we don’t have enough quality data to be that confident about anything”
you do understand that people are not force feeding cats cucumbers. the food is indistinguishable from the meat versions.
here:
Benevo Katzenfutter vegan trocken (10 https://amzn.eu/d/eXsCn6F