Update to Terms of Service + New Bylaws (Protections for users)
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.
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.
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.
Vegan here. Love my cat. My cat eats meat. End of story.
Wow, a normal person on the internet. Thank you for existing.
Cats aren't just hunters. They're obligate carnivores. That means they literally can't get all the nutrients they need from a plant based diet. They need the vitamin A in meat in the same way that we need vitamin C.
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.
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.
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:
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.
Right, but to an outside observer, they either see "vegan diets are fine" and "ask your vet", or they see "vegan diets are fine", "vegan diets are very bad", and "ask your vet". One creates a sense of uncertainty and tells you to ask an expert; the other creates a greater sense of consensus for the more dangerous opinion.
It’s not. Cats have a super high protein requirement. So much that dogs and humans can die from kidney failure if they eat only cat food.
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
Obligate and facultative carnivores. Don't forget the dogs.
"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?
Obligate and facultative. Thanks for correcting me.
Facultative means optionally in response to circumstance.
Facultative carnivore, a carnivore that does not depend solely on animal flesh for food but also can subsist on non-animal food.
Yes, they will optionally eat non-meat in response to circumstance but their diet consist largely of meat and they will choose meat when it is available.
Oh, I was just suggesting the correct word as you said fecultative and I don't think that's a thing.
Dogs are facultative carnivores. Cats are obligate carnivores. Dogs are more opportunistic and flexible than cats.
You mean fAcultative. I think whatever you are typing on is autocorrecting to fEcultative.
Ugh. Thanks.
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 🙏
Thank you for this comment.
I've interacted with Rooki a few times, most of them were nice, but I've also seen Rooki being indeed unicivilly and antagonistically towards users.
Let's see what the update brings.
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:
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.
An arbitration committee you say? This is giving me Wikipedia vibes.
Any chance the relevant incident could be unpacked and used as a demonstration of how these changes would alter the outcome or encourage a different outcome?
As someone who only saw pieces of it after the fact, I am potentially in the dark here about the purposes and context of these changes.
That being said, from what I did see, it seemed very much like an instance admin imposing themselves and their superior power on a community when there were probably plenty of other more subtle action that could have been taken, where subtlety becomes vital for any issue complex and nuanced enough to be handled remotely well. I'm not sure I'm seeing any awareness of this in this post and the links provided.
For instance, AFAICT, the "incident" involved a discussion of if or how a domestic cat could eat a vegan diet. Obviously that's not trivial as they, like humans, have some necessary nutrients, and AFAICT the vegans involved were talking about how it could be done, while the admin involved was basically having none of that and removed content on the basis that it would lead to a cat dying.
And then in the misinformation link we have:
In the context of cats and their food ... which "living beings" are being harmed and who is encouraging or discouraging this harm?
Whether you're vegan or not, this seems to me formally ambiguous and on the face of it only enshrines the source of the conflict rather than facilitating better forms of communication or resolution (perhaps there are things in the by-laws I've missed??).
Two groups can have exactly the same aim and core values (reduce harm to living beings) but in the complexity of the issue come to issue a bunch of friendly fire ... that's how complex issues work.
So, back to my original question ... how exactly would things be done better?
We will be releasing a separate post involving that incident in the next 24-48 hours, just getting final approval from the team.
Hi there, totally in the dark here. What was the incident?
Vegans saying that cats, which are obligate carnivores, can subsist on a vegan diet; admin removed it as misinformation. The vegan community then threw a fit over it.
Yeah, they're 100% in the wrong here. Cats aren't people, they can't consent to your personal code of ethics. They're meat-eaters by nature, and denying them of that is animal abuse. Good intentions don't override your pet's nutritional needs. Admins are right to remove any content that encourages animal abuse.
Obligatory "I'm not a vegan," but this comment seems like it's at least partially mischaracterizing the issue.
Some of the comments removed seem to advocate for a vegan cat diet that specifically includes the amino acids and protein that cats need, albeit sourced in a vegan-friendly way:
I am also not a vet (go figure) but this seems reasonable on its face and lines up with the 5 minutes of Google research that I did. It sounds like not all vegan formulated cat food actually strikes the balance cats need and that this diet would need to be balanced very carefully, but it seems possible to do it in a healthy way, especially if done in concert with a vet and frequent checkups.
Yes, it is possible, with constant blood tests (which means monthly vet appointments and the corresponding stress for the cat) and a heap of knowledge.
it's very easy to fuck this up to the detriment of the cat, and because of that every vet i've talked to about it said it is just too risky and stressful for the cat (and monthly bloodwork is costly too). Just putting the information "cats can be fed vegan" out is asking for trouble, because you can be sure that someone just does it without taking the necessary steps to make sure the pet is safe from harm. it is not even recommended to do BARF with cats, because it's too easy to mess things up; there's just not enough margin for errors to do it safely.
God damn. So that means theres a whole community of people whos cats are living their worst life, because some asshole adopted them and feels self rightous.
And those are the ones who set a bad example for vegans. I'm sure there are mild mannered non-asshole vegans out there. I'd even believe they were a silent majority. But MY interactions with vegans are always the loud pushy types who try to make you feel that YOU need to follow THEIR choices.
And to that type of person, I actually have an endless supply of middle fingers and a chronic drought of fucks to give. I tell them I'm going to eat THREE cheeseburgers now. One for the cheeseburger I was already going to eat. One for the cheeseburger they're NOT eating, and one more just to make their veganism a net loss. Since I'd only be eating just the one if they weren't getting in my face about being vegan.
Yup. Imagine eating supplements instead of normal food your whole life. It makes me sad. Poor animals.
Yikes
How to not be taken serious by people - Vegan cat abusers edition
Who decides what is malicious?
I occasionally go hunting and fishing. Is giving advice on either malicious? It definitely can lead to harm of a living being, but I don't consider it malicious, while others think it's barbaric and evil.
Yeah my thoughts exactly. And... "harm to living beings" is really thin ice. One could argue that not being vegan/vegetarian is by default harming living beings. I love my steak and would never abstain, but I'm very much aware that my succulent meal meant that some poor cow had to die.
Merely existing is harming living beings
Our bodies fight and kill bacteria all the time
Not the point I imagine, the rule as written makes no requirement of being able to specifically identify who or how. It's like Google AI suggesting you add glue to your pizza sauce. Is it likely that you, /u/maegul, would follow that advise? Hopefully not. But is it absolutely endandering to leave the information there and not just flat out delete it on the off-chance someone takes it serious? Of course!
Fun fact! Glue is put into the cheese on pizza slices for promotional purposes. It's what gets them that nice stringing stretching cheese on video.
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.
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.
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
There's not much doubt left in me that spez wasn't at a wild party that resulted in him doing what the videographer wanted.
Pickles, will prevail
The science :
Sure might not be the best science but still science
I believe this study. It's true that vegans say their vegan cats are healthier than other cats.
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?
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.
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.
probably could have used a less loaded term than purging in relation to the pro-ana problem. lmao.
Well that would be pro-mia.
Technically, sure. But never let a technicality get in the way of a laugh.
I am also interested in learning more about vegan drama
We'll be posting a response to that in the next 24-48 hours, just finishing reviewing with the team.
See https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26218551 and https://lemmy.world/post/18830280
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/
The more you know about academic research, the less you trust something just because it's academic research.
Like, even after peer review, it's not uncommon to find out the peers who first reviewed it missed something or just flat out don't know what they were reading.
It's like my stats professor said:
Don't feel there are many people who actually use the phrase "free speech absolutist" these days, as a forward self-identification, who have much personal integrity or actual understanding of what that phrase might mean.
It means they want the right to spew misinformation knowingly or otherwise and not get in trouble for it.
I'm of the opinion that people attempting 'legitimate' claims on unsourced dangerous posts should be stamped out with impunity regardless of a forum being more free speech.
It's one thing to say you believe this despite insufficient evidence. It's another thing to willingly present near universally incorrect information as truth just because one study might call it into question.
We learned a near decade ago now that deplatforming hate speech, dangerous rhetoric, and misinformation stops it in it's tracks.
If you want to share your bullshit with other people you know in your heart of hearts is wrong, go to Signal lol.
No disrespect to Signal. They have a place as a secure messaging that's mostly by invite only for those groups. Not publicly viewable forums.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07524-8
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/25/960466075/is-deplatforming-enough-to-fight-disinformation-and-extremism
The FBI and governments don't try to shut down these places for no reason lol.
I agree, and also of the opinion that a significant portion of people who yell the loudest about “freedom of speech” are only doing so because they want to force others to listen to what is essentially bullshit, and any attempts to call them out is somehow impinging on a non-existent right to free speech. And I do hope it’s understood that there is no right to free speech other than pertaining to the government; mods and site operators are free to edit, block, delete or silence as they see fit no matter what we think. However, I do agree there is some form of social contract to at least enforce a perceived right to free speech in society.
Personally, I have become intolerant of intolerance - especially of the kind that believes it has the right to spew what is objectively bullshit.
I'm a free speech absolutist, but only for "Free as in free beer", and "speech as in Oscar acceptance speech". Don't let people charge to hear what they have to say, and start loudly playing music over them if they go on too long
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.
It's not the same thing, but IMO the best things the admins can do is establish a runbook of sorts of how to deal with these situations - because they're not out of the realms of possibility.
Where I disagree with some is in the rules needing to be black and white. There are instances, say for example a self-harming support group or a community that deals with conditions with no medical cure. IMO this is where nuance is key, because people will share misinformation or procedures that could cause harm/illness. This is where a case by case basis is needed, and ultimately the "path of least harm" is where this will excel. Regardless, admins and mods should contribute to these runbooks for their case, so that there is an established plan that is transparent to all.
Thank you all for doing this.
Thanks, we're trying to do our best.
What a mess. Thank you mods and admins for doing the work.
We're doing the best we can to consider everyone.
I appreciate your hard work. Are there any plans to address Rooki's actions? This is not the first time they have had an emotional response in moderation and used mocking language to belittle users.
I'm not vegan so I won't take sides in this particular debate (to me it seems like a trolley problem whether risking the harm of a pet is worth reducing the systematic harm of animals at-large), nor do I have any specific comments on the new rules...
I will say though, that these incidents are opportunity for growth and learning for both users and admins when it comes to running a grassroots online community. Whether people agree with the new rules or not, I think all of Lemmy is better for it if we have examples of how large instances can be run and how conflicts can be addressed cordially.
Thank you, the team is trying our best to learn and grow.
Even in shitpost/meme communities?
I understand this intended mainly toward health and news communities but as a site rule there might need an exception for other type of communities.
Yeah this is quite obviously more intended to prevent someone taking advise to put glue into pizza sauce serious because it was posted in a serious tone in a serious context. Which shitpost stuff would never be.
Getting advice from a shitpost is probably not a good idea.
I know that. But if a site rule state that posts should be "true and helpful" it leave no room (legally) for shitposting communities. I assume this is not the idea, so the wordings should take that into account.
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.
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.
FWIW having pets who eat meat isn't incompatible for most vegans. In fact it is likely that a majority of pet owners who are vegan have dogs and cats and feed them normal pet foods
And that's fine! I just meant that if you're looking for a pet that can be 100% vegan alongside you, there are definitely options for that.
It's only contentious for vegans. No one else thinks cats can be vegan
Ugh I can't tell if this is trolling. I got a sentence and and noped the fuck out. Getting a group of humans together in an online setting without being ridiculous is f'n hard.
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
There are enough pets with a vegan diet to chose from. Why pick a cat if it's important to you. People really are out of their mind.
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:
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!
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.
Scientific consensus is still a thing. You can find out what a majority of well accepted studies say, whether something is controversial or not. Sure, some all new discovery in nuclear physics might not have consensus yet but whether you can feed cats a plant only diet should. If it doesn't thats probably because everyone assumed that was a dumb thing to research that wouldn't provide any unexpected results.
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.
Cats are carnivores. It's as simple as that.
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.
About the other topic there will be a another post dont worry.
About the points i will bring it up to the team.
Have you considered that you may not be a good fit for Admin?
The other post isnt going to change the new rules from this post.
Have you apologized yet?
And now the incident's "debate" is here.
Lemmy vegans really wanna kill cats
While I disagree with the stance the vegans took in this. The
modsadmins reaction to the situation was way out of proportion, and it definitely seems like you're updating the ToS to justify what he did retroactively instead of addressing his behavior, which was way out of line.Do you have a tldr on the situation?
I wasn't party to it from the start since I'm not a vegan and I didn't see the original discussion, but from my understanding: Vegans were having a discussion on the possibilities and risks of vegan cat food, in the vegan community Lemmy world. A Lemmy world admin invaded that discussion and started using his admin/mod powers to push his unsubstantiated opinion on the subject and silence the voice of users who had another opinion. And now apparently there's new rules being added to justify that kind of admin behaviour.
And this is also apparently not the first time that that admin abused their mod powers, since I read a few comments in this thread saying something like "oh, an admin abusing mod powers, that's probably going to be xxx again".
That it's as of now difficult, needs a carefully formulated and supplemented diet, needs regular vet checks, but is possible?
Is there anywhere I can see the original post? I feel like there is a fair point to be made that a vegan diet for cats could be possible.
I support the removal of misinformation, but surely that is a fair point to make.
Here's the post: https://lemmy.world/post/18691022
The "harmful misinformation" that got removed by an admin are Omniforous' and naevaTheRat's comments, which have been restored by mods.
I don't know what the Admin did, but it feels hard to imagine it was "way out of proportion", given that forcing a cat to live vegan is unhealthy, potentially deadly and definitely animal abuse
You can literally go read what he did. I'm not going to have the same debate here that they had over in the vegan community thread.
I’m glad to see site-wide action taken against the spread of harmful disinformation.
Sick to the back teeth of hearing the term "disinformation" applied to any opinion or discourse that doesn't conform to, let's be honest....govt sanctioned sources
Ah yes, the big bad government with their 5g magnetic vaccines.
......this guy gets it.
I just want to say thank you, and I appreciate the team's efforts to be excellent to each other.
This is so dumb of course it's a controversy about veganism. It's so obvious that no imminent harm is coming from a community literally founded on the idea of reducing suffering. Probably switching instances sometimes soon
Lemm.ee is a good one!
Seconded, love lemm.ee
VeganTheoryClub
Really nice People over there . 🥸
Yes, they are very nice to express solidarity with Vegans and VeganTheoryClub.
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
Cats need a meat
Does this mean it's against the rules to promote keto, paleo, and carnivore diets? All of these cause a great deal of harm.
? How is that? Did you know walking can cause a great deal of harm as well?
https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-get-slaughtered-every-day
Here's about half a billion instances or so of harm to living beings every day.
Let alone the tens of billions living each day in conditions that would be considered "abuse" if I told you I kept my dog in a similar situation.
Damn did you know that with new studies that plants know when they are being eaten?
Wow, what a compelling argument. I'm renouncing veganism and will resume eating animals that themselves eat plants, thus maximizing suffering. Thanks kind stranger, take my gold.
[citation needed]
Claim: Carnivorous diet causes harm.
Source: the beheaded chicken in my oven.
https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-get-slaughtered-every-day
Here's about half a billion instances or so of harm to living beings every day.
Let alone the tens of billions living each day in conditions that would be considered "abuse" if I told you I kept my dog in a similar situation.
How so?
Even if we ignore the brutal abuse and murder that is done to animals raised for food, or the pandemic inevitability that comes from animal agriculture; or their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, destruction of natural habitats for expansions of ranches, or illnesses like asthma that cafos cause to local communities; or the physical and psychological harm that occurs to animal ag and slaughterhouse workers, many of whom are either immigrants or minors - any one of which should be reason alone to seek an end to animal-consumption ways of life - diets that are high in animal products and low in plants are directly harmful to human health.
That's essentially what keto, paleo, and carnivore are - high fat, high animal consumption, and low or no carb (and since most plants are high carb, that usually means low-plants as well). In the first case, low-carb diets don't even meet all nutritional needs without supplementation. In addition these diets are all about increasing the very foods that cause our top causes of death like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc, while reducing or eliminating all the foods that are known to be most protective against these lifestyle diseases.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/should-you-try-the-keto-diet
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.702802/full
https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-animals-get-slaughtered-every-day
Here's about half a billion instances or so of harm to living beings every day.
Let alone the tens of billions living each day in conditions that would be considered "abuse" if I told you I kept my dog in a similar situation.
Why are you being downvoted lol. Animals are living beings.
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".
No, but it might make communites about hunting or fishing against the rules. Hopefully loving every day won't be prohibited though.
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
I love the strong emotional takes on what is animal abuse from all the meat eaters in here.
My goodness.
Strange what? Why do people who call themselves Animal lovers then do such horrific things to Animals? Meat eaters, at least, don't act so snooty, they like killing and eating Animals. But these Vegan Guys? Seems like they just want to torture this poor cat. 🥸
As a wildlife carer who enjoys meat: Eat shite.
Simplest answer is: if you are a vegan, do not own a cat. They are obligate carnivores. There is no healthy and humane way around the fact they need to process meat to be healthy. Don't own a cat if you are vegan and don't want to feed your pet other animals. If you don't want to rehome your cat, you will need to live with the fact that you will need to sacrifice another living mammal in order to feed your pet.
Owning a pet while vegan is already kind of hypocritical..
Simplest answer is if you eat meat, you don't give a fuck about animal abuse. You care about pet abuse, and only just enough so you don't have to research it or try. If you liked kitten steaks you wouldn't care what they were being fed because circle of life, bro. Keep on dumping meow mix into your little chonk's food bowl and telling yourself how moral you are, you brave ethical champion you.
Pets != Stock Animals
Think over it and know the difference.
I thought it over, and I've decided that from now on, I'll only be getting my meat from Elwood's. They're stock animals, so I don't have to worry about harming pets anymore.
Thats... disgusting but your choice, i dont care but next time keep it by yourself. Next search for cat meat. There is definitly someone selling that. ( or even human meat in the darknet ), good google search.
Its a reason of what is okay for you or not. But to straight telling anyone who eats meat is subhuman is nearly unbearable annoying of you.
Just for your next conversation(s) keep what you by yourself.
Here for your contribution to this conversation a duckass:
Boy, that's an absolute hell of a strawman. I'm deeply comforted that this is the sort of sound, rational thinker that the LW administration thinks should be kept on-board.
Exactly, you approve of animal abuse when you want to eat them, and oppose it only when you don't. It's a violent, sickening, and childish outlook. Goodbye.
You are the only one childish here.
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
Don't send them here.
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.
Being the Fediverse, you are free to set up your own server and apply or not apply whatever restrictions you wish.
Will do!
And Lemmy's Stormfront has been born.
You're being a child about this that has never been told "no".
There was explodingheads, and its users were furious that others didn't federate with them.
Wtf are you rambling about
Go outside, get off the net weirdo
What happened to free speech!? Are you canceling me just because you don't agree with what i say!? 😠
Wdym? We added that rule extra for that NOT to be the case. As this adds protection for civil discussions on information the user thinks is useful.
Free speech means there wouldnt be any rules as free speech includes hate speech, racism etc... and we do not allow that here and any other instance would probably not meet your expectations of free speech too. Best you go to twitter if you want free speech.
Not what I've experienced here (and no, I didn't say anything racist or hateful, check my posts).
We'll see what this leads to, however
As noted in my post on the "moderation incident", by adding more subjectivity to the rules, you are opening the door to even more instance moderator misconduct. There is already evidence of how that would go.
Rooki felt it right to intervene in the !vegan cat food thread (and got a pat on the back with the new rules made to justify their actions), then not only took no issue with comments like "Meat is not something diabetics need to worry about." but also fueled the fire in the same thread by saying "To be honest linking something like meat to death of people is like saying everybody that breathed air died."
So much for taking action against harmful dietary advice.
I've had similar with Rooki showing a distinct lack of depth and level headedness. I left here entirely for a month as a result of an interaction with them.
Seeing how this post is playing out seems insane to me. People may not like some aspect of this idea, but when presented with evidence, the response here has been eye opening an almost evangelical fervor with many that seem wholly incapable of objective thinking. I have not seen a single person claim they have tried feeding a cat a vegan diet, or that it is a good idea. All that I've seen is people mentioning in abstract that this has been researched. Hell, many things in common foods are derived from petroleum. Go watch Nile Red. Anything can about be made into anything, insert drain cleaner to grape soda here. I have no interest in eating crickets, meal worms, or algae, but these are a thing too. When I'm confronted with something new, I set myself aside and do not cast my emotions into the fray like an ignorant foolish child.
There is nothing special about murder diets. It is just organic chemistry. It may cost a fortune for someone to properly feed a cat, but I have no faith that the largely unregulated in practice pet food industry is much better or more ethical than someone doing proper scientific research. Mentioning the frontiers of science and causing a pitchfork mob like post shows I'm probably in the wrong kind of place here. I have far higher expectations for intellectual engagement than this disappointing display of biased and backwards ignorance.
If you're talking about the upvotes and the supportive comments, I'm not even sure they reflect how the community would feel had they seen the full sequence of events* leading up to that decision.
As I previously mentioned, seemingly the first comment to start the chain of !vegan moderators' and subsequent Rooki actions was the impolite "don't force your shit on them" one-line comment by a user first exonerated, but later banned for trolling in another community by none other than Rooki.
The vegan comments were way lengthier, containing balanced ("it's important to do a bit of extra research", "cat nutrition is too complicated to be trying to make at home") and seemingly thoughtful takes with a link to the NCBI.
Conversely, Rooki's line of arguing contained little but outbursts like "have a nice rest of your life knowing you killed your loved pet" and "If anyone else thinks pets should be vegan i have no problem banning them for being a troll and promoting killing pets", with unsubstantiated yet specific claims like "YES cats can survive vegan diet for few months".
Sure, Rooki admitted to being emotional and said sorry after my post asking for their removal, but what's the weight of that apology if the new rules echo those same talking points, from "misinformation" to the quite specific example "Unhealthy diets, e.g. due to insufficient nutrients"?
*Screenshots sent to me by a !vegan mod after my post - verifiable via the public modlog.
I love how the same groupthink from Reddit like "vegans bad" made it way over here verbatim, to the point where an admin goes out of their way to censor them. I don't have a dog in this fight, but this was some blatant bias.
The real interesting thing is that just ~14 months ago this wasn't the case. Anti-Vegans and a shift to more right wing "opinions" sadly go hand in hand.
This is not the first time Rooki has emotionally pushed their own agenda in the face of criticism. Rooki seems to very much want to tell others exactly how to think.
They should stick to programming as they are NOT a good fit for Admin.
removed
Just kidding
Of course it was the vegans.