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.
Try reading some current information on it. It can be healthy for a cat to be vegan if it is done correctly.
The most difficult part is quote a lot of cats are picky to the point they won’t eat the one or two brands that are actually nutritionally complete.
Its absurd they are banning even the discussion of this when research keeps trending towards the possibility of a healthy vegan cat.
Mostly, I think its absurd to think these discussions will actually hurt real cats. If the owner is basing their information on this websites shitposters, they are already a horrible owner.
Oh no no no, we don’t play that game here. If you’re trying to convince someone of your argument, the burden of providing reputable and scientifically accurate evidence is on YOU and you only.
And only if the other side won’t accept scientific evidence then you can blame them.
I’m not saying cats can’t be vegan but to the best of my knowledge their diet must be meat based. As it is you who are trying to convince me (and others) cats can be vegan, it is also you who must provide the evidence.
Something like this then? https://plos.altmetric.com/details/154121408/news
These articles say that cat nutrition must be strictly carnivore.
I also belive that. But I have to add that those were press articles written by journalists who, most likely, have no veterinary nor scientific training.
Only reputable peer reviewed articles are to be trusted. If the opinion of vegan-cats must be proven this way, it has to be done the other way around.
No, the first post was about that. This post is about how we aren’t allowed to have this conversation out loud.
I do have studies I can send you, I’m sure you know you can find studies all along the spectrum for most topics. I dont have the experience to defend the studies myself though but if you would like I can send you some to look over.
This whole post is frustrating because vegans are trying to reduce animal harm, and then get accused of harming their pets. Of course there are a handful of stories of people who tried a whole food diet and hurt their cats but not a single person recommended that, and multiple vegans correctly advised against it.
The point is that maybe we can trust that vegans of all people would be considerate of animal well being as best as they can, including trying healthier diets in the effort to prolong their lives.
Believe it or not a lot of people here (including me) had no knowledge about that issue before this announcement was posted.
And my comment is referring to one very specific “thread” from your comment. Yes, you’re discussing other issues in your comment, but they’re at best only vaguely related to that first sentence.
the issue is not intent. i believe you have good intentions. i do not believe that average people, even vegans, have enough knowledge on cat dietary needs and health to do it safely.
even professional plant-based cat food makers can’t reliably make food that meets AAFCO standards for cat nutrients. that’s why the FDA advises against it.
https://europeanpetfood.org/pet-food-facts/fact-sheets/nutrition/vegetarian-diets/
https://europeanpetfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Updated-Nutritional-Guidelines.pdf
Like any animal, you are able to supply some essential amino acids and essential fatty acids along with other bioavailable micronutrients(plant based pro-vitamin A without modification is out) through artificial or specifically formulated sources. Asking for scientific journals is silly in my opinion because those without a biology background wouldn’t understand them (and even what I just posted would likely be hard to understand for most), but pointing out that pet food industry experts and vet nutritionists consider it a plausible goal and have specific nutrition profiles they follow for it should be enough.
I consider the whole effort silly myself, but I’m a meat eater. Doesn’t mean that it isn’t data driven.
That first link is giving off strong vibes of trying to satisfy stubborn ass vegans who are going to do it anyways and trying to save a few cats lives.
The entire thing can be summed up as “Please don’t fucking do this, but if you insist consult a vet nutritionist because if you get anything wrong your cat will die”
If someone is a vegan, then they just shouldn’t have a cat as imposing dietary choices that the cat (or other animal) wouldn’t make goes against their own morals by being vegan in the first place.
Even for dogs, yes they are omnivores, but they won’t choose to not eat meat See: That one years old clip from a talk show with a vegan guest who said “Their dog is a total vegan and won’t even want to eat meat” and when tested on the show the dog went straight for the meat dish instead of the vegan one
This is not specific to cats. If you plan to formulate your own food for a pet, you need input from a vet and a nutritionist, or else risk hurting your animal. Plenty of people cooking fresh food for their dogs are not giving them a full nutrient profile either.
I think this is showing how much faith people have in regular commercial pet food. Normal pet food isnt great for your pets, look into what the ingredients actually are and their quality.
The only reason the idea of vegan food for cats and dogs came about was in an effort to make them healthier and happier animals. Its not to force a vegans morals onto an animal.
I’m vegan and I have a cat. My vet approved the vegan food for a trial but the cat didnt like it, so she eats meat now. If thats abusive to you then I’m not sure what to say.
Tell me why my entire vet office approved of this trial if its animal abuse always. The discussions here on this site simply dont match the discussions youll find if you talk to a vet or an animal nutritionist.
Not stepping into the vegan drama here, just wanted to chime in here about cat food. Two of my three family cats growing up had terrible kidney issues in their elder years. It turns out that - even setting aside the grains and fillers added to kibble - dry food is bad for cats unless they drink a ton of water with it.
Domestic cats are descended from desert wildcats that obtained most of their water content from their prey, and they inherited a low natural thirst drive because of this. Kidney issues are common if cats don’t get enough moisture in their diet, and since they instinctively hide symptoms of illness, you might not notice anything is wrong until it’s too late.
Kibble became the norm because a) most people are used to dogs and b) it’s cheaper and way more convenient than canned food (which is a messy bacterial magnet that can’t be safely left out for more than an hour). If anyone reading this feeds their cat exclusively dry food, consider switching to at least a partially wet food diet or buying a cat fountain (the sound of flowing water entices some cats to drink more often). Watching your beloved family members suffer from kidney failure is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
firstly, you can’t just say the entire “regular” pet food industry is of poor quality and bad for your pets. it’s not a monolith. if you want to criticize poor quality pet food by all means go ahead, but it’s not like switching to a vegan food automatically fixes that. if anything you’re more likely to get food lacking in nutrients if you go plant based.
secondly you can’t just say “look what the ingredients actually are” which is ingredient list fear mongering. of course average people are going to see a few ingredients they don’t recognize, but everything on there has been studied and approved as safe by the FDA. so what specifically in “regular” pet food do you think is so bad?
*remembered what instance I’m logged into and I’m not switching accounts so I can be rude
I agree that the entire effort is silly, but that doesn’t mean it’s either directly lethal or animal abuse like people are so insistent. It’s not as black and white as Lemmy’s popular opinion wants it to be to fuel their moral outrage.
It’s literally directly lethal and abuse for a cat if you mess up on a nutrient. Unlike omnivores, if you miss or are deficient in a critical nutrient for them their body cannot make it to compensate, it MUST be obtained through food or they will die. In the wild, they have evolutionary instincts to seek these nutrients out, instincts they are prevented from acting on by being a domestic pet.
And I just made a post about developing nutrition for said nutrients.
Well put
The website says:
And then explains why it’s a bad idea…
And you’re using this as a source for feeding cats a vegan diet?
You’re drastically underestimating people if you think they couldn’t understand that, but then again you did, and I didn’t expect that
I’m using that as a source saying that it’s possible and something worth discussing, yes. I picked that source because their metrics tend to be of the authorities that are used in subsequent scientific studies evaluating the adequacy of vegetarian cat food.
The fact that you can read the plain language about both the challenges and market availability and yet come to the conclusion that they are ruling it out as a possibility kind of makes my point to the lack of understanding.
That’s not what your link is saying though
They flat out say ‘complete’ vegan cat food isn’t complete.
And youre saying that the fact a grifter sells it means it won’t kill a cat
Any further attempt to explain this or anything else is going to be time wasted.
Have a good life
That’s not what it says and the language is extraordinarily plain. You even quoted it. They neither recommended or did not recommend the products. They explicitly did not say the products would kill your cat but that they may not be appropriate. They went on to explain why certain measures must be taken for certain micronutrients to be bioavailable.
I refuse to write more than a paragraph in response to this because it isn’t worth the effort, but you’re wrong, your own sources say you’re wrong, and if you’re truly concerned about animals well being make super sure you never own one.
Who the fuck is “European Pet Food.org”? You want us to believe pet food manufacturers when they say manufactured pet food is good?
I don’t actually have a firm belief in either side in this. I haven’t seen valid sources saying either thing. One side keeps linking very obviously vegan-biased bullshit, and the other side posts ChatGPT made up studies bullshit.
Considering their standards are some of what are used for research articles that are published for the suitability of pet food, I consider them credible. A research article is what directed me to them in the first place.
I’m glad you consider them credible. Extra convenient, that is.
So there is a study that shows that forcing your quest for a sense of absolute moral superiority on a obligate or fecultative carnivore by feeding them an unnatural vegan diet may not kill them?
The issue is choice and the fact that you are taking it away. Obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat because that is what they evolved to eat and you are taking that away from them. These studies that say it may not be unhealthy are simply efforts to feed the self-satisfied circle jerk. Efforts to develop a vegan food that obligate and fecultative carnivores would choose to eat are efforts to overcome their nature which is to eat a diet consisting mainly of meat.
Forcing your beliefs on a being that isn’t given a choice.
Animal abuse.
To be fair, we do this to pets all the time. What makes it abuse is if it’s harmful to them, not that we’re forcing it onto them.
Obviously but you can’t claim absolute moral superiority when you’re taking choice away from another living being. The argument is more about bursting the self-satisfied bubble than it is about any real issue.
It’s pretty hard to force a diet on a cat, especially if it is let outside. My family had cats when I was a kid. They could go outside when they pleased. Usually they came home at dinner time. Sometimes they stayed away for days or weeks, then came home. On a few occasions they never came back. Whether they met with unpleasant fates, found new human caretakers, or decided to live in the wild, we have no way to know. In any case though, staying with us was entirely optional for them and they usually but not always took the option. In fact they sometimes tried to feed us, by bringing home dead mice and squirrels and dropping them in front of us. (I don’t think we ever ate any).
Where is the choice being taken away? We offered them a commercial catfood diet and let them take it or leave it. Veganism didn’t come into this (we had never heard of veganism at that time) but that is irrelevant.
I said the same thing somewhere else. My cats can leave whenever they want. They don’t.
You should make that clear in your post, because you currently appear to be arguing that owning pets is animal abuse.
That’s quite a leap you’re making there. Given that I’m not making that leap with you I will leave you to it. Enjoy.
Were these two statements not meant to be causally related?
Yes, but show me where I said anything at all about pet ownership. You have an agenda and are making things up to support that agenda.
You’re right, I introduced the pet ownership angle. I think it would be hard to argue that owning a pet does not involve you overriding their choices. Letting your pet do whatever they want-- the opposite of training them-- is in fact generally considered poor pet ownership. I think there’s a deep and unexplored conversation to be had about the ethics of pet ownership, but mostly I just wanted to point out that making decisions for your pet that they would not have made (for example, not letting your dog run into dangerous areas, keeping a cat inside, or preventing your pet from attacking other small animals) is not in itself animal abuse like you’ve said. It becomes abuse when your decisions or choices harm the animal more than they help it (ie. choosing to malnourish your cat by feeding them a vegan diet instead of meat).
TL;DR: Pet ownership necessarily means you’re making decisions for your pet, not all of which they would choose themselves, so claiming that doing that is immoral means pet ownership would be immoral. Since I think we agree that pet ownership is not immoral, making decisions for your pet must not always be immoral-- it’s only immoral when the decisions harm your pet.
And lastly, no, I don’t have an agenda. I’m not vegan and I don’t own any pets. Please don’t accuse people of acting in bad faith if you’re not absolutely sure that it’s true. I’m just being annoying here because I’m interested in this subject from a purely theoretical angle.
I’m not a vegan, but it really cracks me up when people get up in arms about this subject they barely understand and arrive at the position that pet ownership/meat eating itself is unethical because it removes animal agency. Like, you’re making an ethically vegan argument you know.
I think that’s the point, the ethically vegan argument is not to own a pet that eats meat, and it’s odd these particular vegans in the channel couldn’t see it, and all the non vegans were pointing it out.
Pet ownership in general is not vegan, even if you gaslight yourself into calling them companions.
I’m not going to construct a straw man to dunk on all vegans without knowing their particular situation. I will, however, respond to absolutely silly and inconsistent arguments.
But you did construct a strawman which I addressed. Anecdotally the bit about pets for vegans being “companions” came directly from the person who posted the initial thread calling out rookie (which by the way, rookie seems like kinda of a jerk and probably shouldn’t be making decisions like these).
An animal is incapable of providing any consent, they are incapable of understanding the ethical choices a vegan may make, or the reasons behind it. The fact that instead of many viable alternatives, they selfishly choosing to keep an animal that would need to have those choices made for them is an ethical problem in their own philosophy.
These vegans choose to keep a cute kitty or puppy, even old and sick kitties and puppies are cute and rewarding, for selfish reasons. If you truly need to keep an animal, keep a vegan pet. Then you don’t need to participate in the food system, and a non-vegan pet owner can provide for the animal best suited to their lifestyle.
Like there is an understanding that engaging in the meat industry, even on the fringes, perpetuates that industry hurting animals. The same is true for pets, even good pet owners engage and support a system where by animals are exploited and hurt, even if it’s not THEIR animal. I don’t see why this is so hard, honestly.
I called it a straw man because neither of us are vegans and creating an argument between ourselves about a hypothetical vegan’s ethics seems about as productive as sniffing our own farts.
That’s not the definition of a strawman. We can discuss this philosophy from outside of it. That’s a thing that’s ok to do!
Radical veganism is extremism. Extremism is about a sense of absolute superiority and the ability to self-absolve. Vegan extremists are the same as every other type of extremist in that sense.
You’re the one making radical inflexible arguments here with an air of supremacy and lack of nuance while self absolving, hoss. That’s why what you’re saying is ethically inconsistent. You should take your own advice.
“No you are!”
Good one.
Of course, it’s only the other side that’s ever inconsistent and inflexible, never my incorruptible logical side.
Straw man!
Another good one!
Do a Gish Gallop now. GISH GALLOP! GISH GALLOP! GISH GALLOP!
The lack of self awareness is impressive at least.
Pot: meet kettle.
Ah you’re a committed follower of our resident veterinary nutrition scientist and his opinions on “fecultative” carnivores and his extensive literature review of “I don’t believe that shit”, huh?
You are welcome to group me with whomever you like. It doesn’t change the statement.
I was just clarifying your position, or your lack of one in this case.
I believe I made a position clear to you elsewhere. While reading through the thread I couldn’t help but be amused at your statement here clearly complaining about something you yourself are doing - and advocating for.
Thus: pot meet kettle.
Oh so you are the eminent vet nutritionist with published literature reviews in this case. My apologies. It’s good to meet you kettle. I thought you were just a random asshole without a particular point.
Incredibly L take and I am now confident the rest of your statements in this thread are unlikely to be factually correct.
Hey admins. This one right here…
This isn’t the place to reopen misinformation; please keep the hogwash on the appropriate channel.
this whole thread is gonna be an instance in-joke isn’t it
I believe you in saying it’s possible if your cat isn’t a picky eater. However, what do most pet cats eat per day, 100 to 200 calories a day? Pet food is usually made with the cuts that didn’t make it into people food. I understand why people choose to be vegans (I see this choice almost like a religious choice). Making a few cats vegan doesn’t really help the “vegan cause.” Plus, there’s no point in forcing animals in making ethical choices.