Hi, everybody! I’ve recently taken up a moderation position here after naeva moved to vegantheoryclub.org (it’s a great all-in-one instance for veganism, and you should check it out!), so logically the first thing I should do is propose an idea with a high moderation burden.

NOTE: this current post is not a trial run of this idea; it is a request for comment to see if this idea should be done at all. Non-vegans are absolutely welcome and encouraged to chime in because this idea is being proposed largely to benefit them, but ultimately, the opinions of vegans will be weighed more heavily simply because this is a community built by vegans for vegans, and if vegans don’t want it, then it isn’t fair to them to impose it.

The idea is that each week, we’d have a stickied post where anyone – non-vegans and vegans – can ask vegans politely and in good faith about their thoughts on and experiences with veganism. (Questions by vegans are of course still welcome outside of this stickied post, but they’re entirely welcome in here too.) Critically, this would not be a debate; it would be a Q&A format. Essentially: “Non-vegans, please don’t try to argue with the vegans, and per the format, please don’t attempt to answer questions if you aren’t vegan. Vegans, please just politely inform a moderator if you see argumentation instead of perpetuating the argument.”

This would hopefully 1) provide a healthy medium for non-vegans to ask about veganism and 2) centralize that discussion so that it’s not spread out across a community that’s supposed to be a space for vegans to connect to their peers.

Examples of good questions:

  • “What made you decide to be vegan? If you were raised vegan, why have you stayed vegan?”
  • “I’m looking into an alternative for [animal product]; any advice?”
  • “My significant other is vegan, but I’m not; what are some meals that I can cook when they come over?”
  • “I’m trying to cut meat out of my diet, but I’m finding it difficult to stick to it because of [budget/peer pressure/nutrition/etc.]. Can anyone tell me what they did when they had this problem?”
  • “I’m struggling to understand why vegans think that eggs from my friend’s backyard are unethical; they treat the chickens really well, so what’s the problem?”
  • “I’m a new vegan. Are there any tips or tricks you wished you knew earlier?”
  • “What is dating like as a vegan?”
  • “I’ve been a vegan for a while now, and I want to get involved with activism. Does anyone know a good place to get started?”
  • “Vegans who used to be anti-vegan, what changed your mind?”
  • Asking for clarification on a point that a vegan has made in response to your or someone else’s initial question.

Examples of bad questions:

  • Setting up a convoluted hypothetical scenario to own the vegans (“My great uncle owns an ethical dairy farm on a desert island. If I were to accidentally fall into a trolley switch and roadkill one of the cows, why would it be unethical to drink its milk so it doesn’t go to waste?”)
  • Just stating an opinion on veganism without actually asking a question or technically asking a question but in a way that’s clearly JAQing off.
  • “Why are so many vegans [very obviously pejorative and overgeneralized statement]?”
  • “I have [rare/serious disorder affected by my diet]; how can I still be vegan?” (this is definitely a good-faith question, but the answer here should be “consult a medical professional”.)
  • Sealioning.
  • Questions very obviously not related to veganism.

Since per-community flairs aren’t a thing on Lemmy, all we can really ask you to do is use one of the four tags below before your comment so that it’s easy to identify where you’re coming from.

[VG] for vegan, [PBD] for plant-based dieter, [VT] for vegetarian, and [NVV] for non-vegan/vegetarian. These labels are defined as follows:

  • A vegan is somebody who fits the definition from the Vegan Society quoted in the sidebar.
  • A plant-based dieter is one who is a strict vegetarian, i.e. one who does not eat meat and also does not eat animal products. However, they consume animal products outside of their diet.
  • A vegetarian is somebody who does not consume meat but nonetheless consumes animal products such as dairy and eggs.
  • A non-vegan/vegetarian is somebody who does not fit any of these definitions. This includes pescetarians and self-identified “flexitarians”.

This idea would be subject to change or discontinuation at any time per the wishes of the community or if the moderation team sees it becoming too much of a burden, but hopefully it can make the community just a bit better. 🙂

  • TheTechnician27OPMEnglish
    2•3 months ago

    I don’t think that’s unfair to ask, and this will probably be one of the trickiest things to balance. I don’t think the vegans or the non-vegans should have to feel like they’re walking on eggshells. Non-vegans because they’re hopefully just wanting to learn about something they feel they don’t fully understand and having the courage to ask, and vegans both because they’re taking time to field these questions and because veganism is a firmly held ethical belief that what’s being discussed is animal abuse (compare e.g. the way a typical Western non-vegan will treat something like the Yulin dog meat festival).

    • I don’t think non-vegans should have to feel like they’re being turned away or shouted down for being in the minority of non-vegans actually wanting to engage in good faith with the community. I think most vegans here weren’t raised vegan, and I think that questions should be treated through the lens of “if my past self were asking my present self this, what would I tell them?”
    • Likewise, I don’t think a vegan should have to feel like they’re a so-called “pick-me” to be able to participate and not be able to criticize something being asked. After all, I would have plenty of criticisms to offer if I were talking to my past self.
    • Thus, I think the criticism should both be allowed and encouraged if it’s set up in a constructive way (what is and isn’t constructive is arbitrary, but this at least immediately filters out the really obvious stuff). So there will have to be at least some tone policing, but I think the Q&A format will naturally lend itself to more civil interactions, reducing the need for manual intervention.
    • If you’re a vegan who steps out of line in the Q&A, I don’t think that should affect your ability to use the rest of the community. In essence, if a vegan gets heated in the Q&A, I think that should temporarily bar them from answering in the Q&A again, not from interacting with the rest of the community.