Moderation conflict involving c/vegan

Cats are obligate carnivores. It is 100% animal abuse.

Yep. The doublespeak here is wild. "Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm. Therefore, we are leaving up comments that cause imminent risk of physical harm."

Forget the particular details of this issue. It feels way, way more strongly like they're trying to duck out of having to take action.

https://www.benevo.com/vegan-cat-food-from-benevo/

Benevo Cat foods contain all the nutrients an adult cat needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for slaughterhouse meat. Although obligate carnivores in the wild, domestic cats still need nutrients they would normally source from prey. Thankfully Benevo Cat contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable kibble.

Benevo Cat is a professional cat food, created by Benevo in 2005, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.

We've had safe and healthy variants of vegan cat food for 20 years. Trying to elevate the question to animal abuse speaks entirely to personal ignorance.

And humans weren't made to eat tablets and get injected with mixtures from syringes.

IDK it seems like pretty clear human abuse to me

If medical drugs can be made to be safe and compatible with humans there's nothing stopping it for the same happening for vegan food for cats

You might be surprised at how much corn, grains, and other non-meat stuff there is in cat food. Particularly in cheap dry kibble that nobody typically bats an eye at someone feeding to their cat.

This conversation just seems so weird to me. The number of people who feed their cats anything similar to what they’d be eating in the wild is minuscule.

Meat isn’t some magic substance, biological chemical reactions turns grass into cows. That you think you can’t take those nutrients and make them bioavailable to an obligate carnivore is absurd. Ever seen an impossible burger?

And if you think the cruelty stems from the idea that cats wouldn’t like it, I gotta say. I have my cat on an expensive grain free meat heavy diet. And I know for a fact that he goes crazy for the cheap shitty corn based purina kibble. He has busted into other people’s homes to steal kibble from their cats.

So is it cruel for me to feed him a more nature based diet when it’s clear he prefers corn based trash?

I don’t see any reason why a functional vegan cat food couldn’t exist.

You're forgetting some people are idiots, especially those "better than others" who do crap like this.

I was banned from /r/grindr for suggesting it's ok for trans people to use it. It's legitimately one of the most blatantly, unapologetically terrible mods I've ever seen, and it's just him.

I'm personally of the opinion that if a community is poorly moderated, you should just make a new community that is better aligned to the level of moderation users actually want and not to rely on a centralized admin team. They should really just be preventing serious abuse, like grooming, and provide support and advice to mods.

Ultimately its not sustainable and gives Admins too much centralized power to determine to that level what is and isn't appropriate mod behavior. I get that what you experienced is generally dickish behavior, but that can easily spin out of control when it relies on admin judgement calls like that.

Vegans are fine, it are those that enforce/demand it from others that are radicals, all radicals are lunatics.

You get that from anywhere with a chamber that echos well enough. There's the folks who don't have kids or want them, and then there's the anti-natalists who call the people who have children breeders and their kids crotchspawn. There's the Christians and the Religious Right. Jews and Zionists. List goes on.

I think this is showing that about 70% of the people on here are incapable of reconsidering their positions on something.

To me thats upsetting, but then again lemmy.world is the low hanging fruit of the fediverse. Other servers would never have picked this fight to begin with.

Yeah...and entirely unsurprising.

Someone is being quick to make judgements.

Vegan pet diets have historically been controversial, as dogs and cats are biologically omnivores and carnivores respectively. However, due to the demands of consumers concerned about farmed animal welfare and environmental sustainability, increasing numbers of pet food companies are now producing vegan diets excluding any animal products. These aim to supply all nutritional needs using plant-sourced ingredients, and supplements of minerals, vitamins and amino acids, amongst others.

However, a recent study by Daina et al. (1) asserted nutritional inadequacies in vegan pet diets. The study based its conclusions on the analysis of only three specific diets—a sample insufficient to draw conclusions about the nutritional soundness of all vegan pet diets. Nutritional unsoundness is also not uncommon among nonvegan pet diets (2). Although diets in each group may be nutritionally sound or unsound, depending on the quality of diet formulation and manufacturing, systemic differences between vegan and meat-based pet foods appear minimal in this respect. In fact, a recent survey of 29 pet food manufacturers (many more than examined by Daina et al.), which examined steps taken to ensure nutritional soundness and diet quality, found that 10 plant-based pet foods had slightly higher standards overall, than 19 meat-based pet foods (3). The former were more—not less—likely to be nutritionally sound.

Furthermore, the gold standard test for nutritional adequacy is animal health and longevity. Ten studies in dogs (4–13) and three in cats (14–16) have found that vegan diets produce health outcomes as good or better than nonvegan diets. The palatability of vegan pet diets appears comparable to that of meat-based diets (17), and nutritionally-sound vegan diets for dogs and cats offer major benefits for environmental sustainability (18).

The sweeping claims made by Daina et al. concerning the nutritional unsoundness of vegan pet diets are inconsistent with the evidence in this field, and incorrect. Given the positive health outcomes for dogs and cats maintained on nutritionally-sound vegan diets, and the substantial environmental benefits such diets may offer, the use of such diets should be supported.

Source

Analysis of 16 studies on the impact of vegan diets on cat and dog health
\ Domínguez-Oliva et al. (2023)concluded, “there was no overwhelming evidence of adverse effects arising from use of these diets and there was some evidence of benefits. … Much of these data were acquired from guardians via survey-type studies, but these can be subject to selection biases, as well as subjectivity around the outcomes. However, these beneficial findings were relatively consistent across several studies and should, therefore, not be disregarded.” They advised, “… if guardians wish to feed their companion animals vegan diets, a cautious approach should be taken using commercially produced diets which have been formulated considering the nutritional needs of the target species.” i.e., that are nutritionally-sound].

In 2023 veterinary Professor Andrew Knight and colleagues published a large-scale study of 1,369 cats fed vegan (127 – 9%) or meat-based (1,242 – 91%) pet food, for at least one year. Cats fed vegan diets had better health outcomes for each of seven general health indicators studied. First, differences between diet groups in age, sex, neutering (desexing) status and primary location (outdoor vs. indoor) were all controlled for statistically. Next, risk reductions were calculated for cats of average age, and other characteristics. For average cats fed vegan diets, risk reductions were:

• increased veterinary visits (possibly indicating illness) – 7% reduction
\ • medication use – 15% reduction
\ • progression onto a medical diet (after being fed a vegan or meat-based diet) – 55% reduction
\ • reported veterinary assessment of being unwell – 4% reduction
\ • reported veterinary assessment of more severe illness – 8% reduction
\ • pet guardian opinion of more severe illness – 23% reduction.
\ • Additionally, the number of health disorders per unwell cat decreased by 16%.

No reductions were statistically significant, but collectively they revealed a strong trend. Additionally, the prevalence of 22 of the most common feline health disorders was studied. Forty two percent of cats fed meat, and 37% of those fed vegan diets suffered from at least one health disorder. 15 disorders were most common in cats fed meat, and seven most common in cats fed vegan diets.

In 2021 veterinarians Dr Sarah Dodd and colleagues published a large-scale study, including dietary information for 1,026 cats, of whom 187 were fed vegan diets. The latter were more frequently reported by guardians to be in very good health. They had more ideal body condition scores, and were less likely to suffer from gastrointestinal and hepatic (liver) disorders, than cats fed meat. No health disorders were more likely, for cats fed vegan diets.

And in 2006 veterinarians Dr Lorelei Wakefield and colleagues published a study in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association comparing the health status of 34 cats maintained on vegetarian diets, and 52 maintained on conventional diets, for at least one year. No significant differences existed in age, sex, body condition, housing, or perceived health status between the two groups. Most of the caregivers in both groups described their cats as healthy or generally healthy.

Source

Im no vegan, and was originally convinced that giving cats vegan food was animal abuse, and am still sure its best for cats to eat meat But really, seeing so much people just saying 'vegans are hysteric/lunatic/cultist' without any more reflection gave me a weird vibe, like it's the exact same rethoric used against any progressist idea It got me thinking, like I think I disagree with vegans on the vegan cat food thing but people are being so mean to vegans and tolerant to power abuse, i'd rather be on the vegan side

Caring about animal abuse is cultish behavior?

in defense of those people the previous thread showed up on basically every lemmy instance under the sun, there are memes about it now.

I'm not sure what else you were expecting with a site wide drama such as this tbh.

go back to fucking reddit

Yeah, fuck reddit, and fuck u/spez.

Er, am I doing this right?

The question is at the root of which moderator's actions are correct. There's a reactionary bias from tons of Reddit-fugees that came out of vegan bashing and anti-vegan hysteria which we see crop up repeatedly.

It can be difficult to distinguish between people sincere, abet misguided, beliefs and outright trolls. And moderation takes a significant temporal and emotional toll. "Vegans are killing their pets/kids!!!" is a popular panic phrase intended to gin up hostility. Consequentaly, the mods in these communities are playing endless wack-a-mole with trolls who just want to conflate veganism with an esoteric form of cruelty.

Establishing a bright line of appropriate content is important for good moderation. But to know where that line is, you need some degree of objection information.

Which brings us back to the fundamental question of whether safe, reliable vegan cat food exists (spoilers: it's been around for decades). But if you don't accept that premise, you're going to see any mod censorship as some diabolical cat killing agenda.

Difficulty level of Reddit is too high, since people would actually need to, you know, read stuff, in order to have "read it."

It's not just a diet thing, it's a matter of animal abuse.

I don't doubt that there are options out there for people that want to feed their pets a vegan-friendly diet, but given that cats primarily eat meat the idea of promoting a vegan diet that isn't heavily monitored and noted by their vet is an awful look for the vegan community and Lemmy. You absolutely cannot expect people to just treat this as a moderation issue, because at its most fundamental level it's about whether lemmy.world supports content that is harmful to animals.

I said it elsewhere here, and since people don't like it being raised I'll say it again: shit like this wouldn't fly on Reddit. Lemmy has a poor reputation on the Fediverse for housing extreme opinions, and this debacle really won't help its reputation as a fed-friendly alternative to Reddit. Saying "go back to Reddit" just highlights the problem more, and is probably why there are plenty of posts on the Fediverse asking why Lemmy is so hostile, or why it's nowhere near as friendly as many communities on Mastodon.

Vegans win this time.

Thanks, we're always trying to do better and learn from our mistakes.

Absolutely agree. This is an issue where it could have easily been covered up, but the leadership opted for total transparency.

They admitted the mistake, showed how it happened, and worked out an agreement with the community to avoid the problem in the future.

Forget comparison to corporate media (it's not even close), I've seen issues in the Fediverse handled 100x worse than this.

The only person with integrity I see here is the admin that initially removed the comments promoting animal abuse. Those that backed down and restored the comments caved to the pressure of an extreme, insular community and sided against *defenseless animals. I see no integrity in their actions no matter how they try to spin it.

Mods aside, the Reddit app is still garbage

This is all PR, lemmy.world didnt make good with their vegan community, they just want everyone else to think they are fair and level headed. Reddit has the exact same PR, except they were trying to make money openly, while most assume lemmy.world admins are losing or breaking even (whether thats true or not).

Put simply, reddit was trying to collect more profit from their users one way, and lemmy.world is trying to collect its donations in another, but PR servers both cases.

Doesnt really matter theres plenty of space elsewhere for the vegan community, which is the beauty of the fediverse.

We're just trying to do the best we can to consider everyone involved and what we can do better going forward. We're all just volunteers trying to keep things positive and stable. 🙏 ❤️

Thanks!

Would be fine as an option that could be enabled, especially for larger communities, but an instance run by a single person wouldn't be able to host communities if it was a built in requirement for all communities.

You can't fix people problems with technical solutions. I know tech folk like to think they can, but it really doesn't work. Sometimes you simple needs some rules, guides, and a good book to slap someone with.

Solid idea. One consequence of this would be the possible delay in removing material that really should be removed as fast as possible, though.

In theory a good idea, but there is lots of content that needs to be gone serverside asap - either because it's CP, otherwise illegal, spam that clogs down the Fediverse/can even be used to DoS a server,etc.

A slight modification, it could be implemented as a suggested action where the admins (or mods) can ask for a second opinion when they feel it's appropriate.

That way urgent actions can happen right away, and potentially controversial actions can be discussed. It should solve the problem without forcing a specific workflow

I was just thinking about this: peer review admin actions. A first admin could initiate the action, then the peer review could be assigned randomly to another admin - randomly so that admins can't create specific cartels to team up on specific topics.

Personally, I like this idea. But it can be equally abused if two admins colluded to agree with each other. But, I think it’s at least better than nothing.

I would imagine this would need to be done at the software level to be most effective. You should request this sort of feature from the Lemmy team to integrate into both the backend and the UI.

If you do create issues for this request, you should post back here (or whatever related community) so people can upvote the issues to show the devs we really want the feature.

More backstage work for admins who are NOT paid. No.

Upvoting and commenting for visibility, this is a great idea. Though concur with snooggums below that it would need to be an opt-in option.

I think a 3 person team is better. 1 mod/admit marks something for moderation. 2 other mods need to agree to mod. If 1 of the mods disagrees, it stays.

This is inspired by true events in September 1983, where a russian command post in charge of their nuclear weapons caught on radar 4 incoming missles, supposedly fired from America. The captain in charge turned his key to fire every nuke they had at America. The second in command turned his key as well. The third in command refused. His logic was if America was going to fire nukes, why fire exactly 4 nukes and only 4 nukes, all targeting the same location? Would it not make sense to deplay thousands if you're trying for a surprise ambush?

Those nukes that America fired? Clouds. The Earth was at just the right rotation for 30 minutes to confuse the russian radar into interpreting 4 missle shaped clouds as solid objects.

America was almost turned to dust for no reason, 2 weeks before I was born. Because of some happy fluffy white clouds, that even Bob Ross will admit almost DID cause an accident!

So yeah. Maybe we do a 3 mod system.

Thanks! When we fall down, we get back up and try to learn from our mistakes to do better next time ✌️

You're welcome!✌️❤️ We try and be easy to get a hold of as well.

Never fire someone for an accident unless the accident was a symptom of willful negligence. Fire them for being unqualified or incompetent, sure, but not for an honest mistake. Training someone to avoid that mistake in the future will be far less expensive than replacing them, and they're going to be far less likely to make mistakes like it ever again.

The idea that it's dangerous to raise children on a vegan diet is unequivocally false, and misinformation. Every major health authority has made statements affirming that a properly implemented plant-based diet is entirely nutritionally adequate for all stages of life. Literally the only supplement that's strictly necessary in the majority of cases is b12 - which is something that everyone should be supplementing with anyway. Aside from that it's easier to get adequate nutrition from plant-based diets than it is on the Standard American Diet.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886704/

https://bitesizevegan.org/the-crime-of-raising-vegan-kids-when-diet-is-deadly/

Yeah, I was as taken by surprise as you. I guess thats one of the reasons I keep using Lemmy after ditching reddit

Try to be as transparent as we can and keep things as healthy as we can for the community.

Thanks for understanding. It took the whole team a lot of work to get to this point 🙏

Forgive me for being suspicious of your comment. There is a huge anti-vegan bias in society, and many argue against veganism, not in good faith. Can you provide any examples of the mods doing this?

This is not exclusive to c/vegan; other communities have similar issues you have brought up; they have also been called out by a few, but c/vegan is getting the most traction.

It goes back to user, mod, and admin control over their communities.

This post seems to address the overpolicing conflict.

There probably just sick of every thread, every damn thread, having people coming in and trying to debate. It's not a community for that and asking people to not do that is well within their rights. If somebody went into an anime community and kept saying live action is better, they should get banned. Doesn't mean that community is an echo chamber.

Can we not relaunch the argument that turned into a black hole, pulling everyone on Lemmy into a hellish void? Let's keep the cat diet discussion in c/vegan, c/cats or some other devoted sublemmy.

I don’t agree with the outcome of THIS situation, but I DO agree with the idea that mods and admins are not gods on the fediverse. I like the concept of checks and balances, even if I disagree with the ruling. The fact that it’s not a god complex one person rule is better than what reddit has.

Can you elaborate? I want to understand.
I am not involved in the action above but it seems fair.

Cats love their beef food. It's not normal for cats to eat cows.

Thanks, when thing gets out of hand, we try and take a step back as a team and evaluate how to do our best to fix things for both our site and the community as a whole.

I think discussing the emerging field of plant based and synthetic replication of a carnivores diet using real research is pretty clear cut not animal abuse just because it can be animal abuse if not done carefully and because you say so. (Also, I'm not a vegan and I have never fed my cat vegan food, you guys are just obnoxious though)

Me too.

They are heavily linked. If moderation is lax enough to allow what many perceive to be animal cruelty then it endangers one of the largest mediums in the fediverse. Lemmy already has a poor reputation on Mastodon, and the debate on this really doesn't help shine a good light on lemmy.world.

We should be careful to avoid creating communities that are echo chambers.

I'm afraid that ship is already sailed, foundered, and is well on the way to the bottom in a lot of communities.

When it comes to spicy topics, many communities on Lemmy feel incredibly close-minded and hostile to opposing views.

We should be careful to avoid creating communities that are echo chambers

From what I see we are already echo chambers on the most pressing topics.

Interesting, first time I hear this about Beehaw

Wow that modlog is pretty eye opening, big echo chamber vibes.

Yeah. I know why I blocked them a long time ago. There is nothing of value in that community.

FediHosting Foundation, it's our parent non profit.

Thanks. TBH most of us are here because we want to see more transparency with the internet.

We're not perfect, but we try to do the best we can, even if we make mistakes.

It's hard as heck to consider all the different angles on big issues, which is why it can take us a few days to a week when big issues pop off.