Intro
We would like to address some of the points that have been raised by some of our users (and by one of our communities here on Lemmy.World) on /c/vegan regarding a recent post concerning vegan diets for cats. We understand that the vegan community here on Lemmy.World is rightfully upset with what has happened. In the following paragraphs we will do our best to respond to the major points that we've gleaned from the threads linked here.
Links
Actions in question
Admin removing comments discussing vegan cat food in a community they did not moderate.
The comments have been restored.
The comments were removed for violating our instance rule against animal abuse (https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/#11-attacks-on-users). Rooki is a cat owner himself and he was convinced that it was scientific consensus that cats cannot survive on a vegan diet. This originally justified the removal.
Even if one of our admins does not agree with what is posted, unless the content violates instance rules it should not be removed. This was the original justification for action.
Removing some moderators of the vegan community
Removed moderators have been reinstated.
This was in the first place a failure of communication. It should have been clearly communicated towards the moderators why a certain action was taken (instance rules) and that the reversal of that action would not be considered (during the original incident).
The correct way forward in this case would have been an appeal to the admin team, which would have been handled by someone other than the admin initially acting on this.
We generally discuss high impact actions among team before acting on them. This should especially be the case when there is no strong urgency on the act performed. Since this was only a moderator removal and not a ban, this should have been discussed among the team prior to action.
Going forward we have agreed, as a team, to discuss such actions first, to help prevent future conflict
Posting their own opposing comment and elevating its visibility
Moderators' and admins' comments are flagged with flare, which is okay and by design on Lemmy. But their comments are not forced above the comments of other users for the purpose of arguing a point.
These comments were not elevated to appear before any other users comments.
In addition, Rooki has since revised his comments to be more subjective and less reactive.
Community Responses
The removed comments presented balanced views on vegan cat food, citing scientific research supporting its feasibility if done properly.
Presenting scientifically backed peer reviewed studies is 100% allowed, and encouraged. While we understand anyone can cherry pick studies, if a individual can find a large amount of evidence for their case, then by all accounts they are (in theory) technically correct.
That being said, using facts to bully others is not in good faith either. For example flooding threads with JSTOR links.
The topic is controversial but not clearly prohibited by site rules.
That is correct, at the time there was no violation of site wide rules.
Rooki's actions appear to prioritize his personal disagreement over following established moderation guidelines.
Please see the above regarding addressing moderator policy.
Conclusions
Regarding moderator actions
We will not be removing Rooki from his position as moderator, as we believe that this is a disproportionate response for a heat-of-the-moment response.
Everybody makes mistakes, and while we do try and hold the site admin staff to a higher standard, calling for folks resignation from volunteer positions over it would not fair to them. Rooki has given up 100's of hours of his free time to help both Lemmy.World, FHF and the Fediverse as a whole grown in far reaching ways. You don't immediately fire your staff when they make a bad judgment call.
While we understand that this may not be good enough for some users, we hope that they can be understanding that everyone, no matter the position, can make mistakes.
We've also added a new by-laws section detailing the course of action users should ideally take, when conflict arises. In the event that a user needs to go above the admin team, we've provided a secure link to the operations team (who the admin's report to, ultimately). See https://legal.lemmy.world/bylaws/#12-site-admin-issues-for-community-moderators for details.
TL;DR In the event of an admin action that is deemed unfair or overstepping, moderators can raise this with our operations team for an appeal/review.
Regarding censorship claims
Regarding the alleged censorship, comments were removed without a proper reason. This was out of line, and we will do our best to make sure that this does not happen again. We have updated our legal policy to reflect the new rules in place that bind both our user AND our moderation staff regarding removing comments and content. We WANT users to hold us accountable to the rules we've ALL agreed to follow, going forward. If members of the community find any of the rules we've set forth unreasonable, we promise to listen and adjust these rules where we can. Our terms of service is very much a living document, as any proper binding governing document should be.
Controversial topics can and should be discussed, as long as they are not causing risk of imminent physical harm. We are firm believers in the hippocratic oath of "do no harm".
We encourage users to also list pros and cons regarding controversial viewpoints to foster better discussion. Listing the cons of your viewpoint does not mean you are wrong or at fault, just that you are able to look at the issue from another perspective and aware of potential points of criticism.
While we want to allow our users to express themselves on our platform, we also do not want users to spread mis-information that risks causing direct physical harm to another individual, origination or property owned by the before mentioned. To echo the previous statement "do no harm".
To this end, we have updated our legal page to make this more clear. We already have provisions for attacking groups, threatening individuals and animal harm, this is a logical extension of this to both protect our users and to protect our staff from legal recourse and make it more clear to everyone. We feel this is a very reasonable compromise, and take these additional very seriously.
Sincerely,
FHF / LemmyWorld Operations Team
EDIT: Added org operations contact info
I keep seeing this study y'all keep throwing around. It's based on vegan cat owner's self reported data AND it's probably biased as it's solely funded by a pro-vegan group
Self reported surveys of all kinds are notoriously bad to base studies on.
how else will you study quality of life from a cat?
I asked you to show peer reviewed studies that prove cats will not find vegan food palatable.
Is this not possible for you?
Empirically and with a structurally repeatable methodology.
Preferably with funding provided by a somewhat neutral party.
The meta-study you provided specifically calls out the problem with self reported studies.
The whole section : "4.1. Evidence Considerations" specifically points out the inadequacies and limitations of the studies under analysis.
As does the conclusion section : "5. Conclusions"
Which to my personal interpretation says
"We haven't found anything overtly damaging, some benefits even, but the research is lacking in scope, sample size and length is largely from potentially biased sources"
"If you are going to feed your cat or dog a vegan diet, use the commercial ones as they are less likely to be problematic"
emphasis on the potentially there, lest you think I'm claiming absolute bias in my interpretation.
You asked for nutrition and palatability, the nutrition part is covered in the inconclusive nature of the meta study conclusion section, neither strongly for nor against until higher quality research is available.
Going back to a previous comment
Your provided studies made no mention of a particular palatability metric (i could have missed it however). The fact that they eat either type of food would imply a measure of palatability both ways, but if you have something definitive I'd be interested to see it.
so obviously provide your cat with nutritious food. if the cat is not eating the food then find something it will eat.
at the moment these are new fields of studies.
there is food available that is vegan, palatable and nutritious.
so there is no problem.
quality of life is subjective to measure at the best of time.
The findings so far so do not demonstrate a problem if the cat is cared for.
And that's the issue, the short to midterm studies are relatively bias (as shown by your own provided meta-study), show you need supplements to stave off issues (taurine etc) and are somewhat inconclusive.
There are no long term studies.
It's a "It doesn't seem to immediately kill your pets in the limited studies that have been done, we have even seen some benefits, but we don't have enough quality data to be that confident about anything"
Of an option between a known good and a potential good , one of those is more certain to produce a good outcome.
Agreed, and making potentially life altering long term decisions based on new fields of study comes with risks.
I'm not saying it won't or can't work, I'm saying it's a gamble. At the moment it's a sketchy gamble based on incomplete fields of study with limited quality results and it's a gamble you are making on behalf of another life that can't consent.
If you want to roll the dice on this, that's on you.
For me, i would consider that kind of risk to be too great for the sake of my personal beliefs.
Either way, if you are going to be trying to convince people there is no risk you're probably going to have a hard time with anyone who understands how to read the papers you provided.
A strong claim to be making when the meta study you provide specifically goes out of it's way to say "we don't really know yet"
Sure, no arguments here.
Your own citation doesn't even show that , so unless you have another that definitely concludes this I'm not sure where you are getting this from.
As i said above, at best it's stating:
"It doesn't seem to immediately kill your pets in the limited studies that have been done, we have even seen some benefits, but we don't have enough quality data to be that confident about anything"
you do understand that people are not force feeding cats cucumbers. the food is indistinguishable from the meat versions.
here:
Benevo Katzenfutter vegan trocken (10 https://amzn.eu/d/eXsCn6F
Ah...i think i see the problem.
If what you've understood so far from my responses has been "this person thinks cat's are being force fed cucumbers" then I'm not sure I'm best placed to help you, that's a job for a professional.
Just for completeness sake I'll address your response but it seems there might be bigger obstacles in play than i had first thought.
See above
incorrect, it might be similar but so far (again, according to your provided meta study) there has been no conclusive research to suggest an equal nutritional profile in the medium to long term.
See my previous response about gambling.
I'm not sure any further conversation on this subject is going to garner anything new if you are unable (or unwilling) to comprehend and respond to points raised.
Good luck.
the meta analysis found no major implications to health.
it found some possible benefits
it's very cautious and highlights possible biases.
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.
It's hardly radical, and with proper care cats can be fed a nutritious and tasty diet with not animal products.
What it said was the current evidence which is potentially bias and only from short term and limited quality studies indicates there are no major implications to health.
Agreed, it's a reasonably promising start and with all the caveats in place it does have some merit, but "should not be disregarded" isn't the same as "go ahead, everything is fine".
It's not radical to think this might pan out to something beneficial, no.
But currently it's still a gamble and to argue from a position that glosses over the many many caveats of the studies you provided is disingenuous and weakens your overall argument.
That you personally think the risk is worth the reward is your own business, presenting the situation as containing no risk is not.
But if the food is found to be nutritious and the cats enjoyed it, you would be happy?
Like this food for example:
Benevo Katzenfutter vegan trocken (10 https://amzn.eu/d/8M4dOjN
If long term , broad participation studies with rigorously reproducible methods came to the conclusion that a vegan diet is a viable option then i would be open to switching.
The issue isn't which food is the most nutritious, it's that the evidence available in general doesn't yet support a conclusion on mid to long term viability.
You could have a team of world class nutritionist vets custom make you the best mixture and you would still have the same issue.
they do have world class teams preparing the food.
Also, they have independent bodies verifying that the food is suitable.
seems good enough for me.
As i specifically said, this doesn't address the actual issue.
In case i haven't been clear, the current state of nutritional science on this matter has no consensus on mid to long term outcomes.
So taking the all of the experts in the world and creating the pinnacle of vegan pet nutrition will still garner a best guess, because, and i'm going to bold this part on a separate line:
THERE IS NO WAY TO TELL WITHOUT DOING THE ACTUAL WORK
It is potentially being done now, great, wishful thinking and anecdotal results are not a replacement for actual study.
Outstanding, and when they've provided repeatable results from long term studies with quality methodology and reasonable sample sizes that will make a big difference.
Until then it's a gamble with potentially life altering consequences (for the animals i mean)
Each to their own, your own subjective comfort doesn't prove validity, neither does my subjective discomfort prove a lack of it.
For you the risk might be worth it, but to pretend there is no risk is delusional.
sure. But the indications so far are that it is fine.
no, the indications so far are inconclusive.
like the original indications for asbestos were inconclusive or lead pipes/paint.
But it seems you are deep into your magical thinking so i doubt anything I've said will make a difference to you.
I hope it works out for you.
the data so far in encouraging. The food is engineered and independently tested.
it has the approval of agencies that exist to make sure animals are cared for.
that's hardly magical thinking.
Again, the data so far is inconclusive
"We don't know yet" vs "Sure, go ahead"
Again, possibly true but beside the point.
So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you have citations for this that aren't institutions that actively promote (or have a vested interest) in veganism.
As I'm sure you can understand that such institutions can hardly be relied upon to be neutral.
"magical thinking, the belief that oneβs ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world."
"Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them"
Belief in the absence of a plausible causal link.
In case you are unsure, a plausible causal link can be obtained through quality, reproducible, verifiable research.
Unless you have some of that (or some other proof) , you are basing your opinions on anecdotal evidence and inconclusive studies, they very definition of magical thinking.
It seems we are treading the same ground here so I'm just going to assume you have nothing to add.
I presume you would be happy if it was formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.
they seem independent enough.
Hardly tree hugging hippies.
Hardly magical thinking.
Seeing as we are going around in circles i'm going to streamline the process and make it easier for you by providing a checkpoint system.
I'll be happy when it ticks both of these boxes.
1 : [ ] Independent
2 : [ ] Has provided long term, reproducible, studies with reasonable sample sizes and empirical data based results.
On this occasion your reference gets a 1 out of 2 :
[ X ] Independent
[ ] Has provided long term, reproducible, studies with reasonable sample sizes and empirical data based results.
See above
You're the only person using this phrasing, but you are correct in that they don't match a phrasing nobody has claimed so far.
I suspect the irony of claiming a lack of magical thinking by providing no actual evidence and just saying it a second time is lost on you.
how would you measure quality of life for cats and their food?
Already answered, Here and Here
If you are asking for an example of a specific methodology, I've no idea, I'm neither an animal behaviour nor nutrition researcher.
In the same way i wouldn't be able to provide a specific methodology for measuring orbital decay or the long term effects of language drift on emotional responses, because I'm not a physicist , linguist or psychologist either.
That's one of the reasons for peer reviewed research by specialists.
so people have spent time measuring the quality of life of cats, specifically their reaction to food and they have found nonsignificant difference.
I can show you.
Sure
if it ticks the two boxes then it'll be useful to know :
1 : [ ] Independent
2 : [ ] Has provided long term, reproducible, studies with reasonable sample sizes and empirical data based results.