Proposal for a weekly AskVegans sticky post (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by TheTechnician27@lemmy.world to c/vegan@lemmy.world

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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. 🙂

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[-] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Hello there. I've enjoyed reading some of your comments over the last several days, and I'm glad you'll be a moderator here!

This sounds like a good idea to me, although the cynic in me thinks that there might not be too many non-vegans interested in this sort of good faith discussion. I guess you won't know if you don't try, though!

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The cynical part of me tells me this idea is naïve, and I honestly see nearly as much bad-faith, easily debunked criticism of veganism as I used to on Reddit. I had a specific interaction the other day, though, that made me think that there is a place for this or at least that it's worth trying.

I also remember that back on Reddit, I joined the vegan subreddit pretending to be vegan without actually being one at that point (only vegetarian) because I was interested and it was just easier. I think having an easier, more formal jumping-off point for non-vegans could be useful both for those non-vegans curious about an aspect of veganism and for the vegans here themselves – the latter because if they don't want to interact with non-vegans on veganism-related topics, they need only ignore this one stickied post. For those interested in veganism, it also means an easy way to see questions other people have asked and answered in one place instead of scattering them over dozens of posts whose comments sections might never see the light of day again.

[-] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah, you're right. And maybe I shouldn't be so quick to assume a lack of interest. After all, there were a lot of people in the lemmyshitpost thread yesterday supporting veganism while also bashing "toxic vegans". It's definitely a good thing if those sorts of people have an opportunity to come here and have any misconceptions cleared up.

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

NVV I like it and I've liked your approach so far.

Is there a way to do this in such a way that hostility is minimized? Or is that an unfair ask? I'm interested in watching and learning, but a "fuck your feelings carnist" situation is gonna pucker my butthole. I'd like to hear from actual people walking the walk, but I don't prefer spit in my eye to get it.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 2 points 2 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.

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 1 month ago

Seems like a good idea, it works well in general

!fedigrow@lemm.ee to chat with other mods / community growers

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Hi, Blaze! 😄 I see you've transferred over to a new instance. Happy to see you show up here, and I definitely can attest that fedigrow is a pretty cool place.

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah, this is my "meta" alt to discuss meta topics on the fediverse.

@Blaze@sopuli.xyz is the account for the usual interests 😄

[-] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Good luck!

You will probably need to sticky a post in each thread automatically as very few people read the sidebar. You also need to be prepared for deliberate trolls.

I had wondered about the utility of a bot that automatically acts on reports from a list of manually selected good users, which moderators review the actions of as reports whenever they're around. It's a fair bit of effort to set something like that up as a system and maintain it, but if mods aren't around dunk-cycles can tank productive discussions in a few minutes.

Reports also don't federate properly btw, less an issue for you but anyone you invite who isn't using a .world account won't ?always? see them.

[-] streetfestival@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago

Thanks for taking over the reins! This sounds like a neat idea.

I think a sticky post is a good format, because the post rules can be displayed at the top to remind people. Ideally, I think those would be as succinct as possible, and I'm happy to help. "This is not debate a vegan" might be a good one. I think it's okay if the rules evolve over time as new issues come to light (lol). I'm not sure the 'juice will be worth the squeeze' for the proposed flair system. But I think the point is something along the lines of identifying what the poster's diet/lifestyle is and/or what diet/lifestyle their post is in reference to. That could be a rule/recommendation. I'm trying to describe the types of good faith questions: information, advice, experiences, opinions and perspectives. I like your examples! You could put them in a spoiler, so the post rules are succinct but there's more info for those want it.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Classifying the types of questions in terms of what they want from the askee could definitely be good in more even-handedly enforcing the rules; I'll mull that over.

I also really like the idea of using spoiler tags to still keep the list of good/bad questions while not creating a wall of text by default.

[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Speaking as a user / member, I would like to see a new community for online activism like this. Activism is amazing, but it takes a lot of spoons. I like having a friendly place that doesn't set off my vystopia.

Speaking as a recently minted moderator, I won't be venturing into these threads, and I'd rather use my energies to help maintain a community for vegans to be around vegans.

[-] neurospice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

!vegan@vegantheoryclub.org seems to be more what you're after. I stopped modding here because of how many spoons it took, but that other community has been so much more chill and easier to manage.

this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024

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