Revision as of 23:26, 23 November 2017

Core Principles

There are three overarching core principles that inform the consensus here, and these are not going to change:

Non-violence

We do not advocate or condone violence, even against animal abusers.

Beyond any concerns for virtue ethics, violence is simply not effective https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/05/peaceful-protest-is-much-more-effective-than-violence-in-toppling-dictators/

Honesty

We do not believe dishonesty, whether in sophistry or pseudoscience, is beneficial for the vegan movement. A significant part of this Wiki is dedicated to debunking bad vegan arguments which we believe are counterproductive because we want people to use better methods. Dishonesty makes vegans look bad, and harms our credibility.

Pragmatism

We are interested in doing the most good, and saving the most lives. Sometimes that happens by asking for less than what we want (e.g. go vegetarian or to try Meatless Monday) because it may result in more people changing and saving more animals overall vs. telling them to go vegan. Other times the most good may be achieved by working with people we don't agree with. Pragmatism doesn't always mean being nice, and shaming may have its place in certain circumstances, but it usually means at least being nice to carnists who represent the cultural majority (for whom shaming is counter-productive). Pragmatism often also means not obsessing over purity; the perfect can be the enemy of the good. Sometimes it even means siding against a badly behaved vegan.

Other General Principles

Scientific Naturalism

Ethical Naturalism

Theistic Metaphysics

Establishing Consensus

If you're the first to edit an article, it's pretty safe to go by the above principles to the best of your ability.

If something is scientific consensus as represented by credible government and non-governmental health, environmental, or scientific organizations, it will probably be consensus here too.

However, try to search the philosophical vegan forum (a google search is usually more effective than using the forum search function) to see if there are any threads discussing the issue to be assured that there is not significant disagreement before writing a large article.

If you find an existing article you disagree with, please do not just make substantial edits changing the general position in the article, and please do not compromise the single voice style with alternate opinions. Instead, please broach the subject of your disagreement on the forum for discussion; consensus can and does change, even if just by being moderated.

Citing Sources

It is not necessary to cite sources for everything you write; even a stub without any sources is useful to build upon. So please do not be intimidated by the need to cite sources for everything before contributing.

However, without sources, unless the claim is common knowledge it has a higher chance of being redacted by another editor; particularly if he or she can not easily verify the claim.

When you do cite sources:

• Please cite primary sources where possible
• Avoid any links to Wikipedia (instead, follow up on where the sources there go)
• Look for .gov, .edu, or industry sources where possible.
• Where those are not possible, look for credible articles on reputable news sites.
• When citing videos/movies (even those available for free), please upload brief low resolution clips (limited to 4mb) and cite the file (video details in the description). Videos, unlike text content, are not typically preserved.
• When citing books not available free online, please upload images including pictures of the relevant information and immediate context (no more, for copyright reasons), and cite the file attachment (include details on the book in the file description).
• When citing scientific studies not available for free online, like with books, please upload images including the relevant quote, and cite the file (with relevant information and link to abstract in the file description).

Original Research

Original research, unlike on Wikipedia, is allowed and encouraged (just ask on the forum first so we can confirm it would be helpful).

If you can get a quote from a professional at your university, or an interview, we would very much like to include that information. We only need to have a way to confirm that it is legitimate. There are a few ways of doing this:

• Easiest: Ask the professional to copy the email to us from his or her address (which will be a faculty email address, or one listed on his or her web space). You will need to ask for our email address by PM on the forum.
• Do a video interview, in which case it's easy to confirm ID based on faculty photos etc.
• Ask the professional to post the interview on his or her faculty web space (temporarily or not)
• We can upload a text interview on a page locked from editing, and the professional can view it and confirm its accuracy by email (we can email him or her and await reply).

Tone & Point of View

We do not pretend to be unbiased; we are pro-vegan, specifically from an ethical perspective, and we are in favor of changes that bring people closer to veganism for reasons of environmental ethics, animal ethics, and even health.

Aside from the obvious pro-vegan position, we also do not currently attempt a completely neutral, because:

1. Achieving a neutral tone requires more editing work, and without strong evidence of payoff from that work (and only subjective impressions of something being "too mean", or "too snarky" etc.) there's no reason to devote resources to that particularly when:

2. It makes articles less enjoyable to write, thus discouraging contribution. People are not emotionless robots without feelings on these subjects, and trying to hold back is demotivating: as is being told something you have written is subjectively bad. If there's evidence that something is factually wrong that's more acceptable, but encroaching into stylistic contributions can be a problem and it's an argument we'd rather avoid unless something is far over the top (e.g. overtly calling somebody "retarded", etc.)

3. There is some evidence that attempting neutrality may also make articles less interesting to read, thus affecting outreach and use of this information.
While some people appreciate the extremely professional tone, they seem to make up a very small minority of the general audience, and a neutral point of view and professional tone as exemplified in Wikipedia articles is often cited as a reason people find it boring to read[1][2]

By comparison, | RationalWiki takes a similar position on tone/POV, and has had a phenomenal level of success with it.