The community has grown steadily and now has more than 1000 subscribers. My approach so far was very laid back and I did not remove posts or ban many people, unless some very clear cases of spam and trolling.
In recent times, more user reports have reached me, which I did not act upon. This is also due to a lack of rules.
My original intention was to have a space for discussion, also with non-vegans. I see that the community is mostly passive with posts being links to external sites with few comments, also to sites of the posters. I personally don’t mind and the upvotes tend to be >80%, which is a sign that a large majority likes this kind of posts.
This is why I want to ask you:
- Would you like to see more regulation on this community?
- What rules should be applied?
- What would you specifically not like to see?
I’m also open to have more moderators than just me for this community and general ideas for improving this community.
Thank you for your input! 🌱
Given the nature of the fediverse, bringing this community more in line with the Solarpunk instance:
A place for hopeful vegans and curious folk, focused on the climate crisis.
Solarpunk is an anti-capitalist movement against the status quo. Apolitical means status quo. Capitalism will not bring about liberation for any earthling, nor will the NGOs who do the bidding for the state. We can’t rely on our institutions. We need a grassroots movement from below.
More discussions about activism and community organizing. Posts about art, music, and creative works. Optimistic or thought-provoking essays aligned with Solarpunk values. Zero waste recipes or DIY dupes. Projects we can support or take to our own communities. News about everyday people working towards a better world.
Less about corporate offerings, consumption, and processed foods wrapped in plastic. Less inflammatory missionary work, less debate bros, and less worrying about scaring off conservatives.
There are numerous vegan communities across the fediverse on generalist instances more in line with the mainstream movement, let it be those who get that type of activity. Or in the discussion community which could use some love: !discusswithvegans@slrpnk.net
I mostly agree with this. I have zero interest in studies showing that consumption of such-and-such legume reduces the risk of heart disease or that such-and-such company has a new plant-based plastic-wrapped food-like substance available. I’m much more interested in practical tips for achieving animal liberation and overthrowing the capitalist oppressors. (The term “capital” actually comes from “capita” meaning “head” - wealth was once measured in how many head of cattle someone owned. The Sanskrit word for “war” literally means something like “the greed for more cattle” if I remember correctly.) Artistic or literary works with a strong vegan message that could be useful as propaganda are also something that I enjoy. I recently read The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin after seeing someone in another community on this site recommend it, and there is definitely a veganarchist message in there.
I would not make the focus hope or the climate crisis, however. Hope and faith are poor substitutes for direct action, and while the climate crisis is an extremely important issue in general, it is only relevant to veganism insofar as it affects non-consenting beings and is caused by their exploitation. The focus of veganism is animal liberation, and human health or environmentalist issues only distract from that. Something like “A place for solarpunks working toward a world without speciesism” would make more sense for this community. Solarpunk already implies ecological sustainability and addressing the climate crisis.
Also, grass is one of the many tools of the devil, widely employed by the animal exploitation industry as the cheapest possible feed, destroying vast amounts of forest in the process, so anything involving grass roots has got to go.
This may not be 100% relevant to this thread, but I don’t know where else it would belong.
I went on Hexbear recently in order to see what all of the fuss was about. (slrpnk.net defederates only a few instances, but hexbear.net is one of them.) I cursorily perused the Local feed and some of the more popular communities and was mildly surprised by the proportion of comments expressing solidarity, caring, encouragement, and so on. After that, I checked out the Code of Conduct to see whether such behaviour was exceptional or part of the Hexbear culture. Of course I didn’t agree with everything that I read, but multiple times, I found myself saying “this is pretty reasonable” or “we should do that here.” In particular:
We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.
Direct calls to violence that target specific identifiable living individuals are not permitted on Hexbear.net. You can express your anger over landlords, slaveowners, etc, but try to phrase it in a way that focuses on the institution they represent. This policy also applies to any specific organizational bodies and groups (eg the DNC).
Animal Liberation is essential to any leftist movement, including platforms like Hexbear. Volunteers, comments, and posts, should not be anti-vegan, although users and volunteers are not required to be vegan.
This last could be easily adapted to this instance: “Animal Liberation is essential to any anti-capitalist movement, including platforms like SLRPNK. Volunteers, comments, and posts, should not be anti-vegan, although users and volunteers are not required to be vegan.”
Of course I was most interested in the vegan community, and it seemed pretty cool. The vegan community’s rules are the following:
No plant-based diet bullshit or promotion of plant-based capitalism.Veganism isn’t about you, it’s about historical materialist anti-speciesism, anti-racist animalization, and animal liberation. Ethical vegans only.No omni apologists or carnists.Babystepping is for libs, and we’re not here to pat you on the back. Good faith questions and debate about how to fight for animal liberation are allowed.No advocating violence to any species for any reason.If you think this is negotiable GTFO. This includes but is not limited to animal testing, slaughter, and mass euthanasia. Anything that promotes speciesism or the commodification of animals will be removed.Use Content Warnings and NSFW tags for triggering content.Especially if a comrade requests it.Questions about diet belong in c/food.It’s also a great place to share recipes.
If we wanted this to be a vegans-only community, then adapting these rules (basically by adjusting the wording rather than the meaning) would be a fairly solid starting point. Even if we wanted this place to be more open to the pre-vegans of the Fediverse, these rules would probably still be appropriate in some form.
Just sharing this in the hope that it will be useful but without any warranty (not even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose).
Honestly I feel many groups could use two communities. An internal group and an outreach group. If the name and sidebar rules make it plain then I think that should be all that is needed. Like if there was a vegans-only or vegans-talking vegans and the bar said hey this is for folks who are vegan to discuss the lifestyle. If your not vegan you are free to hang if your respectful to the lifestyle. Then like another community like vegan-curious or path2vegan or something and that can say hey this is to spread the word on veganism. If you want to debate cool but if you are 100% closed to becoming vegan then please find somewhere else to hand. If I saw that I would block the internal one as im not part of the crowd and don’t want to intrude (people get wierd about blocking because of the negative terminology but its just a thing. Since I don’t think groups can be locked it makes totaly sense to block something your not apart of if its made clear its an internal group thing). Anyway just some musing on my part about group structures. I often think of them like in person things. The vegan group that meets at the library also participating in outreach programs or such.
