Talk:Carnism/Archive 2

Sorry for not being too helpful!
It has been suggested that I should help build a consensus on this article. The problem is that the article is so obviously biased that I cannot get beyond the fist line. The word is a neologism invented with the specific purpose of attacking meat eaters. This is how I think that the article should start.

Carnism is a pejorative word invented by vegan and social psychologist Melanie Joy to describe meat eating. It was popularized by her 2009 book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Hogbin (talk • contribs) 13:48, 16 July 2015‎


 * I am a meat-eater and I do not take this article as an attack on me. It points out that I am a hypocrite.  We are all hypocrites in one way or another.  This is simply a fact of life.  By the way - please sign your posts. DrChrissy (talk) 18:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * When a christian works on atheism and starts to view the concept as a personal attack, it is best not to work on that article. Kind regards, Timelezz (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2015 (UTC)


 * DrChrissy, not everyone thinks that you are a hypocrite. Some people think that there are good reasons for eating cows and not dogs.  Also, the idea that eating something is cruelty is not shared by everyone. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Timelezz, who said anything about personal attacks. Are you saying that Melanie Joy did not intend the term to be pejorative?  It is li9ke calling people who do not believe a particular religion 'unbelievers' or 'infidels'; although those terms are perfectly correct they are not neutral terms, they are pejorative terms used to describe people who are outside religion.  The whole article is written in the language of veg(etari)anism. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:12, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Martin! Thanks for coming to help.

Your proposal is legitimate. For a claim like this, in which we ascribe a particular intentionality to those (including academics) who use this word—putting strong connotations in their mouths—we will need a very strong source. I searched Google Web, Books, and Scholar for "carnist pejorative" and "carnism derogatory" and similar, and I found many sources, but none has a chance of passing RS: I found urbandictionary and a vegan on YT to support your position, and reddit, tumblr, and a vegetarian blog (among others) to argue that the term isn't, or probably isn't, or at least shouldn't be intended to be, pejorative.

It might be more fruitful to look for a source to specify that the term is mostly used among vegans and vegetarians, and to allow readers of our article to make their own inferences from the fact that the label is rarely self-applied. We already have a section for that search,, above. FourViolas (talk) 21:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you for trying to understand my point.


 * There is no need for us to use the exact words in sources, in fact it is better for us to describe what the sources say in our own words. There is no doubt that Joy's book was critical of meat eating and it is fairly clear that she coined the term 'carnism' to reflect the views stated in her book.  Even so I do not insist on using any particular word, just that this article (and Veganism) use language that properly reflects the status of their subjects.  At the moment is is written using almost entirely from veg(etari)an sources.  This would be like writing an article on Christianity using only quotes from the Bible (and there are plenty who would do that given the chance). The fact that there are very few neutral sources on the subject of carnism does not mean that we must bias the article towards supportive sources.


 * Throughout the whole of human history the majority of people and cultures have eaten meat and considered this to be acceptable. This article therefore represents a minority opinion on the subject and we must make that clear, from the start.  Perhaps you would like to suggest a way of doing that. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:41, 17 July 2015 (UTC)


 * You may be conflating two different issues. The article doesn't say "you shouldn't eat meat" - if it did, it would be presenting a minority opinion. Rather, the article is about the idea that there is a culturally relative ideology underlying meat-eating. None of the sources cast doubt on this, so we're not justified in having our text do so. Your proposed version just confuses the issue, and is not supported by sources. Now, as for the point that the term has seen the most use among vegans or animal advocates, which FourViolas provided strong evidence of earlier, we're looking for a way to include this information, but we don't have a source that says this, exactly. --Sammy1339 (talk) 13:24, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You say [my emphasis], 'the article is about the idea that there is a culturally relative ideology underlying meat-eating'. That is absolutely correct;the article is about an idea, of a minority group and it should read that way.  The article actually reads in reverse, describing meat eating as carnism, which it calls a belief system, and presenting a minority group's opinions on meat eating as fact. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:13, 17 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that we should tell readers who uses the word, once we have an RS to say it for us. See . Until an RS says that "carnism" doesn't exist, that it's a foolish concept describing what ought to be called "reg'lar eatin'," and that humans think about beef, eel, dog, rabbit, and lettuce in essentially identical ways, there is no justification for introducing doubt as to the existence of carnism. FourViolas (talk) 22:28, 17 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Dear Martin Hogbin,
 * it is not Wikipedia's intention to correct terms that are being used. If a word that is commonly used, could be interpreted as derogatory, Wikipedia still should not correct the literature, but has to follow the literature.
 * I doubt whether it is derogatory. Carnism is just a contraction of carne (meat) and (ism). Do you have any reliable sources that show us that Melany Joy means a "pejorative word" by it, and had the "specific purpose of attacking meat eaters" when "inventing" the word? Without reliable sources to back that claim, it seems a point of view on your part. Kind regards, Timelezz (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If you want a source to show that carnism is a derogatory term, how about Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows by Melanie Joy. The whole purpose of the book is to attack meat eating. Here is a quote from it : "[The] way we as a society envision eating and animals is contradictory and insidious".
 * Please do have a read that article as its style is much better than this one. Although it contains much of the same arguments and ideas as this article it properly attributes them to Joy, rather than presenting them in WP's voice. That is what I am complaining about here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:10, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * @User:Martin Hogbin Martin, if you have information like that, why not edit the article with it? If you provide a page number, I will insert it. DrChrissy (talk) 12:14, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That article is a description of one book by one author, so naturally the ideas and assertions discussed are properly attributed to her. This article summarizes the consensus analysis of dozens of sociologists and psychologists, so we mustn't act like the "meat paradox" or "subconscious devaluation of food animals' sentience" are controversial ideas until other psychologists or sociologists say they are. That said, we should find consensus on some wording of "Joy wrote the book to challenge the 'contradictory and insidious' way society thinks about meat-eating," or more significantly and generally explain that many authors who discuss the term oppose the ideology (the task we're working on in ). FourViolas (talk) 12:40, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Controversial statements about meat-eating can be attributed to several of the authors who wrote about this subject; on the other hand, some of the sources, especially the research articles by Loughnan and Piazza, use neutral language and are not "attacking" anybody. Certainly we have no source saying anything like "carnism was invented to attack meat eaters" or that it is an offensive or questionable concept. I purposely didn't include any statements by Joy or others that you (having you in mind specifically) would regard as inflammatory, and I feel like this is sort of a catch-22: if I had included such statements, you would surely hold that up as an example of POV writing, whereas now you are complaining that they aren't there. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:17, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Infrahumanization
Many of our sources use the term "infrahumanization" to describe the process of thinking about human-used animals as less "intelligent, rational, sensitive, mature, lingual, refined, civil, and moral" (from Bilewicz). It's a good term, and very relevant to the topic, so I was thinking of replacing my much-too-long Carnism section title. On the other hand, it's a long and confusing word, and highly technical. On the other other hand, it's Latinate, which in English corresponds to dispassionate-sounding, and passion (POV) is an issue which has been repeatedly raised in general. What do y'all think? FourViolas (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * hmmmmmm...I like the word (it's new to me) but my own opinion is that it is a little too technical. If you don't like the current heading, what about "Denial of animal suffering".  Suffering can occur without animals having theory of mind. DrChrissy (talk) 20:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Good idea, but both lowered estimates of suffering and lowered estimates of cognition are discussed. Do you think it makes sense to split the section? FourViolas (talk) 20:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing the term's use primarily among anti-carnists
As several people have noted, the term "carnism" is primarily used among those who oppose meat-eating, and is used for the purpose of criticizing it. As I noted above: Desaulniers, Freeman, Perez (IV), Joy, Gibert, Gutjahr, Braunsberger, and DeMello are all vegans or animal-rights advocates. That's every author in the first column except for Rothgerber and Flamm, about whose personal life I found no info. (As Sammy pointed out, those are mostly the sociologists, not the psychologists, and the psychologists might have a different profile. Still, it's notable info.) Without this fact we can't claim to give a fair picture of the idea of "carnism". However, it's tough to find a published source noting this fact. So in this section, let's try to find one.

This section fo Gibert might work: "Hence, it could be said that carnism is a descriptive concept with a normative import. By naming a psychological fact—the perception of meat and animal products depends on a pervasive ideology—the concept of carnism makes people aware of it and allows them to challenge their perceptions, and therefore move away from the violence in their lives that had before seemed inevitable.…Thus, the concept of carnism allows to change perspective. Beside the question “Why are some people vegan?” appears this new one “Why some people are not?”"

Ideally, we'd have a secondary source observe this for us, but if we're careful and have consensus we could restate this ourselves, as something like Martin Gibert and Élise Desaulniers say the concept of carnism can be used as a tool to challenge the "violence" of animal exploitation." That's pushing OR, though, and we still need a source noting that vegan discussion boards and partisan sociologists (and Hank Rothgerber) use the word a lot, while few other people do. FourViolas (talk) 04:24, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
 * As Rob suggested above, the natural place to do this would be the Vegan Discourse section, which needs expansion anyway. However doing it will be a delicate process and I hope you won't mind if I defer this question for a few days as I don't have the most time right now. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)


 * No problem, thank you! If people complain before then, some stuff might get BOLDly written in the meantime. FourViolas (talk) 05:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm losing steam on this one. I just wasted over an hour searching all my engines for strings like "carnism 'the term is'", "carnist pejorative", "carnism 'used by'", and so on, and I realized I had hit the bottom of the barrel just now when I literally clicked this somethingawful forum, in which repugnant people are encouraged to troll Tumblr users identified by their use of the hashtag "#carnism", because it's apparently "exclusively used by horrible people. The people trolling those horrible people don't really use it. All the fat-acceptance tags, by comparison, are mostly trolls at this point, and most of the ones that aren't are boring." If that's what strikes me as a potentially useful source, it's time to throw in the towel. Anyone who can manage to find a source at this point will earn my surprised admiration. FourViolas (talk) 02:48, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

When you have a non-mainstream topic used primarily by a specific group, it is not our job to discover the truth of the term or phenomenon (WP:OR applies heavily). We simply report what is out there in the sources. If carnism is ever picked up by mainstream sources, we can adjust, but for now we just need to attribute a definition to a specific source and move on. It is completely fair to note in the lead and body that research on this idea has been conducted primarily by groups opposed to eating meat or certain treatments of animals related to eating meat. We shouldn't phrase this in a way that undermines carnism as an idea, but simply attribute it. Something like "Early research and inquiries on carnism were supported mostly by sociologists opposed to eating meat" is a factual statement that appears neutral to me. This could go late in the lead and probably also in the vegan discourse section in some form. Thoughts on side-stepping using the vegan definition this way? ~ RobTalk 03:25, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * That's precisely what I'd like to add, yes. The problem is that the only source we have for it is my OR at the beginning of this section. If everyone agrees that the info is important to an encyclopedia entry on carnism, and that your wording is good, we can add it per WP:IAR. FourViolas (talk) 17:05, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * A concept that shares many relevant similarities with this one is homophobia - a pejorative term coined by a psychologist to describe a dominant cultural norm, shared by the majority of people. The lede of that article doesn't mention that the term originated with psychologists who supported LGBT rights, though of course this is true. Likewise, everyone knows that patriarchy is a term primarily used by feminists, but it is likewise discussed as a concept, without mentioning who uses the concept until a body section on "feminist theory" - this is consistent with our article's "vegan discourse" section. I think placing this type of statement in the lede is a bit of a non-standard thing to do, and breaking the rules for it probably isn't justifiable. --Sammy1339 (talk) 18:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I think, in this case, its use is so restricted that it would be justified to point out its usage more prominently. However, my argument is still IAR, and without consensus that's out. So I would be fine with using the "in vegan discourse" section to clarify that "early research and discussion of carnism were primarily conducted by sociologists [and activists] opposed to eating meat," and then someday adding something analogous to "Use of homophobia, homophobic, and homophobe has been criticized as pejorative against LGBT rights opponents.[1]" FourViolas (talk) 19:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * If we have a source for that, I'm not opposed to including it on this or any other day. Although I don't think the situation is any different from that at homophobia, which is a word almost exclusively used by pro-LGBT people, and about which it could equally be said "early research and discussion of homophobia were primarily conducted by psychologists [and activists] in favor of LGBT rights." --Sammy1339 (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * By "someday" I meant after a pro-carnism RS makes the effort to rebut the term, as O'Donaghue and Caselles did "homophobia". FourViolas (talk) 19:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say it's WP:OR to say "Some of the early advocates of carnism were vegan (such as .....) or animal rights activists (such as .....) with references for each one. If you list specific people and use non-general language like "some", I'd say that each person's status as a vegan/animal rights activist is a specific sourceable fact, and it's not synthesis to simply list them. On the other hand, using more general language such as "most of the early advocates" or failing to list names is probably OR. ~ RobTalk 20:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I went ahead with "several sociologists and psychologists… and listed the four most-cited authors within our article for whom I could find a source. Rothgerber was among them, but interestingly not Loughnan, who occasionally makes carnist apologia when discussing his studies. FourViolas (talk) 00:42, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Gallery image
Opening a discussion about the gallery image I recently inserted. First, I have noted that I accidentally used the same image of dog meat as used in the first section - one of them needs to go, which one? Second, I think the gallery image should be at the top of the article rather than at the bottom. DrChrissy (talk) 20:00, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * This gallery is fine on my laptop but doesn't come out right on my desktop: the third image goes into another row. It's also a little strange that it shows meat in inconsistent stages of preparation, and that one of the images is repeated from the images above. Do you mind if I swap it out for the multi-image you created? --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The moving image within a gallery is doing what it is supposed to - I think to accommodate different screen/device sizes. The "different stages" is a tricky one.  There is only one image of horse meat that I can find, so I don't believe there are other options Unless we move to a different meat).  What stage would people prefer to see?  I am also mindful of shock images.  In my own opinion, I would be quite happy to show images of hanging cooked dogs because I believe we should not sanitise such issues, but I believe other editors on this article would not approve ( I am respecting different sensitivities).  By the way, on the Dog meat article there is an interesting image of a cooked dog hanging next to a cooked chicken.  I have been waiting for someone to object to the image saying it is "objectionable" so that I can ask them whether it is the dog or the chicken which is objectionable.  To my mind, it is the perfect image to illustrate speciesism.   Sammy, please use the multi-image back if you wish. DrChrissy (talk) 22:35, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll do that soon - just tried including the collage image and couldn't get it to look right. We also need a better horse image; I'll try fixing it up. To the other point though, there's no policy-based argument against including ugly images, except as a leading image. I'd rather have the image from the Hanoi market for several reasons I mentioned before, or the dog and chicken. --Sammy1339 (talk) 00:49, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Sammy, I am still not entirely sure which image you are talking about. I am going to have to recreate any of the collages as when I created them earlier, I did not have the correct attributions - I only ever intended them as drafts. Is the collage the one containing 8 images - meat on the left, animal on the right? If it is, should we get images on the right which include humans interacting with the animal? Perhaps even interacting with them as pets? I'm not exactly sure where you want to use this collage or what message you are trying to convey. DrChrissy (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The dog/chicken image is good because it shows what most in the West regard as acceptable next to the unacceptable, so that's on-topic. But is it a chicken? I'd have said a goose. Sarah (talk) 16:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I will insert the image and call it "poultry" - I too was not 100% it was a chicken but we in the West are used to seeing huge birds selected for massive and rapid growth. The bird in the image might have just been scratching around in someone's yard. DrChrissy (talk) 17:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding it. "Poultry" is safer. It was more the shape that made me think it's not a chicken (particularly the head and neck), but I'm not sure. Sarah (talk) 17:41, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I was going by the shape of beak, possible comb on the head and the lack of webbed feet. Anyway - "poultry" covers all possibilities.  Nice image of the walking pig by the way! DrChrissy (talk) 17:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Per anti-ethnocentrism (if I may be so bold as to assume y'all are mostly Western) it would be nice, in the long term, to find a combination which almost everyone would consider partly acceptable and partly unacceptable, such as beef+eel+pork, or something. But that's not a big deal for now, as even most canivores know dog meat is a charged topic. FourViolas (talk) 22:11, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Rozin
Hi FourViolas, the Rozin paragraph in this section should ideally come first. The research referred to in the next paragraph took place after Rozin's call for more research, and according to another source because he called for it. Sarah (talk) 05:58, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I completely agree it's logical to cite the pioneer before those who responded to his work, but I think it creates a problem with due weight in the article as a whole. Most sources on carnism never mention Rozin or "moralization", and giving him a paragraph at the beginning of "Attributes of Carnism" is confusing.


 * Here's an idea (fully subject to reversion and further discussion): because the idea of "carnism" as an ideology wasn't developed and popularized until after Rozin's papers on omnivory, I'll put your paragraph at the end of the "earlier ideas" section. That makes sense to me, at least, because he was an influential and notable predecessor to contemporary research on carnism proper. FourViolas (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I like the Rozin section and agree it might be better placed in the "Earlier ideas" section. DrChrissy (talk) 13:24, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The problem with the article is that it lacks narrative flow, and I think moving that has made it worse, so I hope no one minds if I move it back. Joy coined the term carnism, but she wasn't the first to write about these ideas, and Rozin is a major figure in food psychology. Sarah (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree it lacks narrative flow which was partly the reason why I introduced Aristotle earlier, but there did not seem to be much support for this. DrChrissy (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * There's a significant academic literature about the psychology of meat-eating that can be tapped into, and then the flow will suggest itself. But it's a mistake to stick to sources that use the word carnism, because this isn't an article about a word, and it would mean you'd have no sources before 2001. FourViolas, I'm in the process of adding more Rozin and restoring the order in which he was first added, so I'll have to revert your latest edit when I put that in. Sarah (talk) 14:37, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Actually, strike that, I'll try to work it in. Sarah (talk) 14:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Take your time, I'll keep my hands off for a while. As long as we have a rock-solid defn of carnism which allows us to include "meat psych" more generally, that's great. Thanks! FourViolas (talk) 14:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Okay, I combined the "Earlier ideas" sections into one background section. This is followed by "Attributes of carnism," which begins with Rozin calling for more research, discusses ambivalence, missing link between animals and food, etc, and ends with Joy's definition of the term carnism. Then comes the "Cognitive dissonance" section, which is now one section, rather than split up. Whether that's the best heading I don't know, but the previous version split up ideas that were closely linked, so I feel they're better combined, unless the section gets a lot longer. I'm unsure about the "Vegan discourse" section and what function it has; I would say merge this into the rest of the article. I also swapped Clinton for Obama, and moved the image to where we discuss pardoning turkeys. Sarah (talk) 15:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

We should have a section on the meat paradox, which is central to this. Sarah (talk) 16:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Some more changes: I tightened the lead; changed some headings, including Background to History; moved the Four Ns higher; added an image of a cow in India to juxtapose it with the dog stew; split the cognitive dissonance section in three and called it Dissonance reduction; added a sub-section on "saved from slaughter" narratives, and moved the turkey image into it; and did some general copy-editing. Sarah (talk) 19:22, 22 July 2015 (UTC)


 * More: Removed some "me too" sources; added footnotes describing the meat paradox; added refs; added schemata (did this today or yesterday); rmvd that some of the early researchers were vegan because it looked odd, and as written it wasn't correct (true of Joy, but of the others mentioned one wrote one paper about turkey pardoning, and one co-wrote a tertiary source – most of the people writing about this haven't said whether they're meat-eaters, vegetarians or vegans).


 * Removed from vegan discourse section that "vegans may argue that carnism is based on the objectification of animals," etc, because all the sources argue this, not only vegans; added a "meat paradox" section and made the cognitive-dissonance material sub-sections of it; did some general copy-editing; rmvd the dog-meat image from the gallery because it's in the article. Sarah (talk) 16:40, 23 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm going to reinstate the sentence on the anti-carnism of early researchers. There was strong consensus for it, and it was the only remaining hint that describing meat culture as "carnism" is almost exclusively done among vegans and animal-rights advocates. Writing an article on "carnism" that implies the term is in general use is tantamount to disinformation.


 * I'd like to see the section on ascription of limited mental capacity given more prominence, as it's based on multiply corroborated, objective, falsifiable experiments, while much of the rest of the article is non-mainstream sociology.


 * Precisely because the term is often used in open propaganda (I'm using the word nonjudgementally, in the Upton Sinclair sense), I'd like the images, especially, to be beyond suspicion of being manipulative or even suggestive. The "dog on a stick :'(" image in particular I find unjustified, because it combines two quite rare features of the local variety of carnism—selling recognizable carcasses, and eating dog—in a way which many people around the world (including the photographer) find shocking rather than thought-provoking. I strongly urge us to find images which most readers will consider dispassionate.


 * Other than that, thanks for your efforts, SV! You've been putting in many hours on this, found great sources, and written great prose. FourViolas (talk) 21:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

See also section
One of the challenges that we've identified with the article is that it's very difficult to find RS that specifically address pro-carnist views. It is much easier to find RS that specifically addresses the pro-meat-eating stance in similar articles, though, and I believe linking to some of these articles (and from those articles to carnism) can help place this article within a larger neutral dialogue. I'd like to see a "See also" section with Ethics of eating meat at the bare minimum. I'm not terribly familiar with similar articles, so any suggestions on what else could go there would be appreciated. ~ RobTalk 18:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no problem at all with adding a "see also" section. However, some editors are strongly against these and argue if it is sufficiently related to the subject matter, it should be in the text and linked.  Isn't Ethics of eating meat something that should be written into the text? DrChrissy (talk) 19:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I consider it more prominent to keep it in the "See also" section, which is preferable in this case. I'm likely disagreeing with consensus there, though. If someone were to boldly edit this link into the text in a way that makes sense, I wouldn't object. ~ RobTalk 21:41, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I've boldly added an SA section, because I don't have a problem with it and I agree with your reasoning. Its links can, and probably should, be worked into the text sooner or later. Hope you aren't interrupting your vacation for this—relax, you've earned it! FourViolas (talk) 22:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I fly out to Florida tomorrow morning and I think I'm all packed, so I'm good to participate today. Thanks for the concern, though! ~ RobTalk 22:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * In the See Also section, do we need a couple of links to meat-animal production (farming) systems? DrChrissy (talk) 21:39, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Gallery
If others want the meat images at the end, that's fine, but I'm not keen on them because they're not that informative. I did like DrChrissy's images of the meat next to the animals. Is everyone else wedded to keeping the gallery as it is? Sarah (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Not at all, although I'm a bit trepidatious of choosing an illustration which explicitly attacks something (deliberate ignorance) which is a salient feature of carnism. FourViolas (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Others have possibly guessed my views on this already, but I also believe showing multiple images of plates of un/cooked meat is rather unhelpful. Some images like this can be useful if they include images of parts of the animal (e.g. I can think of one image with several pieces of dog meat and a cooked dog's head on it, clearly identifying where the meat is from).  We/I could create several multi-images exemplifying the classification causing the inconsistency, e.g. "Pet" (Dog, Cat, Guinea-pig), "Vermin" (rat), "Learned aversion" (spider, octopus).  I am aware these are Western values, but we must remember that all articles are "work in progress" - we do not have to present a 100% completed article. DrChrissy (talk) 18:43, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I've made the gallery invisible for now. Sarah (talk) 19:39, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Several vegans
FourViolas, about restoring this, I see what you're trying to do, but it looks odd. What early research did Carrie Packwood-Freeman conduct? I'm aware of one 2012 article on the turkey pardoning, and she's neither a psychologist nor sociologist. Joy, yes. If Hank Rothgerber conducted early research on it (do you have examples?), and is a vegan and a psychologist or sociologist, that makes two. Most people writing about this haven't discussed their own diets, and if we're going to single out one group, it raises the question as to whether we have to single out meat-eaters too. Sarah (talk) 21:46, 24 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I picked researchers sloppily, pretty much on the basis of how often we ourselves cited them. Rothgerber's work has been heavily cited (btw, he's looked into many aspects of carnism, including pet ownership, masculinity, and vegan-vegetarian-carnist relations, and we should work him in more), and I was being self-consciously non-recentist by defining the first decade or so of any field to be "early", even if that period is ongoing. Gibert/Desaulniers have also been widely referenced, and are also vegan (gibert in french, desaulniers in french); I'd still like to work in their "normative import" (see, because it's true and relevant: most people who talk about carnism do so with the intention of working against it, and the only way we can make a fair article in light of that is by allowing an RS (indeed, one which encourages this use of "carnism") say it. Piazza is a vegan, too , and an influential voice in carnism studies.


 * On the other hand, Brock is "not a vegetarian" ( 2:30), and neither is Rozin ("likes all foods"). Loughnan probably eats meat too (Once you start watching people (including yourself!) eat meat…). Are you listening, btw, User:Martin Hogbin? Those three are the core of the psychological research into, and definition of, the meat paradox and attendant moral dissonance. Here is an essay by Brock about the psychological, moral, and cultural features of carnism; we have peer-reviewed sources saying the same things, but I thought you might want to hear an omnivore scholar articulate them.


 * Anyway, I'm going to add Piazza as an early vegan scholar, remove Packwood-Freeman as not a formative voice in the field, and incorporate G/D's assertion that the concept of carnism can be utilized against the system of carnism. I will optimistically pretend to myself that that will put an end to objections that the article fails to attribute its ideas properly. For fairness, and for the sake of the article's broader credibility, I think it would be great to find a way to point out that important research on the meat paradox and other aspects of carnism has been conducted by psychologists who are themselves carnists. FourViolas (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * But as you said, several aren't vegetarians, so I can't see the point of mentioning that some are. It has the effect of "othering" those researchers, and therefore the research, even though much of the source material has been written by people who eat meat or haven't said whether they do. It seems a little misleading and OR-ish. Sarah (talk) 17:05, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * There was widespread consensus—Rob, Sammy, and Martin, at least—that this was a fair addition, that the people who use the term usually have a particular perspective on animal rights, and that this fact was important to an objective, comprehensive article about carnism. As I said, I'd love to get the new info about Loughnan, Brock, and Rozin into the article as well. Ideas? FourViolas (talk) 17:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I didn't see widepread consensus for it. It's important not to fall into the trap of negotiating things away for the sake of a quiet life. We're writing for the reader, not for individual editors who turn up here. We have to follow the content policies, which means using appropriate sources and representing the views of those sources in a way that fairly reflects the positions they express (not that represents the likes and dislikes of particular editors). That's what NPOV means.


 * So if you have a source that says this research is conducted by vegans and that this matters, we can look at it. I think you won't find such a source, at least not an informed one, because it's clear that meat-eaters figure prominently among the researchers too, including several not yet added as sources. It's also clear from Francione's position that some ethical vegans will argue against the concept of carnism. So it's a very mixed bag.


 * Re: the new info about Loughnan, etc, I don't know what that is. Can you elaborate? Sarah (talk) 17:24, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * The problem is clearly laid out in WP:Neologism: there are precious few sources which have anything to say about the word "carnism", and that ties our hands as we try to explain why some of the premises of our authors' thinking are objectionable (to multiple uninvolved editors at the RfC, for example). Rob said it was "completely fair" to note in the lead and vegan discourse section that much research on carnism has been done by animal rights advocates, as long as we made sure not to "undermine carnism as an idea". Sammy objected to putting it in the lead, but approved of the attribution in general per analogy with homophobia. Martin agreed in a different section, saying repeatedly that the ideas in the article which originated with veg*ns must be labeled as such.


 * The new info, which would address your tit-for-tat while adding to the article's credibility in non-vegan readers' eyes, is that Brock is "not a vegetarian" ( 2:30), neither is Rozin ("likes all foods"), and Loughnan probably eats meat too (Once you start watching people (including yourself!) eat meat…). FourViolas (talk) 17:54, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * This isn't an article about a word, but about a concept. Not all the sources call it carnism. Joy named it, but others (including meat-eaters) have discussed it in almost identical terms, so the range of sources is fairly broad.


 * As for the suggestion, that is original research. If you want to add that, you would need to find a source that discusses it. For you to use personal websites, etc, as sources for people's eating habits is OR. It's also irrelevant whether someone eats meat or not, as you can see by the fact that academics with disparate views (and diets) are reaching similar conclusions. Sarah (talk) 18:17, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * All right then, I'll take out the lifestyle information. I'm not comfortable myself using faculty bios as sources, and I think the GD quote is enough to make it clear that opponents of carnism like to use the word "carnism". FourViolas (talk) 18:38, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I'm not keen on the quote either, or calling them vegans. Their role in this is to have written one article for a tertiary source. That's it. Yet they're being focused on heavily simply becase they're vegans. Again, this is OR. Meat doesn't once say (that I can see) "according to meat-eater Professor Smith ...).


 * The fact is that the ideas, research and arguments in this article are not coming from the vegan community. Joy is a vegan and she coined the term. Most of the other researchers are either meat-eaters or don't say. To create a section "in vegan discourse," we would have to find vegan researchers who make particular use of the concept, argue that it's useful or that it isn't (e.g. Francione). Very little of that has appeared, and Francione's is on his website. We can use it, per WP:SPS, but that we're having to support that section with OR, a self-published source, and people who've written one article for a tertiary source, is a bit of a red flag. Sarah (talk) 18:58, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I've removed that quote per UNDUE and because it ends the article on a polemic note, whereas until that point it's mostly based on academic research. I think we should try to merge the rest of the section into other sections or rework it in some way. Sarah (talk) 19:37, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

With respectful apologies, I'm replacing it. https://www.tumblr.com/search/carnism, https://twitter.com/search?q=%23carnism, and https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=carnism+forum are all incontrovertible (primary) sources for the fact that the word is predominantly used by people who oppose the ideology. The quote is from a scholarly reference work on animal ethics, was written by and for academics, and makes it clear that the "normative import" of the idea is to facilitate criticism of the belief system. It is entirely DUE to quote from an encyclopedia entry on a polemically-charged concept which discusses the rhetorical aspect of the idea. It is also DUE to devote at least some space to acknowledge the term's users' characteristics. FourViolas (talk) 20:43, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * When there's a strong objection to a new addition, the usual process is WP:BRD, rather than restoring it, so I'd appreciate it if you would revert yourself. It's not a scholarly source, and the quote is UNDUE and inappropriate, especially to end on. The tone of the article is otherwise very different, and was improving. The last two sentences of the quote are also poor English, which doesn't help. Sarah (talk) 21:17, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Quote
I'm moving this here so we can reach consensus about whether to add it. As I see it, it damages the article, particularly as an ending. Perhaps there's another way to read it, but it looks to me like pure advocacy. The quote is:

"By naming a psychological fact—the perception of meat and animal products depends on a pervasive ideology—the concept of carnism makes people aware of it and allows them to challenge their perceptions, and therefore move away from the violence in their lives that had before seemed inevitable.…Thus, the concept of carnism allows to change perspective. Beside the question “Why are some people vegan?” appears this new one “Why some people are not?”"

The problem in particular is "move away from the violence in their lives," as well as the fact that the English is poor in the last two sentences. In addition the sources are not notable academics; one isn't an academic at all. I can't see any reason to devote such an important part of the article to them. Sarah (talk) 23:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry I didn't have the chance to self-revert. BRD is not my preferred model, but I can work with it.


 * An article called "Carnism" in the Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, edited by the Kellogg Professor in Agricultural Food, and Community Ethics at Michigan State University, is in my opinion an extremely good source for information on carnism, a matter relating to food and agricultural ethics. That article is the only academic work dedicated exclusively to the concept of carnism, and devotes more than a full one of its five sections to the "normative [anti-carnism] import" of the idea. If you disagree that the source is reliable or deserves inclusion, I will take it to the WP:RSN.


 * The quote is intended to represent—indeed, formally describe—the use of the idea in vegan advocacy. Every other significant contributor to this talk page has agreed that such use needs to be covered in the article. The primary sources I just linked (tumblr, twitter, and google) show that the concept does indeed have greatest currency by far within the vegan/animal-rights movement, and it is a serious omission to let our readers think otherwise.


 * It's true that the last two sentences are ungrammatical. I would accept replacing them with the previous two sentences: "To put it otherwise, showing that edibility depends on culture sheds light on an additional point: perception of edibility is morally arbitrary. Pigs deserve no more than dogs to be eaten." This eliminates the ellipsis, and is equally representative of vegan rhetoric on the subject.


 * If you particularly disagree with the quote's placement at the end, we can discuss rearrangement. FourViolas (talk) 03:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

New tweaks to lead
I like them! The new version is objective, concise, and clear. Thanks, SV! FourViolas (talk) 13:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * For reasons similar to those in above, and to help address the concerns of Rob, Martin, myself, and the commenters at Talk:Veganism, I've added a sentence with two SPS stating that "Joy intended the term to be used to facilitate challenging the practice of meat consumption." and a similar one where her coinage of the term is discussed. The other quotes make her intention clear to readers; making them explicit is essential to Wikipedia's nonpartisan status. FourViolas (talk) 15:12, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I think this is pushing a vegan position again, so I'm going to move or remove them for the reasons discussed above. I'd appreciate if you'd gain consensus for additions like that, and even more if you would wait until the article is better developed. There are lots of sources not yet added (sources with different political views). Your focus on quoting Joy, especially adding her to the lead, means that, when those sources are added, the lead and other parts won't reflect the source material. Sarah (talk) 17:47, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I wish you wouldn't. I'm trying to develop the article, as I have been doing. The lead can change to reflect the body as the body changes. If this back-and-forth is too frustrating, please work in draft space for a while. FourViolas (talk) 18:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I also think that the vegan/vegetarian POV is being pushed a little too far with comments about what authors eat or don't eat. Their dietary habits are totally irrelevant to this article.  If I write a scientific article about the welfare of hens in battery cages, does it matter whether I eat their eggs or not?  It is what the authors have said/written and can be verified that is important.  I also do not understand why edits should be made on the basis of an RfC at another page.  If an RfC for this page is needed, it should be here - not elsewhere, and we should not have to click over to the other page so that we can reflect on edits being made here. DrChrissy (talk) 20:01, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I was trying to address Martin and others' concerns that we were presenting opinions exclusive to vegans as though they were universally accepted. Thanks largely to SV, the article is moving to focus on academic study of the idea, eschewing its frequent use by activists (such as https://www.carnism.org) as mostly not well-reported-on enough to support neutral coverage, so there is less vegan opinion in the article to "make excuses for". Also, I've found evidence that many researchers on meat psychology are not, in fact, animal-rights activists or veg*ns, which ought also to allay Martin et al.'s concerns. We might want to make an FAQ about that: Q: Hey, this sounds like a bunch of vegan propaganda! A: Feel free to raise specific concerns, but at least three of the lead researchers we cite most eat meat.


 * As I note below, we should be careful with sources such as DeMello 2012 or Freeman 2011 who state within their analysis that the authors are animal-rights advocates; if the authors think their politics are relevant to what they have to say, our readers may conclude that they're "just" vegans making vegan arguments, not scholars doing research. FourViolas (talk) 22:04, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Article development
I think there may be a misunderstanding about how articles are (ideally) written, so I'm hoping this will help. Neutrality on Wikipedia doesn't mean (to use an extreme example) "two plus two equals four on the one hand and five on the other." There's no need to seek "balancing" material for each and every point. That's a form of original research and involves editors imposing their personal views on the article, then balancng those with more personal views from the other direction, with sources picked to accommodate them.

Instead, we gather the best-quality primary and secondary sources that have discussed this issue, and read them. For an article like this, that means academic sources, mostly psychologists. There are a lot of sources about this topic, and it's going to take weeks to read them. Some use the term carnism. Most don't but are clearly talking about the same issue (i.e. a ubiquitous ideology that leads to certain paradoxes), and they come from different political directions.

Once those have been read, we summarize what they say (not what we believe), with views represented in rough proportion to their representation within the source material. It will be weeks before we have a first draft ready. If people would allow that work to be done, it would be very helpful. Sarah (talk) 17:02, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Hear, hear. I agree that the article should be built around evidence-based pyschological research, dip into the more-subjective sociological discussions, and briefly mention less-academic usage. That will help a lot with neutrality concerns.


 * Is this in response to anything specific from above?


 * I agree that it's been tricky to keep working on the article while it's been being "discovered" by lots of RfC visitors. Do you think some form of draft-space version would be helpful? I'm not familiar with standard practice in that area. FourViolas (talk) 17:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Can you give examples of "the more-subjective sociological discussions"?


 * What I meant was that it's important first to do the reading, then decide what to add to the article and judge whether it has been done neutrally, not the other way round. Sarah (talk) 17:55, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Freeman & Levanti-Perrez 2011. "Our discourse analysis is informed by an animal rights perspective that acknowledges that nonhuman animals are fellow sentient individuals who deserve to be valued inherently rather than instrumentally as tools/property."
 * DeMello 2012 "My ethical perspective was formed…by my long involvement in the philosophies and practices of animal rights"
 * Diamond 1974 "I write this as a vegetarian"
 * These people have outstanding intelligence and acuity and ideas, and deserve some inclusion. However, relying heavily on subjective analyses whose authors mention their own opinions will inevitably expose the article to accusations of bias. Data is much more robust, and contentious information needs robust citation. FourViolas (talk) 18:24, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I think this is going to be my last response because this is too time-consuming. What people eat is irrelevant. The DeMello article was published by Columbia University Press. Cora Diamond isn't a sociologist. That article (the version we use) was published by Oxford University Press. You question these sources while adding something from all-creatures.org to the lead. This is what I meant about misunderstanding how to use sources. Sarah (talk) 18:35, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm very sorry, I didn't intend to dissuade you. The relevant information is that they reference their own opinion within their analysis, not that they have a particular diet (two out of three don't actually mention their diet).
 * The Veganpalooza interview was a self-published source (per WP:Interviews), properly attributed as POV per WP:SUBSTANTIATE, to give information about the intent behind the word's coinage per previous consensus. Of course, you've been here much longer than I have, so feel free to correct my sourcing practice if you still see problems. FourViolas (talk) 18:44, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I really have doubts whether the Veganpalooza interview can be considered RS. It is obviously a pro-vegan organisation, so how can we be sure it published the interview/asked the the questions in a neutral way. DrChrissy (talk) 19:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Statements made by interviewees should be treated as self-published information, as long as nobody suspects the interviewee said things they didn't mean, per WP:Interviews. WP:SPS are a special kind of RS, reliable about the author's professed beliefs and nothing else. In that interview, Joy repeated several versions of the statement that the idea behind the word was to challenge the idea, and never published a correction later, so I thought I could treat it as a fair source for "Joy intended the word to be used against the ideology." However, the whole thing was just backup confirmation, as Joy says the same thing clearly in her own book, which I also cited, so I don't mind that Sarah removed that ref. FourViolas (talk) 22:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Writing
Regardless of NPOV issues, the writing is deteriorating. Recent edits (FourViolas and Martin) left the lead starting with: "Carnism is a term was coined in 2001": the first section (Martin) saying: "Cartesian mechanism denies that animals are conscious and maintained that they were simply automata ..." and another section (Martin) saying: "A series of studies of moral reasoning around the meat eating found four main reasons ..."

FourViolas and Martin, please allow the article to be written. It isn't possible to do the reading and develop the article with this going on. Sarah (talk) 20:03, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Regarding the second, it deflects from the main point of the section and misrepresents the source by conflating examples of arguments with general types of arguments (4Ns), and the heading is not exactly accurate as there is a distinction between why people say they do things and why they actually do. (Lots of research on vegetarians, for instance, reveals that social groups are a bigger factor than beliefs in maintaining their diet.) I don't think anyone who read the source would have made these changes. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:49, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Not to assign blame, but all I did was remove "vegan" from "coined by vegan sociologist Melanie Joy" against my own wishes. Please don't get owny; I've been contributing hours and hours of sources and prose, too. FourViolas (talk) 21:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right: that version shouldn't be attributed to you. There was a lot of confusion there, partly caused by the fact that I botched an edit and then self-reverted. --Sammy1339 (talk)
 * No big deal :) FourViolas (talk) 21:54, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposed RfC
Is the following wording acceptable?

In this article, when we cite works which explicitly endorse a particular political opinion on this issue, should we make reference to that opinion, as in a book by psychologist and animal rights advocate Melanie Joy? FourViolas (talk) 21:54, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * No, it isn't acceptable because it poisons the well. As a matter of interest, why won't you let the article be developed first? A lot of volunteer time that could be spent reading and writing is being spent addressing your concerns instead. Sarah (talk) 22:00, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I thought that, precisely because we've spent a long time in good-faith disagreement over whether a particular attribution practice is acceptable, it would be nice to get a specific answer to that important issue from uninvolved editors so we can stop. I didn't, and don't, think that an RfC is an admission of permanent or general failure to reach consensus; after all, many specific issues have already been raised and resolved here.


 * This exact issue has been present and contested ever since the AfD, and is important, in both of our opinions, to the neutral presentation of the article. FourViolas (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Please don't bring an RfC here for that reason. I strongly suspect an RfC will require a lot of editing energy, create a lot discussion (which may get heated) and then will almost certainly be closed with "No consensus".  This issue is something that can be settled by the regular editors here who are all remaining calm and polite, despite having different viewpoints. DrChrissy (talk) 00:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * FourViolas, I think you underestimate the effect these discussions have on morale. It's the time it soaks up, but also the knowledge that it's pointless, because the article is going to change as it develops, so the whole thing is premature and enthusiasm-killing. I've seen it many times. Issue A gets settled after much debate, then issue B, then issue C. Weeks later you look around and the writers have fled. So you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's, but the article will remain under-developed for years. Sarah (talk) 00:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * All right. I'm confident that this will remain an issue for a long time into the future, because as DrChrissy noted we seem to be several years too early for the uninvolved meta-analyses to have come out. However, I'm a young Wikipedian, and I'll take your word for it that RfCs are dangerous. (That information should be added to WP:RfC.) I'll try another WP:DR technique. Let's resolve this. Per WP:Deadline, we can keep editing while we decide how to handle this. FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

POV tag
Template:POV indicates this tag is for serious issues of balance which are supposed to be explicitly discussed on the talk page, and is very clear this is supposed to be about balancing RS, and not about representing the views of the public. I think we have dealt with at least a dozen of the issues and what remains is a contentious question about attribution of the whole "carnism" concept which we can't exactly source. (This was in the article anyway last time I removed the tag.) What are the outstanding serious issues? --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I replaced the tag partly as a token of good faith towards the uninvolved editors who keep responding to a vague RfC with vague assertions that the article is biased. I agree that, per guidelines and common sense, we can't do that indefinitely.


 * I do have a serious concrete concern of my own, though. It's not just about attributing Joy's intent behind inventing the term (which is very clearly sourceable); more generally, we keep citing sources, such as those I specified in, who themselves feel it is important to tell their own readers that their perspective is that of animal-rights advocates, and (except for "abolitionist Gary Francione") we are citing them without any indication that their position is other than the mainstream one. That bears repeating: our authors themselves acknowledge that they are minority voices, and we don't. If other sources were saying "We eat meat ourselves, and our research has determined…", then that would be appropriate information to include as well.


 * I've tried adding a quote from an encyclopedia on food ethics stating that using the word can offer the option of rejecting the ideology; I've tried a Rob- and Martin- and you-approved observation that many carnism researchers are anti-carnists; I've tried noting that Joy invented the word as a weapon against the structure. I haven't yet found solid consensus on any of these delicate, factual, sourced ways to let the article clearly present the fact that not all the ideas in the article are independent of animal activism, so I think the POV tag is still justified.


 * Interlude: I do understand that the article is orders of magnitude better than the one that entered AfD, and I'm grateful for all of your patience and hard work. When I look at the article, I feel like our collective hundreds of hours spent reading sources have not been wasted. FourViolas (talk) 00:27, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I too have been thinking that the POV tag should be removed. User talk:FourViolas, while it is very collegiate for you to include the opinions of others in your edits stated in an RfC elsewhere, their comments about this article really should be appearing on this Talk page.  Otherwise, when future editors read these pages to see how consensus was arrived for this article, they will become completely lost.  At the very, very least, please provide diffs, but in my own opinion, if this article requires an RfC, it should be here and not elsewhere. DrChrissy (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes. That is very much the minor of two reasons for the tag. Please respond to the other. FourViolas (talk) 18:23, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that the POV tag should be removed. It's being used as a weapon and bargaining chip. Tags are intended as a last resort, and only if there are policy issues, not just because someone doesn't like something. Sarah (talk) 18:25, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Please respond to the substance of my comment. I don't like the tag either and will be happy to remove it if I know the concerns (based on the NPOV, specifically ATTRIBUTEPOV, policy) will be addressed. FourViolas (talk) 18:35, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * @User:FourViolas I think the other reason you are arguing for the template (please forgive me if I am misreading) is that the eating habits of the authors of some of the cited sources somehow make this article non-neutral. I do not believe that is the case.  We, as editors, can place non-neutral attributed comments/quotes/ideas as long as we include contra-arguements so that the article overall is balanced.  I am really not sure that the life choices of authors have any relevance here - it is what they have said, and the way they have said it. DrChrissy (talk) 18:44, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, that's not actually what I meant to say. I think the relevant information is that the authors themselves tell us, within the source we're quoting, that they have a particular political position on the issue. They can eat whatever they like, but when they tell us they're animal rights advocates we need to relay that to our readers. It seems like we're at impasse on this, though, so I'm going to request comment. See below soon. FourViolas (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I and two other respondent to the RfC consider this article to be non-neutral. The tag should remain until there is a consensus. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * This is obviously not a head count, but there are 3 editors making regular contributions directly to this page who believe the tag should be removed. Perhaps, for the record, you would post diffs to the arguments in the RfC to which you refer. DrChrissy (talk) 22:31, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * User talk:FourViolas have a look at the Speciesism article (I'm sure you have many times previously, but perhaps not in relation to this concern). I see this as being a very similar article to Carnism in that a new term was coined to describe human attitudes toward animals.  The identity of the person that coined the phrase is Richard D. Ryder, however, his name does not even appear in the lead.  There is a subsection "Origin of the term" in which his animal rights stance (and popularisation of the term by Peter Singer) is discussed.  Perhaps we should adopt this approach?  Keep Joy out of the lead where her eating habits, political views, etc. are perhaps undue detail for that section, but identify these later in the article.  It would be nice to get a lede that is stable, even if other parts of the article remain somewhat "volatile".  It may also be worth remembering that we do not necessarily have to provide in-line citations in the lede. DrChrissy (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Courtesy note: I don't receive pings when you link my user talk page, only my user page itself. Just wanted to make sure you knew. FourViolas (talk) 23:14, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I like that idea, because the sources I like best deal only with objective research, not activism like Joy's. But if I'm being honest, almost all sources which use the word "carnism" not only mention but discuss Joy's coinage and ideas, including DeMello, Gibert & Desaulniers, Benz-Schwartzberg, Freeman, Gutjahr, and so on. I've been wondering if the best solution might be to move the whole page to Psychology of eating meat per WP:NEOLOGISM, which discourages articles named for terms which have few sources about the term per se. What do you think?FourViolas (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the courtesy note. I would not be in favour of moving the article. We have the basis of a good article here, but as you have indicated, the problem is that for some areas, we are struggling to find references because the term is so young.  Despite this, I believe we do have sufficient references for this to be a stand-alone article.  In an ideal world, I would suggest we all stop editing, wind the clocks forward 2-3 years, and then come back to it. DrChrissy (talk) 23:28, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm very much against moving the page, for several reasons. Psychology of eating meat is a related but different topic, which deserves its own article. Carnism has been discussed not only in the context of experimental psychology (which are the sources you say you like, I guess because they are more sciencey) but also in terms of social theory, by Joy, DeMello, Gutjahr, Packwood-Freeman, Gibert and Desaulniers, and others. Even if you think all these people are engaged in "activism", that doesn't make their contributions non-notable. (Anti-feminists use the same argument to dismiss essentially the entire subject of women's studies, and it's fortunate that Wikipedia doesn't.) WP:NEOLOGISM obviously does not refer to an article like this. As for the fact that most of the sources mention or cite Joy, it's standard practice in academia to give credit. The sources also build on Joy's ideas, and make it clear that "carnism" is not synonymous with her work. --Sammy1339 (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. Maybe a split could be proposed in the future. Sociology is very much a respectable science, but when I'm not allowed to specify which sociologists put themselves in which camp it feels impossible to create a neutral article out of partisan sources. The psychologists don't act as though their own positions are relevant, the way some of the sociologists do, and I think they're both right. I was saying that each of the sources I mentioned explains, when it introduces the word, that it was coined by Joy and developed in WWLDEPWC and describes her ideas, and red flags wave in my head when I think about excising that one specific oft-repeated carnism←→Joy sentence as we write our own introduction. FourViolas (talk) 02:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Coining background or ambivalence?
Would anyone mind if I moved the information in the body about Joy's coining of the term from "Meat eating#Ambivalence" to the end of "Background"? That feels much more natural to me. The coining, as we've been discussing, is only the background to most of the research into the idea, and it doesn't seem right where it is. FourViolas (talk) 03:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Consensus-building on attributing politics
Note: WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV is the idea this is based on, but it doesn't immediately solve the problem in this case, because it applies only to "biased statements", and we can't agree on which statements are biased. FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Support as proposer. Peer-reviewed academic papers are extremely intentional with their words and ideas. In academics, all ideas have to be kept track of (that's what citing is for), and ideas which serve to promote certain positions, or rest on contested premises, must be properly attributed. That's the obligation these authors are fulfilling when they tell us what camp they're in. Omitting that information implies the default: that these authors are representative of the mainstream opinion in their field. When the sources themselves explain that that is not true, we have to as well. FourViolas (talk) 01:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment I'm not sure I follow this line of reasoning. I am an active researcher and publish articles on animal behaviour and welfare in international peer-reviewed journals.  I have published articles which confirm mainstream thinking, I have published articles which strongly challenge mainstream thinking.  In neither case have I been asked to disclose which "camp" I am in. To be honest, even I don't know which camp I am in. DrChrissy (talk) 13:27, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It would appear that, when you publish, your ideas are required to be directly verifiable enough (and you're clearly nonpartisan enough) that your personal opinions are essentially immaterial. That's the case for most of our sources. In some of the sources we cite, however, the authors make explicit statements like "Our discourse analysis is informed by an animal rights perspective"; I want to take that declaration as prima facie evidence that the authors' politics are relevant to the conclusions they reach, and therefore I want to pass on the labelling information they provide. FourViolas (talk) 21:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Support, in-article declaration similar to my own edit, regarding partisan alignment of Ms. Joy, allows readers to understand the contexts of statements better and allow WP:DUE weight to be clear. *Sigh*, that edit is likely going to reverted though, judging from the comments on this and the Vegan talk page. Nice work in helping to coordinate the effort as well User:FourViolas.
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 02:18, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Full disclosure: Dr Crazy 102 edited the article in response to an RfC bot, and I then informed them on their talk page about this discussion. FourViolas (talk) 02:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose. This is simply never done for those of the opposite alignment, and I think most editors would object if it were. Can you imagine reading about "meat-eater and animal-welfare-opponent René Descartes"? As with every other article, biased statements of opinion should be attributed per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, but this should not be done every time we cite a source. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If non-animal-rights-advocating sociologists don't declare their position in their papers, that simply indicates that their position is accepted (by the peer/editorial review board) as the default position, the position readers will assume they have if no other information is given. For example, sociological writers who are not black supremacists do not bother to specify that information when they write about race. This is a false-balance situation. FourViolas (talk) 03:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, if you like the ideas at WP:Method for consensus building, you could play along by posting your own position on the issue so we can see it clearly. FourViolas (talk) 10:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment In my area of academia, most peer-review is done blind (the referees assess a paper without knowing who the authors are), so I don't see how the authors can declare a political stand-point. DrChrissy (talk) 13:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the source that FourViolas is mainly thinking of is the discourse analysis on the inverse turkey sacrifice, wherein the authors state that they are informed by animal-rights theory. When citing that, it may or may not be appropriate to mention this perspective, depending on what part of their analysis is cited. Another example I can think of is Joy's 2001 Satya paper, where the editor identifies her as an animal-rights advocate in a short bio - this made it into our article via recent edits of Martin Hogbin and 4V. For me this one is a borderline case, as the passage can in fact be construed as including an opinion of Joy's. When we apply this more broadly though, it can become a problem, especially when we use a publication whose author has view A and there is another author who says the same thing and has view B or doesn't declare his views at all - this happens at a number of points in the article, especially in the multiple places where SlimVirgin has replaced Gibert2014 (which she regards as a tertiary source, and which doesn't declare a bias) with primary and secondary sources. We ought to stick to the scope of WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, which covers opinion statements. --Sammy1339 (talk) 14:30, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a principle which has caused controversy about several sources, as well as nonspecific controversy about giving too much weight to animal-rights advocacy without attribution. The idea I'm basing it on is this: if you, DrChrissy, were refereeing a paper which was obviously (to you, an expert in the field) "informed by [the author's] long experience with the practice and philosophy of animal rights advocacy"—if, to take an extreme example, the author took for granted the assertion that chickens have a mental life as sophisticated as humans'—and the author talked as though their assumptions were standard among animal behaviorists and didn't allow that their viewpoint was only common among extreme anti-speciesists, wouldn't you object and (at the least) ask that a paragraph be added explaining that the author held a minority position? FourViolas (talk) 14:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * But this is a straw man argument. That's not what's going on here. There also seems to be some assumption that minority positions have to be attributed, but majority positions don't. That's not supported by policy, which requires attribution of the positions of authors cited for their opinions regardless of whether they are common opinions or not, and does not require attribution of the positions of authors cited for objective statements. As I've said, in the turkey case, the authors' stated perspective should be mentioned if enough details of the analysis are mentioned to make it relevant. However I'm not aware of an author who thinks that birds are as smart as people. --Sammy1339 (talk) 15:11, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * It's none of our business which positions are attributed within their works. I'm saying that when and only when they are, it's logical to conclude that they're relevant. If minority partisanship is more often declared, that's probably because readers naturally assume that writers are in the majority camp (if one exists) unless specified otherwise. FourViolas (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * User:FourViolas It wouldn't work quite like that. If we have a statement in a science paper, "chickens have a mental life as sophisticated as humans", this is such an extreme claim, so far removed from mainstream, it would certainly require a major re-write.  The author would be expected to cite the sources they believed justified the statement.  As a referee, I would know, or look up, those references and then make a judgement on whether the statement was justified on the basis of these.  I don't recollect ever having seen a paragraph that alludes to an author's political viewpoint to explain why they have made a statement.  There is often a "statement of conflict of interest" submitted with the paper, but even this does not require a political statement.  The affiliation of the author must be disclosed, but this is usually a University - so no political viewpoint there. In general, science relies (or should rely) on the information contained within the paper, not the identity or political viewpoints of the author. DrChrissy (talk) 15:26, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * All right, thanks for the step-by-step. Sorry to have chosen such an out-there example. So, do you think that, if the source itself does talk about the authors' political viewpoint as though it's relevant to the discussion, we should attribute that opinion when discussing the research? FourViolas (talk) 16:03, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Question There is a lot of time being spent on this and we do not appear to be getting very far. WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV states "Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with attribution" (my emphasis). What statements are we discussing here? DrChrissy (talk) 16:08, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * ATTRIBUTEPOV isn't really precisely relevant. It's basically a restatement of WP:SUBJECTIVE: if you want to say "X is the best!" say instead "RS Foo asserts that X is the best." However, common sense and the fact that Francione is labeled "abolitionist" imply that we all understand labels are at least sometimes necessary. I opened WP:VPP to ask about this in general. FourViolas (talk) 16:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment Somebody there says we should decide this by local consensus, "but should probably favor not using the descriptors." FourViolas (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Support. Of course, but it is not enough just to attribute statements of a minority philosophy to their authors. The the tone, style, and content of the article must reflect and make clear to our readers that 'carnism' is a word invented by a minority to deprecate the philosphy of the majority. Martin Hogbin (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If it is pertinent in a wikipedia article then, yes, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. I have concerns here though.  Firstly, this is a page about "carnism".  Several of the sources have their own WP article and I feel much of these discussions should be on those article Talk pages rather than here.  Second, we need to be accurate with our labels.  Paul Rozin is described as a "Food psychologist".  There is no WP article on this career, so should he be labelled as such?  Third, where does this all stop? We use Duncan and Bekoff as sources, yet both have ideas that might not be considered mainstream.  We do not use them for statements, but if their work is "coloured" by their viewpoints, do we need to indicate this? DrChrissy (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose. FourViolas calls herself an "occasionally activist vegan," and, perhaps because this matters to her personally, has been using personal websites and similiar to collect information about the sources' diets, which she wants to add to the article. She argues that pointing out that several sources eat meat will "add[...] to the article's credibility in non-vegan readers' eyes."   In other words, we're supposed to write "psychologist and meat-eater X argues ...". Attribution of opinion (WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV) involves naming sources, not describing their lifestyles. The academic sources writing about carnism are meat-eaters, vegetarians, vegans, animal-welfare advocates, animal-rights advocates, and unknown, just as historians who write about the Holocaust are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, none of the above. We cite them all as "Holocaust historians." I have no problem with saying of Joy, when we discuss in the "Meat" section that she coined the term carnism, that she's an animal-rights advocate, but to split the academics up according to politics and diet would be OR and would verge on being offensive. Sarah (talk) 17:20, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * My activism is absolutely exclusively off-wiki; the diff you cite shows that, even as a brand-newbie, I was scrupulously careful not to inadvertently push my own IRL POV. I am proud to have received confirmation that I have fulfilled WP:OWB: an editor who will not be named emailed me to say that my POV here was impossible to determine. On this article, my goal has always been to correct what I (and many others) perceive as a clear pro-veganist bias.
 * I have, for example, copyedited the whole article to remove tendentious language, fixed rhetorically-charged language  , and advocated on this page, for a very long time and against strong opposition, for us to stop pretending that vegan literature is mainstream literature. For this work, I have been strongly commended by the wholly uninvolved User:Snow Rise  and awarded a barnstar by this page's nominator for AfD, User:BU Rob13.
 * My positions have changed somewhat over the past few weeks, as open-minded people's opinions change when they engage in good-faith dialogue. I already accepted your point that implying a researcher's radio interview is important to understanding their work is SYNTH . If you read the yellow box at the top of this section, you will notice that I am only proposing we include information about our sources' politics (not lifestyles), for reasons I just re-explained to Martin . That means I'm asking for phrases like A study conducted by animal rights advocates concluded that most media reporting on [the turkey pardon] marginalized the link between living animals and meat, while celebrating the poultry industry, not the straw man you cited. FourViolas (talk) 21:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Mixed: I disagree that next to every source, we should include whether they eat meat or not. There are compelling arguments here that doing so is unreasonable, cumbersome, and would never be applied if the situation was reversed. I do think that including one line somewhere in the article that states something of the effect "Some of the advocates of carnism were vegan, including X, Y, and Z" is within policy and helps with neutrality. If we avoid language that implies a majority (such as "many") and include specific names, then each name can be a specific cited statement of fact. This would not violate WP:SYNTH. On the other hand, claiming most advocates or even many advocates were vegan is likely synthesis. I can't really side support or oppose, since I support the idea behind this RfC while opposing the suggested implementation. Consider this a !vote towards attribution, given that the attribution is done minimally and with care to avoiding WP:OR concerns. ~ RobTalk 21:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for the misunderstanding. Support as proposer per self and Rob above. FourViolas (talk) 21:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I suggest that the solution we came to in the course of the extensive 13-point negotiation above might still be the best one: we should expand the "vegan discourse" section to explain how "carnism" as a concept fits into pro-vegan ideology while providing full attribution of the allegiances of the authors whom we will inevitably cite for biased statements. However I've been reluctant to do this, fearing it will simply open up a new battleground, especially because after a lot of searching I really have nothing from the pro-carnist side to balance it against. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose This will be an extremely cumbersome method of editing because if we need to include political view points, these must be verifiable. So, using Sammy's example above ""meat-eater and animal-welfare-opponent René Descartes"?" could easily become "meat-eater and animal-welfare-opponent René Descartes"?  Looks rather ugly to me.  I also believe there is huge scope for OR and POV-pushing by political attribution.  Another point that I don't think has been made is that this approach is time-stamped for living persons.  The author of a source may be an -ist, -ologist, whatever, one day, but not the next - We are in danger of stating that a living person has political views which they may have changed (this problem must be dealt with somewhere else, but I wonder how this would be applied here) DrChrissy (talk) 22:30, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Could you clarify whom you're opposing? FourViolas (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Clarification I am opposing the OP "Position: When we cite sources which declare their authors' politics, we should briefly mention those politics." DrChrissy (talk) 23:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Clarification: That proposal, and the clarified version, would only apply to sources which themselves discuss their authors' politics. If we cite a work by Descartes in which he doesn't explicitly disclose whether or not he supports the animal rights movement, we wouldn't label him either way because that would be OR. If we cited a work in which the author mentioned that she was speaking from a animal-rights standpoint, we would describe the work as written by an animal-rights supporter, regardless of the author's previous or later changes (or clarify in a note that she has since changed her mind, if RS say so). FourViolas (talk) 23:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I was !voting on the original position as you posted at the beginning of this thread. I copied and pasted this into my message.  If the goal-posts have been moved, then I am getting rather tired of this and I think I would rather use my effort to build content. DrChrissy (talk) 23:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Support as an equally acceptable alternative, and will start something in my sandbox in a while if nobody beats me to it. I think segregating academic and activist usage would help the article's clarity and fairness, and would be justified per Due with the many sources gathered at http://www.carnism.org/resources/press-kit FourViolas (talk) 22:30, 28 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose again for the reasons stated above. FourViolas, you can't reset the discussion just because you don't get the desired response. Sarah (talk) 00:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose As per my comments above. DrChrissy (talk) 00:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I thought that clarifying that labels like "vegetarian" and not-in-the-actual-source labels were off the table would satisfy everyone's concerns. My mistake, clearly. I'd ask you to offer a compromise or comment on Sammy's, but Snow changed the discussion. FourViolas (talk) 01:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Should we create sub-pages to link to specific and on-going debates?
I ask this mainly due to the mountains of textual information that I have tried to wade through over the last 3 or 4 days. We would certainly link the talk-page to these discussion sub-pages, but it would clear room on the talk page. Ideas are gladly welcomed here. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Should we do a WP:JUNK but use some of the existing information?
I simply raise this as a possible means of re-writing the article from a more neutral POV, but I have doubts that this would work and I kind of hate to erase work done by users who have put in a lot of effort from the look of things. Ideals are gladly welcomed. (I'm also not sure if there should be a template for this or if this is a more informal discussion to raise the issue formally later, so let me know, thanks) Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Take a look at the original revision of this article. That is a genuine example of what WP:JUNK applies to. Objectively, JUNK doesn't apply in this situation given that there was an AfD and substantial support for a keep emerged. At this point, we have an article that could be more neutral, but does report the idea of "carnism" as supported by reliable sources. Our issue here is not POV pushing, but rather a systemic bias in the pool of sources available on this topic. Erasing all the work already done to make the language as neutral as possible while still supported by sources solves nothing. Hitting the reset button won't solve any of the issues of contention. ~ RobTalk 01:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * As I said, I didn't feel sure that this would be the solution, but I felt that it should be raised even if it was to just get shot down. So junking the article is not a realistic option, I had not had a look at the original revision (I can't find the links either, but I've had a look at the earliest revisions for this reincarnation's history) but I can guess at what it must have been like given the current state and the earlier revisions.
 * Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 03:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * For reference, this diff provides a decent look at what the article was before a major revision for neutrality/legitimacy. See: . ~ RobTalk 03:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to table discussion
I respect the expressed desire for space and peace to develop the article in. Here is a proposal that would allow that space to be opened, while addressing the important WP:POVFORK concern.

Proposed findings of fact

 * The concept of describing the psychology and cultural traditions of meat consumption as "carnism" was created as, and remains, a strategy intended to call that practice into question.
 * "Carnism" and "Psychology of meat eating" both pass the general notability guideline.

Proposed temporary resolution
For two months or until the major contributors to this page agree they're ready to discuss NPOV, (whichever comes first), NPOV disputes will be resolved by the process of BOLD, DISCUSS ONLY AFTER THE WAITING PERIOD IS OVER (if still relevant).

In the meantime, this page will only cite sources which explicitly: a)use the words "carnism" or "carnist"; or b)formulate the culture/psychology of meat eating as an "ideology" or "belief system". Material from other sources will move to Psychology of meat eating, which will be developed independently.

FourViolas (talk) 00:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: A "bold, revert, wait multiple months until everyone has forgotten about it to discuss" cycle doesn't seem like it would work well in any circumstances. I'm leaning oppose on this unless significant arguments are made for why WP:NPOV concerns should be ignored for two months. All editors here have worked productively this far to make the best article possible; why stop working? ~ RobTalk 00:55, 30 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that that will not work. We need more independent editors who understand WP:NPOV.  I am not a vegetarian but have no objection whatever to veganism.  What I do object to is editors using this article to promote a particular POV. That is non-negotiable. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Ideas summary of the Talk-page
Something that is bothering me about this article and its talk page is that there seem to be several over-arching problems that need to have explicit reasoning explained by their supporters from either side of the problem. What I am suggesting is that these specific problems be moved into possible sub-pages with links on this talk page, so that the one specific problem is discussed on the sub-page and allows the talk-page to be used for potential changes, while the problems are being discussed to reach consensus. Otherwise I would suggest WP:JUNK under #Why_starting_from_scratch_can_be_an_advantage and allow for a new response and write-up. Some, if not most, of the information is relevant AND good but it seems highly biased due to the POVs of the authors referenced, which I believe includes Ms. Joy who seems to have created the word to discuss the opposing 'extreme' of dieting to Veganism, but that is my opinion and I am not much of an expert on the topic. However, as I mentioned, there is content that shouldn't be thrown out with the "WP:BATHWATER" and I do not wish to unduly WP:RUSH the deletion process, if it should even be started, but I thought that it should be mentioned.

My one request to those that comment on this section: Keep your response short, sharp, to the point, and KISS (, and maybe make up, hehe). Please read through what I have said, and succinctly address your concern/s or ideas.

I do not claim to have covered all of the problems (and I would welcome the addition of problems I have missed as other subheadings), but this is an area where I would like to see some constructive comments that I know are somewhere in this article, kept succinct and not requiring someone to have to scroll through a large amount of text and argument, a summary if you will. I hope that these problems may eventually be kept on sub-pages while the talk-page is dedicated to changes to article text instead of article ideas, but I do not know if that is plausible or the "done" thing, but opinions are welcome. Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 23:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't forget to WP:SIGN your posts after each comment under each sub-heading, makes it easier to assign an idea/comment to a person, instead of relying on revision history. Thanks Dr Crazy 102 (talk) 10:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)