Talk:Cowspiracy/Archive 1

Recent additions
These edits are problematic. The first addition is simply nonsensical: "The film explores the impact and sustainibility (sic) of animal agriculture on the environment, and investigates the policies of environmental organizations on this issue, making an appleal (sic) to a more plant-based diet. Sustainability is part of the impact. The phrase "impact and sustainability" is similar to "fruits and apples". In addition to being unclear as to who is making the appeal (the film or the environmental organizations?), the phrase suggests that the appeal is being made to the diet, rather than appealing to viewers. No one would ask a diet to do anything. The second part of the edit is a list of claims from the film selected by the editor. The apparent attempt of this inclusion is to present some of the film's arguments. This, however, is an encyclopedia article about the film, not a study/discussion guide for the film. Arguments the film makes are content of the film. At most, we present a brief neutral summary of the film's content to instruct readers what the film is about. In as brief an article as this, a laundry list of claims, selected by one editor, is inappropriate. - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 21:57, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I've added the cast from IMBD and apparently that changed the status from "not notable" to "this article is within the scope of WikiProject Film." I also removed the tag for "nature documentary" as I don't think that's what it is. Did I misunderstand the tag? ChristineBaker1 (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:Notability refers to the extent to which the subject of an article is covered by any publisher other than the one chiefly interested in the subject of the article. It is usually easy to find self-published sources about a topic. IMDB, for example, is considered self-published because the production company overseeing the film writes content on that website without anyone doing editorial oversight. In this case, the sources which establish notability are those which are written by people who were not paid by the production company; that might include reviewers or journalists who write about those things. Are you able to find and cite any such sources like those? If you can find 1-2 of those, then you can remove the notability problem tag from the article.
 * It is fine to use IMDB for the cast, but that source does not establish notability. Wikipedia does not cover all movies, but only those movies which are reviewed by someone other than the movie's own promoters.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  20:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess I was confused, thought the notability tag had been removed.  There are countless reviews, but just adding the cast and the links took hours. Finding articles that actually fact check AND are "acceptable" for WP is the hard part. ChristineBaker1 (talk) 01:30, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Cast Section
This section needs to be either renamed or removed. This film is a documentary, it does not have a "cast," something that is fairly obvious when you consider the fact that everyone on the Cast list is listed as "playing" themselves. I'm actually wondering if this list is supposed to be an attempt at vandalism by someone who disagrees with this film by basically saying that everyone in the film is an actor. –Nahald (talk) 00:10, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems reasonable to have the section in some form, but the name is unfortunate. Suggestions?
 * (Incidentally, please try to assume good faith. The editor who added the section is, from what I can tell, sympathetic to the film's intent.) - Sum mer PhD  (talk) 01:29, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Claims in movie contrasted with scientific sources.
Would it be possible to have a section on this page where some of the claims from this movie are contrasted with scientific sources (published articles)? Many people probably want to know a bit about how reliable the information in this documentary is, when they go to this wikipedia page.84.210.54.80 (talk) 22:32, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Interviews section removed
This article had a list of interviews related to the film. I've removed it, per WP:NOTLINK. It has no place in a Wikipedia article. That information can be used to add to the article, but it shouldn't just be thrown into the article as a series of "interesting related links." RobertM525 (talk) 17:54, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

FUD about Union of Concerned Scientists removed
I have removed the sentence about the UoCS position of genetic engineering, as it is irrelevant to this article. References to criticism of UoCS position of climate change would be relevant, but if they were serious enough, would it make sense to include this criticism in the article at all? I have also removed the two accompanying references. Without that sentence they are also irrelevant. Also, one of the articles is by Keith Kloor, an industry-friendly writer who regularly writes apologist pieces defending both carbon polluting and genetic engineering industries (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Keith_Kloor). To use his article as a reference in a Wikipedia article on a topic related to climate change is to give him credibility he does not deserve. --Danylstrype (talk) 22:32, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150416111332/http://southafricanecofilmfestival.com/2015/04/09/cowspiracy-wins-audience-choice-award/ to http://southafricanecofilmfestival.com/2015/04/09/cowspiracy-wins-audience-choice-award/
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Reverts concerning Porsha Williams and the 51% statistic
Yesterday user Rp2006 reverted three of my edits. I will give more thought to the one concerning the top section. However, I think the other two reverts are unwarranted:

Revision 791239572: I used this Instagram post, written by Porsha Williams, to back up the statement that Porsha Williams decided to go vegan after watching the movie and its follow-up. The revert description is, "Inappropriate image - Plus Instagram is not a WP:RS."

There are two problems here. "Inappropriate image" refers here to the image of Williams wearing a bikini, which is in the post. An image of a bikini on a reference is simply not a valid reason to remove a reference, especially given that Wikipedia is not censored.

As to Instagram not being a reliable source: reliability is determined based on context. If I were using some random Instagram user's post to backup the statement, it would indeed be unreliable. However, in this case I'm using a post written by Williams to back up what she herself has said. For more information in this subject, please see: Verifiability
 * I realize WP does not censor, but what I meant by "Inappropriate image" was context specific. If one is searching for bikini shots (or even more explicit material) on WP or for that matter anywhere else online - this photo would be fine. However in the context of checking a citation for a statement in an article on Veganism, one would not expect such a thing. It may be offensive to some cultures - despite speaking English. Worse, it is NSFW. If that popped up on my screen at work when a manager saw it, I'd have some 'splainin' to do. Probably at least a trip to HR would be required. Unfortunately, much of the work world does censor. Regarding whether or not an Instagram post is a reliable source, seems I may be mistaken on that point. I will have to consider using those more in the edits I do. Facebook, etc. as well I presume. RobP (talk) 12:40, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Revision 791240774: I removed "at the core of the documentary" from the statement "Cowspiracy co-director Keegan Kuhn defended the 51% figure at the core of the documentary," on the grounds that this is original research. The revert description reads, "that number IS the main point of the documentary, else there would be no grounds to allege a conspiracy."

I've watched the documentary myself, and I can safely say that it contains a variety of facts and figures (and non-statistic-based persuasion). I don't recall the 51% figure being given any kind of prominence in the film. Saying it's "at the core of the documentary" makes it sound like the entire thing is centered around that one statistic. This needs a reliable source to back it up; otherwise it constitutes original research. --JadeBoco (talk) 23:48, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

EDIT: I read the UoCS review. (Very informative!) And I see that it does explicitly state that the 51% figure is central to the film.

However, as you will see on this page on the Cowspiracy website, the original version of the film also uses the [outdated] FAO statistic that "animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of Greenhouse Gases." This statistic directly contradicts the 51% figure, but it was also included in the film.

The statistic, as it says on that page, does not appear in the newer, Netflix version. But my point is, despite what the UoCS article says, the 51% figure simply isn't held up in the documentary. At some point I will try to add a citation to the page to clarify this. --JadeBoco (talk) 00:40, 20 July 2017 (UTC)


 * OK then... I'd say it would be good to mention the 18% vs 51% change in the article! RobP (talk) 12:40, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

After an argument with another editor regarding a social media reference used in another article, I have been convinced again that it is not OK to use the Porsha Williams Instagram post as a reference here. I reread the material pointed to above to be sure: Identifying_reliable_sources and Verifiability and I see nothing there that points to this situation. So, please be more specific as to the sentences that you believe justify keeping this material, and provide a valid explanation, or I will shortly remove the material. RobP (talk) 04:32, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Re Vegan.com
Hi USER:Kingofaces43, I am not suggesting that any in-industry and somewhat aligned website is any more or less reliable than the self-sourced and biased sources used here, I added this reference and source as per the report title and their motivations are aligned, even they (vegan.com) dispute the figures that the whole movie is based on and I believe should be included in the criticism section to provide some balance that not all vegans want to overstate the impact of agriculture and DENY the actual impact of fossil fuels, plastics etc. indeed, understating the other impacts does a disservice to science and fuels (bad pun) bad science or lack of actual action on the whole remedies that we should all be pursuing, I think the total vegan.com article should be read and included in some way (or to some degree) to dispute these biased values. Thoughts?121.99.108.78 (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That kind of "balance" gets into WP:UNDUE territory as this article isn't about perspectives of vegans. A vegan group source is going to have pretty limited usefulness here, but the more important issue is that it's making a scientific claim (see WP:SCIRS). In short, we generally have much more stringent sourcing requirements for science-based content. Usually, claims like that source was making need to be made in a peer-reviewed journal, maybe university extension website, etc. That vegan.com source isn't going to be a reliable scientific source though. This can be a tricky area to get good sourcing on, but that was just one recent edit that caught my eye. I've been meaning to take time to look over the rest of the article someday too to see where sourcing can be improved or at least checked. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:51, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * nice, thank you USER:Kingofaces43.121.99.108.78 (talk) 23:57, 4 January 2020 (UTC)