Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animal rights

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shortcut:
WT:AR

Contents

[edit] US House Resolution 1955

Members of the Project may be interested in US HR 1955. Criminalization of thoughtcrime. It has implications for Animal rights activists. I want to get it on the front page if it passes the Senate. Vert et Noirtalk 04:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

According to the article, there's nothing in that bill that criminalizes anything. The article only says it sponsors research intended to help mold the minds of the citizenry--strictly along the lines of a great deal of other psychological research intended to produce well-adjusted, educated, productive citizens who avoid drugs, pay taxes, vote, respect the legitimacy of existing state institutions, and would only think to resist them within the officially sponsored channels. In other words, a minor adjustment in funding and direction for a long-existing project. —Jemmytc 21:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AFD on Paola Cavalieri

FYI: There's an AFD on Paola Cavalieri, an animal rights theorist. --Lquilter (talk) 19:30, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Result: keep.

[edit] Eco-terrorism, Green Scare, etc.

These two articles, especially Green Scare, as well as several articles linked from them, are in need of some unification/reorganization, cleanup, etc.. The articles are mostly decent quality, but information is spread between them in a way less than ideal (suggesting little cooperation between their respective editors). This project may be interested in putting some effort into them. Just a heads up. —Jemmytc 21:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Animal Rights template

Have y'all ever considered hiding the sections of the template? It's so big it looks really odd in stubby articles like GANDALF trial. Murderbike (talk) 06:44, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magnitude of Issue

SlimVirgin, the source calls animal rights '... this most central philosophical issue of our time'. This is not equatable to it being the most important issue, but only one of them. As such, your revert to 'the' was misguided, and I'm changing it back.

Also, is it realy relivant that someone has called it thus? I'm sure you can find enviromentalists who call it the most important issue. What one person thinks isn't really important. Argueably, that sentance doesn't deserve to be in there at all, unless Kathleen Kete is very notable. Larklight (talk) 16:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Larklight, everyone who talks about this issue -- mostly people who support it or are studying it, obviously -- calls it the most central, most important philosophical issue, because it's exploring the boundaries of personhood. Can you think of any other issue that philosophers are involved in that has the implications of this one? I'm also not sure what you mean by distinguishing most important from most central, and also bear in mind that this is not article space. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 16:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Your edit has no meaning in English: "it has been described as a most central philosophical issue." Do you mean to say one of the most central issues? If so, what are the others? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 16:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Other issues that have the importance? The only thing I've ever heard about giving animals personhood was a rather dismissive article, and I read the Economist, the New Scientist, The Times, and have recently taken up the Philosophers magazine. From what I've heard, the issue of personhood was sorted ages ago, with the ability for complex mental process, and their demonstration. I'd say deciding what rights personhood entailed, environmental ethics and the proper role of Government were more pressing. And, of course, Epistemology. I've become very interested in Hume and Popper recently. But anyway, that doesn't matter.
What does matter is that the page as it is misrepresents Kete's statement. Saying soemthing is 'this most central issue' isn't mutually exclusive with saying that soemthing else is also centrally important. Saying soemthing is the central issue means excluding the possibility that anything else is central. The possibility that she believes that religious philosophy (for example) is also of central importance is not excluded by her statement. The old version implies that it is.
This isn't article space, but it does use references. As such, they have to be represented accurately. And is she really notable?
'One of the most central' may be a better wording, yes. But mine did make sense. Larklight (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
First things first: I agree with your edit. It should be "one of the most" rather than "the most." However, the issue of personhood has not been sorted out yet, and it certainly wasn't sorted out ages ago. That should be obvious even from Google-ing around a bit. Animals aren't presently regarded as persons. Prominent philosophers and legal scholars at respected institutions (as well as a significant number of laypeople, I might add) are arguing that they ought to be; hence, the issue is not yet sorted out. Furthermore, it doesn't matter whether Kathleen Kete is notable. The page only cites her, it's not about her. All we are concerned with is whether Cabinet Magazine is faithfully reproducing Kathleen Kete's claims, and whether Kete is a crackpot or not. I would guess that Cabinet is faithfully reproducing her claims, and I think it's obvious that Kete is not a crackpot: Her undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral degrees are all from Harvard, and she teaches at Trinity College. Djk3 (talk) 19:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On Tom Regan

We need a short-ish paragraph on Tom Regan's approach to animal rights, and specifically any statements he's made directly regarding veganism for the 'ethics' section of the veganism article. It would be most helpful if this was rigorously cited and included direct quotes, as with the other paragraphs in this section about Singer and Francione. KellenT 14:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Anybody? KellenT 16:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Kellen, I could try to write something, but I can't promise when, if that's okay. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 18:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animalresearcher

I would like some help knowing how to approach the edits made to animal rights articles by Animalresearcher (talk • contribs • count • total • block log) and also just to have more eyes on the situation.

He's been editing in this area since July 2006 with this account, and before that with anon IPs. He has said in various places that he conducts research on non-human primates, and I believe said he was in charge of such a unit. He has also said that he sits or chairs (or used to sit or chair, I forget which) his institution's Animal Care and Use Committee.

If this is true, he could be an enormous help on articles about animal testing (although in a sense he's also in a conflict of interest -- he has posted in various places that this is personal for him). However, instead of being helpful, his edits are deeply problematic. He strongly represents only the pro-testing side (and I suspect only an extreme side of that POV) to the point where it is hard to trust what he writes. Sources who disagree with his POV are routinely removed and dismissed as idiots, even when they're reliable scientific sources. Often his edits appear almost meaningless, with typos and spelling errors, and without proper citations (though that aspect has improved recently). Sometimes he seems actively to misrepresent the sources. The result is that I have to follow him around copyediting and trying to work out what he means.

The following edit is very typical. ("This methodology" refers to an experimental procedure on a non-human primate): [1]

Connolly developped [sic] this methodology to minimize interanimal variability to increase statistical power to detect differences in stroke treatment groups, and to "provide important information not obtainable in rodent models."

Apart from being almost meaningless, the source -- Stroke. 2000;31:3054 -- isn't one that all readers can easily check, the citation is incomplete, and it looks like a primary source that's dependent on his interpretation.

At the other end, his edits misrepresent the source by leaving out key information. For example, this edit implies that the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection cooperates with the Animal Liberation Front, although anyone familiar with these groups knows that the BUAV opposes violent action by the ALF:

Despite their claims of leaderless resistance, Ingrid Newkirk, in her book Free the Animals, describes how Ronnie Lee introduces an aspiring ALF activist to a new activist cell in northern England. The activist initially found Lee by first contacting BUAV, making it clear that a BUAV officer is at most two contacts away from direct action activists, and that these contacts are facilitative. [2]

In fact, the Newkirk book that Animalresearcher cites makes it clear that the "aspiring activist" pretended to be a journalist, and that this was the only reason the BUAV helped her. So although not strictly speaking false, the way the edit is worded is very misleading.

I've cited only two edits here but they're representative of almost all the edits he makes to these pages. I've spoken to him many times about it to no avail, so I'm posting here in the hope others can help. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

To be clear, those citations are fully defined, as in anyone who has access to a medical library can look up an article in a given year, volume, and page number of STROKE. Similarly, a polite request to fill out those citations could be easily accomplished. Slimvirgin had a similar point of issue with a citation in the last week that could be looked up in five minutes on PubMed (as this one similarly can be looked up). And I looked it up, again, and provided the entire abstract for her perusal. As a second point, this talk page discussion by Slimvirgin is sort of an ambush - none of these edits occurred on the page for which this is the appropriate discussion forum. She presumably thinks that people that edit the ANIMAL RIGHTS page need to know about this sort of underhanded activity. Third, the noted contact between the aspiring ALF operative and BUAV is cited, and has not been refuted, to my knowledge, or I would not have included it. --Animalresearcher (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
If you need any help with medical citations, SlimVirgin, you can ask for assistance at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange, or get in touch with me on my user page. I will always be happy to help. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
What exactly does "two contacts away" mean? That the BUAV officer knows someone who knows someone who is a direct action activist? If so, that is really a very weak assertion. Almost everyone is "two contacts away" from thousands of people, a great number of whom they may heartily disagree with. I'm an animal rights activist, but if someone came to me wanting to interview a pig farmer, I could arrange that easily, with one that I have "just two contacts away"! David Olivier (talk) 13:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I am quite sure you can look over the history of edits on that page and come to your own conclusions. The section of that page described the modes of resistance used by different groups. BUAV, for example, presents themselves as being opposed to violence and property destruction. Yet in the referenced instances they readily offered office space to the ALF, and directed people who were trying to find the ALF to Ronnie Lee. The "two contacts away" was bad writing, and it was replaced by another editor. --Animalresearcher (talk) 13:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, that is a very good point - for example, I'm sure I'm only two contacts away from terrorists on both sides of the Irish troubles. More specifically, to make that interpretation we would need to attribute it to a source that makes this point. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Yet another objection to the tone of the above criticism - that I am extreme in the context of people who conduct animal testing. People who conduct testing are my direct peers, and I am in contact with them daily. I tend to be much more familiar with the animal rights efforts than most of them, and also more familiar with animal welfare legislation than them. But it is highly desireable to have someone who conducts animal testing, and who works in the regulation of animal testing, editing on the animal testing articles. I think you would have a VERY hard time finding another scientist who conducts animal testing who thinks my edits are extremely POV for a scientist. In other words, just as I assume good faith and assume your bad edits are caused by perspective and not an active anti-testing campaign you are conducting by inserting BUAV commercial literature throughout the testing pages, I expect you to assume good faith as I edit with the perspective of a scientist in the field of animal testing. As another point of reference, I have not to date performed any work, or done any consultation, with any non-scientific pro-testing agenda driven associations. In other words, I have no relation to Pro-test, or the Foundation for Biomedical Research, etc. I do belong to multiple societies that are scientifically organized, and all of them have pro-testing arms (which I similarly do not participate in). I am not a pro-testing activist. Just a scientist that is alarmed at my perceived misrepresentation of my profession on Wikipedia which is caused by an enormous imbalance in the contributions of strongly anti-testing editors like you, and the contributions of people who actually conduct testing and their POV. From my POV, testing is about animal welfare, and progress on scientific agendas. Animal rights receives a dramatically UNDUE balance - it occupies less than a fraction of a percent of the activities related to testing, yet covers more than half the testing pages because it occupies the majority of the opinion of two vigilant editors on testing.--Animalresearcher (talk) 18:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fox hunting nominated for FA

Any assistance welcomed at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fox hunting. Thanks. MikeHobday (talk) 15:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of acts claimed by the ALF

Hi all. An editor with a history of problematic advocacy is going great guns at List of acts claimed by the ALF. I'm concerned he or she is essentially cut and pasting incidents from the ALF's website, with all the POV and verifiability issue that engenders. I'm trying to de-POV, but can't keep up. The editor has been blocked previously but reincarnates with a variation on the name. I'm trying to bring this under control without blocking again, but don't seem to be getting though. If anyone can't help, I feel I have little choice but to block for evading an indef. Rockpocket 08:02, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there is an inherent problem with articles about "acts claimed by." If you consider one of the editor's other articles at Hunt Retribution Squad and read reference 2, the key player in the HRS says:
  • "we began to play with the media a bit - because they had turned on us by that time anyways. That was around the time we became known as the maniacs of the press"
  • "we definitely did have plans to use violence against hunt people. But that got thwarted by our arrest and it never quite materialized from then. But whether or not it would have happened I don’t know, because I don’t know if we are violent people."
Even the most reliably sourced claim may be false. MikeHobday (talk) 08:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the name, List of acts claimed by the ALF is part of the problem, because of the face of it you can't really blame anyone for thinking anything and everything claimed by the ALF should be documented. However, clearly we can't do that or else we become a mirror for Bite Back. It was fine before our friend got going, because it listed the acts picked up by the press and explained the consequences (arrests/sentences) for the activists as well as what they did. I'm also concerned with the upload of ever more images documenting various crimes from activist websites and Indymedia (and editors claiming to be the copyright holder) and using them to document the articles of the subject of the crime. See Highgate Rabbit Farm and QinetiQ#Animal rights campaign for example. I'm not convinced this is appropriate. Rockpocket 09:08, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I think this editor (if it's the same person as last time, which isn't clear as there were several account names and IP addresses) is trying to edit within the policies, judging by some of the edits I've seen. But it's clear that he's not very familiar with them. So I suggest as a first step trying to have a word with him, which I'm willing to do, then thinking about admin action if that makes no difference. As for the images, all ALF images are released into the public domain, which has been confirmed by e-mail to permissions, so I don't see these as problematic. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 11:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I left a note for him. [3] SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 12:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks SV. I'm pretty sure it is the same person, but I never really supported a block in the first place. I think they are trying to be helpful, but seem unwilling to listen to advice. If the blocking admin spots them, I'm sure he will reblock, but if we can reign the editor in a little, then we may be able to avoid that. As for the images, I don't have a problem with their use in articles about the ALF and their actions (though even there some of them have questionable encyclopaedic value and seem more about promotion than education), I do have a problem with using them to illustrate articles on the subject of the raids. Principally because they are unreliable representation and give undue weight to a POV. Rockpocket 18:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I saw one of them being used as the main image on the new article about the rabbit farm, which is clearly not an appropriate use, unless the article's about the raid, but the raid in itself isn't notable enough. I was going to remove it, but then I saw the rest of the article, and really the page ought to be deleted, so I just left it. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 19:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category nominated for deletion

The related Category:Green Scare has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for Discussion page.


[edit] Cat abuse incident in China

The article Kitten killer of Hangzhou was previously speedy deleted because the administrators believed it to be nonsense,[4] but it refers to a 2006 animal abuse incident in China with a main article on Chinese Wikipedia.[5] It has been covered by The Daily Telegraph[6], The Independent (South Africa)[7], and various online media in China.[8]. A Wikinews article is here.

Is the article's subject notable enough to be re-created? It has brought up some discussion about the lack of laws addressing cruelty to animals in China. Shawnc (talk) 13:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animal love

Does this project want to adopt this article (i.e. have its banner on the talk page)? Richard001 (talk) 10:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Animals and ethics

Posted to WT:WikiProject Philosophy, WT:WikiProject Animals and WT:WikiProject Animal rights, discussion preferred at WT:WikiProject Philosophy

I don't think we have a broad article on the place of non-human animals in ethics. There are a few specific articles like animal rights, ethics of eating meat, animal cognition etc, but nothing on the broader issue. Going in the opposite direction, there are articles broader than animals that cover more 'holistic' views, e.g. environmental ethics and deep ecology, though given that most animals are probably not conscious beings that would also overlap with the subject. I guess such an article could be called animals in ethics or something like that. It might also mention the prehuman precursors to morality seen in other animals (which relates to the origin of morality, another needed article), although this is broadening the scope a little more. Richard001 (talk) 04:55, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject Prisons

If anyone's interested, I've proposed a new wikiproject for the creation of articles regarding specific prisons here. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 20:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)