Trolling on vegan board

[dangermouseisace]

It’s a really good idea to have a vegan board on mumsnet, I thought. A place to discuss issues pertaining to vegans or general people interested in minimising their reliance on animals, or so I expected.

The reality is that a sensible post starts off the thread, relating to or about aspects of veganism. But then the thread gets derailed by non vegans basically saying why people shouldn’t be vegan (like we haven’t heard that a million times before) or the most inane whataboutery

Can we have a pinned post at the top explaining what a vegan is, and links to info about veganism please? And how can we manage the mindless anti-vegans, or the concerned, “I’m not a vegan but you shouldn’t be vegans either” people?

Hi There dangermouseisace

We can understand your frustration with the derailing - we know it can make threads hard going at times.

We try, as far as possible, to allow debate to flow freely and to let people have their say, even if it's not one that we, or the majority of our members, agree with.

We do ask that MN talk guidelines are followed but, sadly, we can't insist that everyone share the same pov

We often find the best way to get people to change their perceptions is to allow them to be challenged by other posters. MNHQ interfering is often less well received, as you can imagine! HQ deleting a post isn't likely to provoke much thought, whereas a well-crafted post from another Mumsnetter just might. So if you think like that's something you could do, please feel free to post on any of the threads yourself outlining the reasons why you disagree.

Let us know how you get on - and feel free to report any posts you think break our TGs.

I think sometimes the threads come up in active, so people just read and respond as they would to, say, a post in chat or aibu (which might be above and below the vegan post) and not really consider the board that the post actually came from ie vegan board.

I think this is a good idea. FWIW I don't approve of Veganism from a health point of view and especially not for children. And have answered general posts in chat and AIBU and people get quite annoyed when their veganism is challenged. So a separate board would be a good idea rather than general invitation to everyone to comment.

Oh, well, @Viviennemary, if you don't think it's a good idea, we'd better all stop what we're doing 🙄

To clarifiy. If people want to exchange recipes and ideas for a Vegan diet no point in somebody saying oh well you should introduce other foods that aren't Vegan. And I would probably read a Vegan board to get information but certainly wouldn't voice my opinions on Veganism there. So all in all I think a Vegan board is a very good idea for Vegans and non Vegans.

Didn't see your post before I wrote my second. I was trying to explain myself but obviously didn't make a very good job of it. And I didn't mean at all that you should stop what you're doing because I don't approve. I disapprove of a lot of things.

Vivienne there already is a separate board. FWIW some vegans have unhealthy diets, but there are many many very healthy vegans, including children, and many unhealthy non-vegans. Both of these things should be obvious.

If you comment on a vegan thread, just make sure that you don't meatsplain! If you are genuinely interested or concerned, fine, but start with the assumption that vegans are more acquainted with a vegan diet than you are...

Thanks very much for explaining claraschu . I thought the OP wanted a Vegan board. Must read things properly. I apologise. I haven't replied to a post re Veganism for quite a while and will be much more careful when I write anything again.

That's true fliss and whatcanidonow.

I'm not in favour of deleting posts either, it's just difficult when vegans are in the extreme minority so it can feel like a fruitless pile on, interspersed with very basic questions about veganism, that could be answered if someone just googled veganism, or opened a dictionary. Veganism is counted as a belief system and protected under the Equalities Act 2010 and I don't think people would feel so comfortable piling on to a religious thread and trying to convert Muslims/Christians etc. I think there just aren't enough of us to keep up, and I expect some people are like me, who after 20+ years get bored of answering the same basic questions or 'genius insights' that non vegans believe will make vegans see that they are doing it all wrong.

I might start a vegan 101 thread to direct questions/whataboutery to point derailers to....

dangermouseisace we like your thinking - that could work.

FAQs for vegans.....