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SE and lot of web based mechanisms support "early bird" voting mechanism.

Whoever comes early, posts more or gains favor with the crowd can rule the SE.

This is not like a Math SE or Scientific SE where "bias", especially "emotional / moral" bias does not exist.

Try being a Vegetarian on any vegan/ vegetarian group and you will be treated as either the devil or face condescension or preaching as if you are a child. The variety of "vegan missionaries" will vary from nice & polite to aggressive and attacking, each trying their tack to convert.

I speak this from being a born vegetarian who can trace vegetarian lineage to at least 6 generations and never have I ever judged or preached to any of my non-veg friends, ever. To say this, it was easier to deal with meat eaters than to deal with hard core Vegan preachers and the hate they give others and beget. BE & LET BE.

So, it may not matter how legitimate a Vegetarians point of view may be, if the hard core Vegan crowd gains early advantage at the voting table, the votes of that tribal "clique" will over power.

We need to have enough "non Vegan" Vegetarians who will not just be unbiased, but will tend towards policing the "vegan moral high ground" police that tends to attack the narrative that anything different or less than their version of Vegan righteousness is unworthy.

To share an example:

Site name is Vegetarianism

This question is probably suited for Meta, but the Mods answer is we want to have more traffic so we clubbed Vegan & Vegtn, instead of saying this is a place where Vegans will not / should not be fighting with Vegtns.

And hence he got slammed by early birds with higher reps.

I will refer again to the highlighted text above.

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  • that question was extensively edited - please view the first version. Also what do you mean by rule? What's exactly is happening here that you don't like? I think you are talking/upset about things that happened elsewhere. Here we want to Be Nice and not have anyone shouting at anyone else... – Zanna Jul 21 '17 at 7:42
  • I'm sorry you feel like that. That said, I suggest you to change your question title as it is a bit offensive. I'm currently writing a response for you in the meantime. – Niitaku♦ Jul 21 '17 at 8:05
  • @Niitaku - I just noticed Veg SE exists - Given my 30+ years with Veg communities across the globe, from Indian style (lacto veg) to Ovo-lacto, to pescatarian (fish) to vegans, and having had meat eater friends who I have never ever had a single issue with, general "feel" from a Vegan activism community is evident and felt. The Self Righteousness is so strong (never felt, believed or conveyed it to anyone as a Vegtn). If people eat meat, its their choice. I am Vegtn of my choice. – Alex S Jul 21 '17 at 11:37
  • I just hope it does not creep into this SE, but I am seeing signs of it. Bias tends to form as "majority with power" take over. HUMAN NATURE. Vegans very easily will play favorites subtly and will affect the outcome and the nature of the SE, which should be unbiased. – Alex S Jul 21 '17 at 11:37
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    "early birds with higher reps" Don't target users in the posts.They earned it with their posts.You can also earn rep by posting Q&A. Time is not an issue here. Even you can earn. We are aware of the site's name. Vegan is a sub topic here. If you want to post topics other than veganism, you are most welcome. Why do you think Vegans and Vegetarians fight? It's a misconception. We never force any one to change their diet.There are no one here policing veganism.It depends on people's choices on what they ask.No one has a right to order that a user shouldn't ask these topics if it's on-topic. – Nog Shine Jul 21 '17 at 13:07
  • @SS - You may adhere to that sense, which is good. But, I have seen otherwise on non SE groups. If you wish I can spend some time collecting evidence of such. Will that give any credence to this concern? – Alex S Jul 22 '17 at 13:25
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I'm very sorry that you had this experience. From what I understand from your question, you're saying that you have experienced that the vegans on this site are trying to convert the vegetarians here.

You linked a post on the main site. Let's take a quote from there:

But it astounds me every question here is about being Vegan which is different than Vegetarianism. Even if people are saying Vegetarian inherently they are meaning Vegan and looking for the same? Even the tags are Veganism

This 'question' isn't really asking anything. It's essentially a complaint that the Vegans are the ones running the site, with a complaint about the tag thrown in there.

This was closed as 'unclear what you're asking', because it wasn't really asking anything - it was just a complaint about the amount of vegans vs. the amount of vegetarians. And since we're not a typical forum - Stack Exchange sites have some pretty strict rules - it was closed.
A more constructive approach would have been to ask a couple of different meta questions. One about the tag, and another about how to increase the amount of vegetarians on the site.

Probably the main reason that Veganism seems to be more prevalent on the site is because... there aren't really that many users at all. This is one of the least active Stack Exchange sites. What can you do to help that? Help us promote the site! Then we can get more users - vegans, vegetarians, pescetarians, and even users who aren't Veg*n at all!

You claim that the Vegans on the site try to convert the non-vegans here. Let me just say that I've never seen anything like that. To be perfectly honest - I'm not a Veg*n, I never was one, and I don't have any plans to become one. I've been hanging out here on the main site, and stalking the meta site, and chatting, and nobody has ever tried to convert me. Not a soul. Perhaps you experienced something different; I am deeply sorry if that happened. But for the most part, this (admittedly small) community is very nice and respectful.

And may I remind you that we have a Be Nice policy? Calling users 'Nazis' is against that policy.

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  • I am saying this is what tends to happen, maybe it has not yet occurred here, but the signs are visible if not recitified. End of the day, I am just raising a red flag before things really go that way. Should I present to you evidence from other groups where Vegans have rabidly attacked and pushed out vegetarians. I;ve found Meat Eaters were nicer & accommadating to me than Vegans, because there was no underlying self righteous judgement between said parties. – Alex S Jul 21 '17 at 11:45
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    I'd advise you to wait until you can bring concrete examples before making a post like this. – Mithical Jul 21 '17 at 11:56
  • I am saying it from a place of "experience". Not saying Veg SE has it, as I just found it. But, the tendency has been observed & experienced in other online Veg communities. Would you say that does not happen at all? Then does it not have the possibility of creeping into SE as well? PS: Should I present Evidence from other online Veg-an communities? Will that make you believe? – Alex S Jul 22 '17 at 13:23
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    I'm not denying that other communities have done that. But Stack Exchange has very different standards from other sites, both in what kind of content we allow and what kind of behavior we allow. Trying to convert people falls under not being Nice, and is therefore subject to removal. As soon as someone starts being mean or trying to convert you - they'll get shut down and the things will be removed. People can get suspended. But I don't think that it's fair of you to come to a community who you haven't ever interacted with [cont] – Mithical Jul 22 '17 at 18:14
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    [cont] before, and start making accusations about 'Vegan Nazis' without having seen any evidence that it's happening here. That sounds like you don't trust that we can act like adults, and that we'll start trying to impose our views on others. I actually find it quite rude, especially with the Nazi comments. That was totally uncalled for. – Mithical Jul 22 '17 at 18:15
  • I changed the word, and it was from previous emotional association with how those people were in different groups. Lets hope & pray that this does not happen here - I am not assuming it will or wont, just wanted to air this feeling that has been repeated many places. On SE, it may not happen via words, so lets hope people's votes are not biased. Peace. – Alex S Jul 24 '17 at 10:09
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As all other StackExchange sites, this one purpose is to inform people about the question they have about a lifestyle related to vegetarianism, and not in any way to blame or preach any kind of lifestyle or practice. It has been identified and accepted that advocacy isn't something that we want on the site as its intent is to inform.

About the question you mentioned, you may want to look at question history before blaming. The OP published in violation of Be nice rule a post that didn't really contained a question against veganism without citing sources. It is then legitimate that vegans felt offended. To prevent any further misunderstanding and invite the OP to fix the post, I left a comment. After discussing with the OP in the chat, the misunderstanding was cleared up.

When I say it would be great to have more traffic, I exclude nobody. Everyone is welcome here, whatever their beliefs or their lifestyle.

And again, nobody tries to convince others in any way to anything. If that appears, community and mods would be there to step in to stop that and redirect to an informative post.

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  • Whether you allow advocacy or not, the self righteous nature of Vegan groups will bring bias and it brings worse behavior than I have seen with meat eaters and this is coming from a life time veggie. Eventually the Non-vegans will stop to feel welcome - very easily. I know because if I found the only Vegan community in a city, I was afraid to tell them I had dairy/ ghee - lest I be attacked – Alex S Jul 21 '17 at 11:40
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    @AlexS Having had bad times with vegans on your side doesn't mean that all vegans are alike and certainly doesn't allow you to call them by any aggressive word. Especially if they didn't do anything to you (I talk about here). What do you want the community, and here the vegans, think of you if you freely assault them like this? – Niitaku♦ Jul 21 '17 at 12:01
  • I am saying it from a place of "experience". Not saying Veg SE has it, as I just found it. But, the tendency has been observed & experienced in other online Veg communities. Would you say that does not happen at all? Then does it not have the possibility of creeping into SE as well? I'd rather take the heat from you guys now, and raise this concern now, than when its too late. – Alex S Jul 22 '17 at 13:21
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    @AlexS It's unnecessary to raise a problem that doesn't exist here, especially the way you're doing it. Now, you can enjoy our community if you want to be part of it, but take care to not be aggressive and generalize so that everything goes well. You should read the Be nice rule if you haven't yet. – Niitaku♦ Jul 22 '17 at 21:18
  • I changed the word, and it was from previous emotional association with how those people were in different groups. Lets hope & pray that this does not happen here - I am not assuming it will or wont, just wanted to air this feeling that has been repeated many places. On SE, it may not happen via words, so lets hope people's votes are not biased. Peace. – Alex S Jul 24 '17 at 10:10
  • Yes, I did start off a bit heavy, but thats thanks to be driven out by Vegans on other groups; hence the emotional bias, but now same way you're biased against me I have been very clear, detailed & precise with my answering here & other SEs. Here you're just not interested in listening. sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/5973/… sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/4907/… – Alex S Jul 26 '17 at 20:23

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