Community Info

A few rules and points that need to be made:
last updated 10/21/2003

Please report any problems to the owner (opalcat) at opalcat@fathom.org or to one of the moderators: iriri (iriri@livejournal.com)

• On topic posting - This is a community for vegetarians and vegans, or anyone who is just interested in the meat-free lifestyle! Please try to keep posts on-topic to vegetarian related issues. Personal posts belong in your personal journal. If you accidentally post something meant for your personal journal to the community, here is the FAQ answer addressing how to delete it. Off topic posts will be deleted. There is a separate community, vegetarian_chat that is for general discussions; feel free to discuss anything and everything there! :)
  
  
• No gory or graphic images. They are highly disturbing to a lot of people, and you're preaching to the choir anyway. If you need to post a link to something like a disturbing picture, use the <lj-cut> tag and clearly label it so that people know what they are in for if they click.
  
  
• Commenting - Be polite in commenting. Do not post with comments turned off. Do not delete or screen other people's comments--this is a bannable offense.
  
  
• Put long posts behind an <lj-cut> tag. To do this, simply insert "<lj-cut>" somewhere into your post, maybe after the first paragraph or so. This creates a link to read the rest of the post without making the post take up so much space in the community or on people's friends pages.
  
  
• Spelling and Grammar - More and more I've noticed people making posts with really, really horrible "cutesy" spelling and grammar. Using "b4" for "before" and "u" for "you" and so on is ok in your personal journal, but it shows a lack of respect for your reader and doesn't belong in a community journal. Please, for the sake of those reading the community, try to use standard spelling and grammar in your posts.
  
  
• Community behavior - While we welcome discussions about vegan issues (vegans are vegetarians, after all) and animal rights (to a degree) there are some things that will not be tolerated, such as accusations, harassment, or attacks against other members for their diet choices. This is a community where vegetarians of any flavor can come as a place to find like-minded friends, a place to find support, share, and learn, and as a place where we can feel free from attacks about our choices. If you want to rant about people deciding to eat cheese, or to debate about the vegetarian vs. vegan differences please do so in a vegan community, not here.
  
  I think that a large percentage of vegetarians became vegetarians out of a desire to reduce the suffering in the world. Let's extend that to each other as well, ok? We're not here to judge each other. When my son was in first grade, his teacher would tell the class "you worry about what YOUR hands are doing. Don't worry about what your neighbor's hands are doing" and it's a pretty good rule when applied to this community as well. You choose how you live your life, and everyone else will choose how to live theirs. There are things you will agree on, and things you won't. This isn't the place to call someone out on their choices, however.
  
  
• Regarding fish and/or poultry - It is my opinion (and I call it an opinion by way of compromising and not pissing anyone off) that eating fish/poultry is not "vegetarian" and therefore calling yourself a vegetarian if you eat fish/poultry is innacurate. I also believe that while it won't bring about the end of the world, it does a disservice to the vegetarian community in that it spreads false ideas about vegetarianism to the public. I am very glad to see anyone cut any amount of meat from thier diets, and those who eat only fish/poultry are certainly doing more toward that end than most of the world. Now for the important part (pay attention!) I will not tolerate anyone in this community bashing, trashing, or fighting with anyone else over their choice to eat fish/poultry. Pescetarians, pollotarians (?) and vegetarians share a lot of common ground and this community is big enough to fit all of us in.
  
  I am calling for a moratorium on the whole vegetarian/pescetarian/pollotarian "thing" as it's been highly divisive and disruptive and really serves no good purpose. Therefore, regardless of how fair it may seem, I'm going to be deleting posts debating that particular issue even if they are not hostile. If you really need to discuss it with someone, please email them.
  
  
• Report problems - I rely on you guys to let me know when there are problems. I can't read every post in the community, let alone every comment. If you see a problem, you need to email me and let me know. I can't take action if I don't even know about the situation. PLEASE if you want to let me know about a problem, LINK TO IT. Don't just say "there is bad stuff going down" and make me come search everything trying to find it. A simple "this is what is going on, and here is where it is" would make everything run so much smoother. You can also get ahold of me on AIM ("OpalCat") or ICQ (1742242) or Yahoo Messenger (opalcat_dot_com) if you need to.
  
  
• Help us write our FAQ - Please help us build our FAQ. Thanks! This FAQ has been put together by the members of this community. New members should look through it before asking questions to the community--they may have already been answered here!

vegetarians

vegetarian_chat

veggie_pagans

animal_rights

animalrights_v2

vegetarianteens

veganhaven

vegan_talk

veganism

isitveg

veggie_recipes

vegrecipes