Wikipedia:Peer review/Ethics of eating meat/archive1

Ethics of eating meat

I found this page to be a jumble of paragraphs with wandering subjects and many POV statements. Over the past week I have done a complete reformatting and removed what POV content I found. Then I researched more information.

Though I have tried my best to remain nuetral, the lack of other editors on this article results in very little feedback. I am requesting peer review to confirm my NPOV, and to receive comments on the general layout and quality of the article. Thank you. HighInBC 14:13, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looking over the edit history, I can see that you've been aggressive with edits on this page. Good work with tackling the subject and attempting to eliminate POV. Some opinions;

Thanks HighInBC 16:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A couple awkward sentences slip in. One near the beginning, "It can be argued that not eating meat does not cause less harm". Is that a double negative meant to say "It can be argued that eating meat is harmless"? There are also some run-on sentences, such as, "Some believe that the current mass demand for meat cannot be satisfied without a mass-production system that disregards the welfare of animals, while others believe that practices like well-managed free-ranging and consumption of game, particularly from species whose natural predators have been significantly eliminated, could substantially alleviate the demand for mass-produced meat." That could probably be divided down to two or three sentences.

Since the arguement is that not eating meat causes less harm, I thought that the double negative would be appropriate in this case. Perhaps "It can be argued that a diet without meat does not reduce harm to animals.", yes I like that. HighInBC 16:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good point about the run on sentence, I will fix that. HighInBC 16:27, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Singer makes up the majority of the unethical section, so indirectly, the article is biased toward his opinions (As I'm sure there are other viewpoints). As well, none of Singer's comments or beliefs are referenced.

I agree with this, I wanted to remove this but I had already taken so much out. Without this section the arguments against eating meat become very limited. Perhaps I should either research this person and find a citation, or restate his arguments without referencing him. HighInBC 16:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely don't do that second option. Cite him if you're using his arguments, but the point is do more research to see what other opinions are out there. - Taxman ^Talk 17:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are weasel words in the article, such as "Some would say that killing an animal..." I know it's difficult to avoid using them in this article since it's about critical opinions and rebuttals, but the overall theme on Wikipedia is to avoid such phrases.

In this case these weasel words are not meant to be smuggling bias into the article, the context of the article allows for POV statements that must be qualified. I do however admit that the appearance of weasel words/smuggling bias may be there. How can I avoid these types of prefixes without making POV arguments sound like facts? HighInBC 19:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would delete the quote from comedian Denis Leary. Not because it's out of place, but as the article doesn't show how he's an expert on these ethics, it probably doesn't belong.

I added that because there were no quotes on the 'for' side of eating meat. I think the statement would hold it's own as an argument in itself, so I don't see his lack of expertise being an issue. I will make a note on the talk page to get people's opinion on this. HighInBC 16:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Each section should be expanded. Right now, they're mostly stub length, and not all have rebuttals.

Good point, what I have now is based mostly on what was in the old article, and much had to be removed due to POV. I will try to flesh it out in the next few days. HighInBC 18:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this is helpful. The article still needs work, but I can see looking at the editing history that you've devoted a good deal of work to fixing it. Best of luck with its completion. --Ataricodfish 15:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tips, I have decided on several changes based on your advice. HighInBC 16:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The inline external links should be converted to WP:FOOTNOTEs. My personal opinion on the rebuttals is that the bolded words "rebuttal" should be removed, and the lists for rebutting the topic should be converted directly into prose and added into the section. This looks difficult, but it would be best to shortern the headings (if possible!). The italicized sentence at the top of the article is useless and should be removed (at least I've never seen such a line used before). Thanks, AndyZ 00:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response, I will check out WP:FOOTNOTE. As for the italicized text, since this article is about an ethical issue it differs from other articles in that all the facts are poitns of view, and no actual truth of the matter exists. HighInBC 01:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at No veal, it can help to expand "Animals are not treated well in modern farms". I provided an example of a footnote and shortened some of the headings. AndyZ 02:07, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Creating a great article out of this is going to take a substantial amount more research. I can only imagine how bad it was before you started tackling it. Now matter how hard you are trying, it is still heavily slanted towards the position that eating meat is not ethical. This becomes apparent when you look at the number of rebuttals against that position compared to nearly every point in the section on why it is ethical being rebutted. A problem you're going to have to overcome is that most people that would write about the ethics of eating meat are going to think it's not otherwise they wouldn't write about it. Few are going to try to truly just examine the issue, instead they are espousing a position. So if it is your goal, this is not currently near ready for FAC. Would need a lot more high quality sources and would need to be all prose, not so many bullet points. That's not a slam on you, it's just a difficult subject. - Taxman ^Talk 17:10, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input, the article was a real mess before[1]. I have not done much research at all on the subject but you are right that only people with a point of view(ussually against eating meat) seem to write about this subject. I do not have the energy or the interest do the research needed for this article. I was not hoping for FAC consideration at this point. I have reformatted the article into a less messy appearance, and removed blatent POV, but the content remains mostly unchanged. I will continue encourage people to add to this aticle to monitor this article to ensure that additions are constructive. HighInBC 19:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In that case I would recommend stripping out all the uncited POV, otherwise what's there will encourage only more POV additions. Pulling it back to a small and concise article may successfully seed more future good contributions. I think less is clearly more in this case. Just note the changes on the talk page. - Taxman ^Talk 22:42, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One area that this article is lacking is cultural and religious prohibitions/conventions with regards to eating meat. As religion has traditionally had a strong influence on a societies morals, information on the types of meats allows or banned along with the timing or processing limitations could be quite helpful. --Allen3 ^talk 17:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]