Talk:Animal rights/Archive 2

message: This section seriously needs cleanup. Apart from being far too long the links and books themselves need prioritising. Only the most important ones should be listed and the others removed. if someone wants to find webpages about a subject they can use google, not wikipedia. michael<span
 style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"></span><span
 style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Curtis </span><small
 style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> talk+ contributions</small> 09:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Further Reading Section

message: A recent revert (see Special page:History) deleting "authorless books" made two deletions of titles listed under the first item by Stephen R.L. Clark. I have two questions:
* Is this possibly a misreading of bibliographic entry style (per CMS) that on a second and any subsequent citations for the same author, replaces the author's name with an extended line (to avoid repetition) preceding the title?
* Are these possibly articles rather than titles of books? (This author has 18 entries in the US Library of Congress but I don't find these titles among them.)
Hoping some knowledgeable person will sort this out and restore/repair as necessary. It would be unfortunate to lose valid reference citations due to their having been written improperly or with insufficient information. Thanks -- Deborahjay 10:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The formatting did not match the rest on the list and a quick search on amazon provided not listings. I assumed, therefore, the books were minor, possibly unpublished entires and so removed them as such. Sorry if this was a mistake and someone feels the need to reenter them. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, the section itself is far too long. I don't think that this should merely be a list of books as it appears to be know. Perhaps, under an external link section we can put a link to an external webpage which itself has further reading listed with notable authors listed under a see also section. michael<span
 style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);"></span><span
 style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Curtis </span><small
 style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> talk+ contributions</small> 10:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I restored the "authorless books" and reverted back to the version of references/further reading before that edit, in case anything else was removed later. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Deborahjay, I also couldn't find those particular titles as books by Clerk, so I replaced them with titles that I know are books. Maybe the others are papers. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing works by Stephen R.L.Clark 

message: I have just taken a look at the list of animal rights critics at the bottom of the article and have found that maybe we need some more which a) aren't from the same site and b) aren't funded by the Centre for Consumer Freedom.
eg:
There are 2 sites which are ran by CfCU
There are 2 links to a hunting vs animal rights site (should be one - to the main page only)
The link http://www.petalgae.com/ whilst funny is not really a criticism as such.
http://www.capitalresearch.org/ap/ap-0797.html doesn't work at all
Why is the Animal Rights use terrorism linked to a specific page rather than the main page of the site?
I am pretty sure that there are many criticism sites out there, and I'm sure people could provide some decent ones if they put their minds to it. -Localzuk (talk) 09:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I have had no response at all, I will go ahead and remove the duplicate links to the hunting vs AR site and the parody site due to my reasons above.-Localzuk (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for not responding, LZ. I agree with your view of those links. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animal rights critics 

message: Just wondering why exactly they are mentioned. If they are mentioned as exceptions to the general idea of "animals are meant for human use" in Western cultures, it's fine. If we are saying that we owe the concept of animal welfare to them, we might also mention that in Dharmic religions, Animal welfare has always been a fundamental part. deeptrivia (talk) 23:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi DT, I've just started that section, so it's incomplete. By all means add something about Dharmic religions if it's relevant to how the concept of animal rights and the moral status of animals began or developed. It would be very interesting. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for your reply, SlimVirgin. I'll look at it sometime to try to make it more global. BTW, you're doing a great job on it. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, DT. I'd like to try to add more about what the early Greeks thought and also perhaps something about animal rights and Judaism. In the meantime, I've reordered the material a little, and added a section about the history of the modern movement. I think it flows a little better now. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pythagoras et al. in Background section 

message: In the interest of NPOV, I believe the "Dealing with animal rights critics" and its link should go. I feel that the link, especially its placement, marginalizes the "Animal-rights critics" section. It introduces extreme bias by basically saying "ok here's some links to criticism, but they're just here to do lip-service to NPOV, this is what you should really think". As this might be controversial I'm bringing it up here before making the change. Thoughts? --AbsolutDan (talk) 00:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps change the wording of the title and the description, but don't remove the link itself. The Ungovernable Force 00:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can live with rewording it if everyone else agrees. Does it need it's own section though? Perhaps it could be combined with the "animal rights resources" section? --AbsolutDan (talk) 01:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure. The Ungovernable Force 01:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, it does kind of need rewording. It should be in its own section for two reasons - it doesn't fit into any of the others and others could easily be added when they are found.-Localzuk (talk) 11:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animal Rights Critics ''Critics''? 

message: I have been looking at the huge list of links that are on this article and it seems a little bit large to me. I think we should maybe come up with a set of criteria for including external links. As it stands, we have far too many. Wikipedia is not a collection of links. -Localzuk (talk) 11:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Links section

message: I think this page needs a section on the argument from marginal cases and a seperate section speciesism as these are an integral part of the animal rights argument but are only dealt with in passing. What do you think?
:Good idea. Feel free to have a go. If you're a new editor, you should read our content policies first: WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:NPOV, which should keep you honest. :-)  The important thing is to cite reliable sources for any arguments you make. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 12:31, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Argument from marginal cases?

message: They forgot to mention Voltaire, Bonaparte, and Wagner.
I've just finished referencing as much as I could within the criticism section. I used cite templates since I'm lazy and find it easier to just put them in than try to remember the exact formatting preferred, but if others object to using the templates then feel free to reformat the references.
Like I said I referenced as much as I could, but two quotes beat me. First, I had difficulty tracking down The Foundation for Animal Use and Education. The only non-Wikipedia related mention of them I could find was on the National Animal Interst Alliance's board page which lists Dr. Larry S. Katz as sitting on the board of the FAUE, but his homepage doesn't mention this. I suspect the organisation did exist, but is either now defunct or has changed its name. Searching for the quote yielded only Wikipedia and mirrors. Searching for the Chris DeRosse quote, meanwhile, only pulled up one non-Wikipedia/mirror link , but that only reprints the quote and doesn't specify any source. I've put  tags next to the relevant quotes, hopefully somebody else can manage to track down the necessary citations. --Daduzi talk 20:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I also removed the statement "critics of animal rights generally support animal welfare" since it struck me as both weasely and unverifiable. If someone can find a study that supports the assertion then perhaps the format "a study in (year) found that most animal rights critics supported animal welfare" could be used, but I don't think there was much merit to the sentence as it stood. --Daduzi talk 07:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Referencing criticsm section

message: OK, as I mentioned above I have a few issues with the article as things stand (having said that, though, I do think it's a generally solid article). I thought it best to raise them here rather than engaging in full scale editing since doing so might annoy some people and, in any case, some of the issues I'm not in a position to correct. Anyway, here's the list:
*Introduction, paragraph 4 "Critics holding this position argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals for food, as entertainment, and in research, though human beings may nevertheless have an obligation to ensure they do not suffer unnecessarily" This strikes me as problematic for two reasons, it's a bit weasely and pretty much unverifiable, and it gives the (in my opinion) erroneous impression that all animal rights critics accept that humans may have an obligation to animals. Perhaps a better format would be "Some critics holding this position, such as [example]" where [example] is a notable figure with a citable example of them advocating this line.
*History, para. 1 "The 20th century animal rights movement grew out of the animal welfare movement, which can be traced back to the earliest philosophers" I dislike the term "earliest philosophers" since it's sufficiently vague (who were the earliest philosophers? Greeks like Heraclitus? Chinese like Lao Zi? Indians like Kapila? Prophets like Zoroaster?) as to be next to impossible to verify. Personally, I'd much prefer it if a specific example of very early animal welfare philosophy could be pinpointed and an era and region (or eras and regions) given ("Classical Greek philosophy", say).
*Philosophy of the Modern Movement, para. 3 "Few people would deny that non-human great apes are intelligent and aware of their own condition and goals, and may become frustrated when their freedoms are curtailed." "Few people would deny" is a horribly weasley term, I'd suggest changing this to either be a specific mention of a key figure arguing the case or a scientific study corroborating the fact. 
*Philosophy of the Modern Movement, para. 5 "In response to such challenges..." What challenges? I'm not saying there aren't any challenges, just that the phrase doesn't make sense in the given context (the previous paragraph merely states that Peter Singer and Tom Regan are the leading exponents of animal rights philosophy, and the one before that discusses problems with drawing distinct lines between different animals). Needs rewording.
*Animal rights in law, para. 1 "Animals are protected under the law, but in general their individual rights have no protection." Where are animals protected under the law? I can state with certainty that they're not protected in China, for instance. I'm also not comfotable with the phrasing "their individual rights", this seems to presume that animals do have rights. Perhaps change to "Animals are protected under the law in numerous countries, including [cited examples], but generally these protections do not extend to the granting of rights" (I'll accept that the term "granting" is perhaps less than ideal). The whole first half of the paragraph has the same problem of talking about what the law allows without specifying which country's (or state's) law is being discussed.
*Animal rights in law, para 3. "The Tierschutzgesetz was passed in Germany in 1933 by the National Socialist government" What was the Tierschutzgesetz and what did it do? Also needs citing.
*Animal rights activism. I'm not going to deal with specific sentences here, but the whole section is full of combinations of references to current time and weasel terms ("There is a growing trend in the American animal-rights movement", "A growing number of animal-rights activists engage in", "There are also a growing number of") and speculation ("perhaps because of the negative publicity that would ensue"). The whole section needs to be sourced and made much more precise. Also, the Darley Oaks farm incident could do with some background (where is it? what does it do? who orchestrated the campaign?).
Like I said, this is nit picking to a certain degree, and these aren't major issues. And like I said, the rest of the article is fine. I do think that the little effort required to fix these issues would help make it a really top quality article, though. Having said that, if anyone feels that any of these aren't really problems feel free to say so. --Daduzi talk 17:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Daduzi, I think those are fair points. Feel free to change them if you have the time or energy. (And that's not a sofixit comment, by the way; I just mean — feel free. :-D ) SlimVirgin (talk) 17:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Petty nitpicking ahoy

message: Would people please not use citation templates? They makes the inline references very long, and the text hard to edit. It is just as fast, if not faster, to write the ref out without the template and doing so makes it easier to edit around them. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 00:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation templates

message: I just noticed that Ed Poor changed the intro to say: "The philosophy of animal rights (also animal liberationor animal personhood) asserts that animals should have the same rights as human beings," which of course it doesn't, so I restored the old intro. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro

message: Why not make a list of the main slaughterhouses in each country —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.153.204.25 (talk • contribs).
:Feel free. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 16:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not on this article though...-Localzuk (talk) 18:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Slaughterhouses