These recent comments concerning the Animal Rights article I believe are illuminating in showing the approach being taken by the primary editor to structure that article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=229694923
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=229704037
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=229704254
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=229419605

I believe the article's primary author feels it is important to include the long history of philosophical comment on the animal rights issue in an attempt to show that animal rights is actually a moral concept equivalent to truth, justice, individual will, etc and is accepted as such (or should be, if not) by society. If so, it is separate and independent concept from activism and animal welfare and has developed over time into established acceptance much like the movement to abolish slavery and indentured servitude.

Now, this might be true. But, it might also not be quite that simple, especially in areas like the use of animals for medical research with the goal of preserving human health and life. Anyway, I'm not sure that there is any harm in having a separate "History of Animal Rights" article, because the current article does give a lot more space to the history than it does to current issues involving the movement.

Yeah, funny how the concepts of NOR and NPOV just escape some people.

But as we've discussed, SlimeyV, who WP:OWNs this article, doesn't even get the history right. According to her, the idea of ownership of animals comes form Genesis where "dominion" is used, and then she notes (no ref cited to the Hebrew) that dominion doesn't necessarily mean ownership, seeming to leave the whole issue up in the air. So, golly, perhaps Adam misunderstood god and so have we, all this time! Go figure. Read the article and thats the conclusion you're led toward.

But there's plenty of stuff about ownership of animals and people in the Torah after Genesis. You shouldn't covet your neighbor's wife nor his house nor his ox nor his ass nor anything that is they neighbor's. This is less a statement that "ownership" is being used as some kind of odd metaphor, as it is acknowledgement that the ancient Hebrews were quite ready to class women, slaves, animals, and houses in a similar list of items mentined by god that a man's neighbor owned. Period. Slim doesn't want to go there. So she glosses over all that inconvenient stuff. Along with a hell of a lot of animal sacrifice to the Hebrew God, mandated by God himself, in the Torah. The lesson for Abram is that human sacrifice isn't necessary, so long as you signal your obedience to the sky god. An animal will do as a stand-in, for a person, who is more important. Wups, again inconvenient! To the Hebrews it meant their God didn't demand human sacrifice, as other gods like Baal did, but instead would take animals. An advance! To SlimVirgin, however, it means you close your eyes and skip past this part, since that's not the advance she cares about.

All this make me gag so much that I wouldn't touch this article with a ten foot dart-pole. But it's a fine example what's wrong with Wikipedia. Slim wants her abbreviated and "fake" history of animals in ancient writings, in the main article, and will just revert to make sure it is. Take it out, or change it, and you're at instant war. Enjoy.

N.B.: Here's a historical Wiki: Attitudes_to_animals_in_the_ancient_world. Again OWNED. Again, nothing at all about animal sacrifice as demanded by the God of the Hebrews despite more about this in the Torah (far more) than there is about anything resembling "kindness" to animals.

PPS: and here's a nugget from the CAMERA page which refers to CANVASSING by Jayjg and GuessWHO (but her WP initials are SV) on animal rights boards for how to become an admin on WP and then help to push the animal rights agenda:



Eh, well, yeppers.

I realized after reading your post that the article as currently written is heavily POV towards what is supposedly western culture's attitude towards animal rights. The way that the idea is viewed in Islamic, Confucious, Buddhist, or animistic cultures isn't addressed. If the article's primary author wants to take an approach that the concept is fully developed by human beings, then the other major world cultures and philosophies need to be addressed also.

Very interesting - a totally foreign concept to me, this animal rights stuff. I've put the first book from 'further reading' on hold at my public library; The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory.

It's kind of interesting. The AR article looks like what the ID article would probably look like if OM, Filll, Dave Sousa etc weren't around. Slim's edits definitely don't look like they reflect the "scientific consensus" on animal rights!

I applaud the concept of making "Animal Rights" a serious and rounded view of man's responsibility toward animals, but I don't think you'll get very far with it. In a sense, there is a capitalization problem. Slimey is writing about "Animal Rights", and obscure little nook of philosophical scholarship, rather than "animal rights", the broader question that Cla68 raises. This is why discussion (e.g.) of kosher and Muslim slaughter practices are so verboten in articles Slimmy WP:OWNs. I don't think you'll get very far, because she wants a summary essay illuminating the essential truth and goodness of her point of view, not a broadly critical or insightful article.

Unlike Cla68, I think WP is a lost cause for deep and meaningful articles like the one he wishes for. I am more concerned about the outright bias Slimmy injects into the surrounding infrastructure articles, whitewashing criminal actions away from [[SHAC]] and [[PETA]] and the like, generally trying to mainstream her fringe views on the topic.

It is indeed, but worse than that, it doesn't even get Western history right. As I said in another thread, the words cattle and chattel are the same word-- they refer to chatel, the movable property on land (and as such include other animals besides beef). From medievel Latin capitale. Same root as investment capital, as in Marx's Das Capital. Stuff you own which is fungible for purposes of investing in enterprise. That's the standard legal "Western" view in a nutshell, for the last couple of millennia, as reflected by the Latin/French roots of the words.

As for food, the word "meat" is merely from good old English mete, which means food. As in meat and drink. The idea of a specifically vegetarian diet didn't even occur to Northerners.

Don't agree with PETA's agenda? Then why would you contribute to Wikipedia?

That probably is how most of the world's cultures view man's relationship to animals, that it's ok to control, inflict pain on, and kill them if it's for the benefit of humankind, such as for food or medical research, but that it's not ok to use animals in that way for sport or entertainment. If true, that means that PETA and ALF activists are not supporting a mainstream value for the most part, but instead are supporting a fringe, extremist view.

I imagine that if someone searched around he/she could probably find sources that support this view. But, I assume that they might encounter some resistance, for now, if they tried to introduce it into any of the animal rights articles in WP.

Attitudes to animals in the ancient world? Attitudes "to" animals?

That just doesn't sound right. Shouldn't it be "toward"?

There are no other Wikipedia articles that begin "Attitudes to". And there are only two that begin "Attitudes toward" -- Attitudes toward homosexuality and Attitudes toward wolves (both are actually redirects).

Anyway, this very thread, along with the memory of the classic-but-deleted "History of Western Eurasia", as well as the current Women in Canadian provincial and territorial legislatures, Dogs in religion, and List of appearances of amnesia in fiction has inspired my next sockpuppetry project.

What is the most ridiculously contrived article (I'd prefer to stay away from "lists" -- they're too easy) that I can come up with, which (without prompting) other Wikipediots will help edit, such that it achieves permanence in Wikipedia? Left-handedness in politics? Islam in Cleveland? Attitudes to hummingbirds in Appalachia?

My mind is set afire! Give me more ideas to work with, please!

Greg

How about Discrimination against left-handed people , Lemon flavored pastries, or Riverdancing at rave events?

I think that the Category:13th_century_animal_deaths needs some serious expansion, Greg....

I would be surprised if you couldn't write a decent article about Islam in Cleveland. Something like 0.5% to 2% of Americans are Muslims, and its probably higher in cities. Islamic conversion in prisons (of which I've little doubt there are many in Cleveland). Cleveland has maybe three million people, so we are talking about a religious community of 30 000. No doubt one could dig up a lot of stuff on its history,religious activities, demographics, whatnot. What is wrong with that?

I would not be terribly surprised if you could write a halfway decent Left-handedness in politics too. While it sounds silly, there may be historical significance, given the history of the word sinister, the historic importance of dueling and so forth.

Fortunately, no other animal has died since then (see 14th, 15th, 16th...)

So, Jose, tell us. What do you have against hummingbirds in Appalachia, hmm?

Maybe because they were too lazy to remember the words?

The same thing I have against hummingbirds when I'm not in Appalachia.

Is anybody else somewhat weirded out by Category:Murdered_pregnant_women ?

If you click on the category, it contains the unsourced assertion that "These women tend to be murdered by the fathers of their children." (now removed)

I've been editing Wikipedia for over three years, and still hadn't bothered to figure out CFD, although this made me feel like doing so. I really can't see any value in the category.

Update - now done, see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 August 7‎.

That was the original name of the article, as you see now redirected.

Where did the "to" come from? If you want a guess, from some German non-native-English writer. They tend to occassionally generically use "to" for the dative relationship in English, occasionally coming up with something non-colloquial in the process, as "He was mad to her" meaning he was angry towards her. "Bill had desire to Alice." Easy to do because English uses "to" and "towards" for the dative case somewhat eccentrically and irregularly, and even replaces a towards with an "at" (Bill was angry at Bob), or a "for" (Bill had the hots FOR Alice" --- another kind of dative case perhaps to follow shortly ).

So, in short, I'm guessing this was a German-originally started article, from the natural hygeine/German animal liberation movement so closely connected with Schopenhauer and the Nazis (see the TALK page) and which entire connection of course Slimmy does not want to touch with the Drei-Meter-Pfosten.