User talk:Fruitarianlena

October 2016

Thank you for your contributions. Please mark your edits, such as your recent edits to Fruitarianism, as "minor" only if they are minor edits. In accordance with Help:Minor edit, a minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. Minor edits consist of things such as typographical corrections, formatting changes or rearrangement of text without modification of content. Additionally, the reversion of clear-cut vandalism and test edits may be labeled "minor". Your own webpage http://fruitarians.net/start/fruitarianism is not a reliable source to use as a reference. See WP:RS, in particular WP:RSSELF. Meters (talk) 21:33, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello, I'm SummerPhDv2.0. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Fruitarianism, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. SummerPhD^v2.0 18:26, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

In case you think we are taking you in circles... You cannot arbitrarily change the definition of Fruitarianism. Any such change will need to be sourced to a reliable source showing that your proposed change is actually an accepted definition. As I've already pointed out, your own webpage is not a reliable source for this change. Trying to add the change without any source is not going to work either. Who uses this definition? If it's just you and the readers of your webpage then it is definitely not going in the article. Meters (talk) 23:27, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Dear Meters and SummerPhDv2.0, what would be a reliable source for the fruitarianism specifically? There have been no research done on this subject, and it is not in philosophical books, as far as I know. At least some of the sources you cite are not accurate, and some statements in the article are almost nonsensical - why those are not corrected? Any published book can be a reliable source in this subject? All I wanted to summarize in the sentence "Fruitarianism can also be viewed as a set of ethical values, including respecting lives of plants, and their implementation in lifestyle" was already proved in later statements. I am actually living it. There are no very good books on fruitarianism out there that I am aware of. I follow this subject as a practicing (ethical) fruitarian for many years, and I am in personal contact with many modern fruitarians of this kind, this is a real thing: fruitarianism can be ethical. "Not harming plants" is an ethical concept that results in lifestyle changes by some fruitarians (avoiding buying new paper books and furniture, for example). Please, advise. (My notes on it are here: http://fruitarians.net/start/fruitarianism). Fruitarianlena (talk) 02:01, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

That human beings can/should/must live on a diet of fruit (however defined) alone is a fringe biomedical claim. It is WP:FRINGE because it "departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field". As such, we broadly summarize what fruitarianism is (people can/should/must nothing or almost nothing but fruit, with widely varying interpretations of what is "fruit"), with detail limited to coverage in reliable sources. We have inherent difficulties here as there does not seem to be a dominant organization to authoritatively speak as to what makes someone a fruitarian and why they do it. We squeeze everything we can out of CRC Press, Handbook Of Pediatric Nutrition and the Vegetarian Society in this regard. Beyond that we get into some weird corners of Wikipedia's principles.

If various self-proclaimed experts want to argue about whether or no grains are fruit or eating nuts is ethical and such, we are going to want the best sources we can find and cover what seem to be the dominant threads.

When the article turns to biomedical claims (B12 and other deficiencies, etc.), our policy on sources for biomedical claims (WP:MEDRS) applies. Such sources say the diet is deficient in, for example, B12. Various unreliable sources try to address this (claiming humans do not need B12, contending unwashed produce has enough B12 from insect fragments and droppings, claiming the body produces its own B12, claiming there are plant sources of B12, etc.). We do not discuss these unless they are discussed by WP:MEDRS sources.

Your personal experiences are your personal experiences. They are not reliable sources for this article any more than claims from people that they have spoken to a god, can see the future, do not need food of any kind, witnessed a murder or can prove that a major historical event was a conspiracy/inside job. We cannot/will not judge the authenticity of these claims, nor will we over-report them. There are far too many idiosyncratic beliefs/philosophies in the world for us to report them all and we are not here to choose one over countless others. Instead, we aim to give appropriate WP:WEIGHT to those reported on by independent reliable sources.

Long story short: For a topic like this, we want to report what mainstream reliable sources that are independent of fruitarianism have to say about it. Such sources are fairly few in number. - SummerPhD^v2.0 03:46, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

User talk:SummerPhDv2.0, thank you for the response. You did not address my point that ethical motivation by some fruitarians was already stated in the text of the article. Plus, this is a nonsensical statement: "Others believe they should eat only plants that spread seeds when the plant is eaten." - it should be at least "fruits of the plants" instead of "plants." About the sources: why is the first accepted? 'Tom Billings. "Living and Raw Foods: Types of Raw Food Diets: A Brief Survey". Living and Raw Foods.' Thanks, Fruitarianlena (talk) 16:29, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm following this thread, but I don't have anything to add to SummerPhDv2.0's impressive response. As for questions about the existing content and sources, I agree that the Tom Billings source is rather weak, but it seems adequate to support the minor statement that "Some people whose diet consists of 75% or more fruit consider themselves fruitarians." I think this should be in the "Definition" section rather than the lede, though. I suggest raising this and any other issues about content or sources on the article's talk page so other interested editors can participate in the discussion. Meters (talk) 17:14, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

The lede statement about the various reasons for adopting fruititarianism does not seem to properly supported by the content of the "Motivation" section. Meters (talk) 17:22, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Please, comment (if possible, without comparing ethics to magical or paranormal claims): "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources Is there any way to point out that fruitarianism is an ethical position for some people, as already assumed in the article by linking the diet to veganism and "non-harming plants", citing non-self-published articles of such people? I will try to find any mentions about ethics of fruitarianism in non-fruitarian sources, and hope to offer such extension of the definition here again one day. Fruitarianlena (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality is not the same as reliability. Some non-neutral sources are indeed useful, but I don't consider your website to be a reliable source. Neutrality is irrelevant in that case. I believe your claim that fruititarianism is an ethical choice should have independent, reliable sourcing, such as articles or books that discuss ethical reasons for some to choose fruititarianism. Meters (talk) 19:35, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Meters, thank you for replying, but next time you come to it on my talk page, please address my questions directly (I did not ask anything about my page), try not to misspell the title of the article we are talking about (fruitarianism, you misspelled it three times by now), and don't repeat what I already said myself as if I never did.Fruitarianlena (talk) 15:25, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you should try being polite to editors trying to help you rather than nitpicking typos. I have no interest in trying to answer your bizarre, open ended question. Magical? Paranormal? No one mentioned that except you. That's it for me trying to help you. Meters (talk) 16:39, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Meters.Fruitarianlena (talk) 01:03, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
If any other editor would like to help me, I would really appreciate it. I have consulted the most knowledgeable in history of fruitarianism person I know, and they could not provide me with such reference either (word ethics was not mentioned in any non-self-published materials by non-fruitarians, to their knowledge). Maybe one day someone will find it, or such source will be published. 

Meanwhile, my main question remains unanswered:

Is there any way to point out that fruitarianism is also an ethical position for some people, citing independently published articles, written by biased authors, who consider themselves fruitarian? In other words, does it need to be necessarily an observer in this case, or in which context can a biased source be reliable?  Thanks!

Fruitarianlena (talk) 01:03, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

The only way to "point out" something in that article is to cite reliable sources. If you feel you have reliable sources for the statement, I would suggest discussing them on the article's talk page. Discussing them here will draw comments from only those few editors who have seen any of your edits. On the article's talk page a wider cross section of editors will have a chance to review your suggestion.

I am personally unaware of additional reliable sources to add at the moment. - SummerPhD^v2.0 01:53, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much, User talk:SummerPhDv2.0! As soon as I find something promising, I'll ask about it there. Fruitarianlena (talk) 03:09, 10 October 2016 (UTC)