(off topic) Is there any reason you seem to have replaced the a in vegan with an asterisk? It happened twice so I am guessing it was not a typo? I am just curious? Is it like x86 or something?

The term seems to include both "vegetarian" and "vegan".

This guy gets it.

* is the wild card character so veg*n "matches" both "vegan" and "vegetarian." It's a short-hand way to say "vegetarian and/or vegan."

It's not very obvious that it's supposed to stand for more than one letter. Is it less confusing to do this way than to say "vegetarian" since that includes vegans?

While it's true that vegans are also vegetarians going strictly by dictionary definitions, without any other qualifier the term "vegetarian" is usually is taken to mean lacto-ovo vegetarian, at least in some circles.

Whether it's confusing or not or obvious or not, it was an extremely common term in the online vegetarian community I used to participate in around 15 years ago. Not trying to make a judgement on the term, just informing.

"Hackers" have their own version - *nix.

I thought it was. If it was just one letter it'd be veg?n or something. :)

Vegetarian does not include vegan. The set of things vegans don't eat is strictly larger than the set of things vegetatians don't eat.

The restrictions are a strict superset, so the group members are a strict subset.

Have you met any Vegans? There is no way they'd accept being lumped into a larger 'Vegetarian' demographic. One thing about Vegans is, is that they are not shy about telling you what they are.

This is just a made up stereotype. They only place you see this trend is in angsty teens or Reddit users who tend to be vocally hormonal about anything.

I have met far more people who tell me cliches about vegans than I have vegans who tell me they're vegan.

That's an old stereotype that is certainly not true for the vegans I know - which are pretty many by now, most of whom have gone vegan in the past few years.

There's still a lot of toxicity in the vegan community. Just yesterday I read an article about how a vegan started eating meat and fish. The vegan community found out and started bullying her for it. [0]

[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/vegan-youtube-is-imploding-as-...

She was making all her money off videos about being a vegan. She deserved plenty of fish emojis for the deception. It wasn't about a diet change.

That's backlash against a fake youtube shill, not specifically about someone giving up a vegan diet.

Same reaction would occur for any vocal activist caught doing the antithesis of what they preach.

That might be true for a specific community of vegans that explicitly seek each other out (see sibling comment), but that's hardly relevant for considering whether to group them together with vegetarians when a comment applies to both of them on HN.

Most vegans will say "do whatever you have to do to live" and want a reduction in the consumption of animal products and harm of animals wherever possible. They will, for example, take vaccinations and medical treatments that have been derived from animal products if there are no alternatives.

So, if a person has honestly tried everything and they absolutely need to eat some meat and fish to be healthy, then most won't have an issue with it. There will always be crazy internet kooks though.