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In relation to qigong and its roots in Chinese culture

In 1992, Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong and along with teachings that touched upon a wide range of topics, from detailed exposition on qigong related phenomenon and cultivation practice to science and morality. In the next few years, Falun Gong quickly grew in popularity across China to become the most popular qigong practice in Chinese History. Falun Gong was welcomed into the state-controlled Scientific Qigong Research Association, which sponsored and helped to organize many of his activities between 1992 and 1994, including 54 large-scale lectures. In 1992 and 1993 he won government awards at the Beijing Oriental Health Expos, including the "Qigong Master most acclaimed by the Masses" and "The Award for Advancing Boundary Science."

According to academics, Falun Gong originally surfaced in the institutional field of alternative Chinese science, not religion. The debate between what can be called "naturalist" and "supernaturalist" schools of qigong theory has produced a considerable amount of literature. Xu Jian stated in The Journal of Asian Studies 58 (4 November 1999): "Situated both in scientific researches on qigong and in the prevailing nationalistic revival of traditional beliefs and values, this discursive struggle has articulated itself as an intellectual debate and enlisted on both sides a host of well-known writers and scientists — so much so that a veritable corpus of literature on qigong resulted. In it, two conflicting discourses became identifiable. Taking “discourse” in its contemporary sense as referring to forms of representation that generate specific cultural and historical fields of meaning, we can describe one such discourse as rational and scientific and the other as psychosomatic and metaphysical. Each strives to establish its own order of power and knowledge, its own “truth” about the “reality” of qigong, although they differ drastically in their explanation of many of its phenomena. The controversy centers on the question of whether and how qigong can induce “supranormal abilities” (teyi gongneng). The psychosomatic discourse emphasizes the inexplicable power of qigong and relishes its super-normal mechanisms or which causative factors which go beyond wht canbe explained by presentday scietific models, whereas the rational discourse strives to demystify many of its phenomena and to situate it strictly in the knowledge present day modern science." The Chinese government has generally tried to encourage qigong as a science and discourage religious or supernatural elements. However, the category of science in China tends to include things that are generally not considered scientific in the West, including qigong and traditional Chinese medicine.

David Aikman has written in American Spectator (March 2000): "Americans may believe that qigong belongs in a general category of socially neutral, New Age-style concepts that are merely subjective, not necessarily harmful, and incapable of scientific proof. But China's scientific community doesn't share this view. Experiments under controlled conditions established by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the late 1970s and early 1980s concluded that qi, when emitted by a qigong expert, actually constitutes measurable infrared electromagnetic waves and causes chemical changes in static water through mental concentration. Qi, according to much of China's scientific establishment, for all intents existed."

Li Hongzhi states in Falun Buddha Fa Lectures in Europe:

"Since the time Dafa was made public, I have unveiled some inexplicable phenomena in qigong as well as things that hadn’t been explained in the qigong community. But this isn’t the reason why so many people are studying Dafa. It’s because our Fa can truly enable people to Consummate, truly save people, and allow you to truly ascend to high levels in the process of cultivation. Whether it’s your realm of mind or the physical quality of your body, the Fa truly enables you to reach the standards of different levels. It absolutely can assume this role."

Andrew P. Kipnis is quoted as stating: "...to the Western layperson, qigong of all sorts may seem to be religious because it deals with spiritual matters. Because Li Hongzhi makes use of many concepts from Buddhism and Taoism in his writings, this may make Falun Gong seem even more like a religion to the outsider; bur Falun Gong grew initially into a space termed scientific , but was mostly insulated from the spaces formally acknowledged as institutionalized science in Western countries"

The term 'qigong' was coined in the early 1950s as an alternative label to past spiritual disciplines rooted Buddhism or Taoism, that promoted the belief in the supernatural, immortality and pursuit of spiritual transcendence. The new term was constructed to avoid danger of association with ancient spiritual practices which were labeled "superstitious" and persecuted during the Maoist era. In Communist China, where spirituality and religion are looked-down upon, the concept was "tolerated" because it carried with it no overt religious or spiritual elements; and millions flocked to it during China's spiritual vacuum of the 1980s and 1990s. Scholars argue that the immense popularity of qigong in China could, in part, lie in the fact that the public saw in it a way to improve and maintain health. According to Ownby, this rapidly became a social phenomenon of considerable importance.

Membership and finances

Sociologist Susan Palmer writes that, "...Falun Gong does not behave like other new religions. For one thing, its organization - if one can even call it that - is quite nebulous. There are no church buildings, rented spaces, no priests or administrators. At first I assumed this was defensive now, I'm beginning to think that what you see is exactly what you get - Master Li's teachings on the Net on the one hand and a global network of practitioners on the other. Traveling through North America, all I dug up was a handful of volunteer contact persons. The local membership (they vehemently reject that word) is whoever happens to show up at the park on a particular Saturday morning to do qigong."

Finances

In his thesis, Noah Porter takes up the issue of Falun Gong and finance in Mainland China. He quotes and responds to some of the allegations of the Chinese Communist Party that Li benefited financially from teaching the practice. Porter writes that when teaching seminars, there was an admission of 40 yuan per new practitioner and 20 yuan for repeat practitioners--with the repeat practitioners making up for 50-75% of the admissions. He goes on to say with respect to the CCP's claims: "...but the Chinese government figures for the profits of the seminars counted all attendees as paying the 40-yuan fee charged to newcomers. Also, the Chinese Qigong Research Society received 40% of admission receipts from July 1993 to September 1994. Falun Gong's first four training seminars took in a total of 20,000 yuan, which is only 10% of the 200,000 figure cited by the Chinese government. Finally, from that 20,000 yuan, they had several operating expenses..."

Ian Johnson points out that during the greatest period of Falun Gong book sales in China, Li Hongzhi never received any royalties because all publications were bootleg.

James Tong writes about the competing claims by Falun Gong and the Chinese government in 'The China Quarterly' journal, 2003. He writes that the government has attempted to portray Falun Gong as being financially savvy with a centralized administration system and a variety of mechanisms for deriving profit from the practice. He also looks over Falun Gong's claims of having no hierarchy, administration, membership or financial accounts, and that seminar admission was charged at a minimal rate. Tong writes that it was in the government's interest, in the post-crackdown context, to portray Falun Gong as being highly organised: "The more organized the Falun Gong could be shown to be, then the more justified the regime's repression in the name of social order was." He writes that the government's charges that Falun Gong made excessive profits, charged exorbitant fees, and that Li Hongzhi led a lavish lifestyle "...lack both internal and external substantiating evidence" and points out that that despite the arrests and scrutiny, the authorities "had disclosed no financial accounts that established the official charge and credibly countered Falun Gong rebuttals."

Li Hongzhi stipulates in his books Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun that practitioners should only voluntarily help others learn the exercises and that this could never be done for fame and money, and also stipulates that practitioners must not accept any fee, donation or gift in return for their voluntarily teaching the practice. According to Falun Gong, Li's insistence that the practice be offered free of charge caused a rift with the China Qigong Research Society, the state administrative body under which Falun Dafa was initially introduced. Li subsequently withdrew from the organization.

Falun Gong website often state on their pages that "All Falun Gong Activities Are Free of Charge and Run by Volunteers"

In an interview in Sydney on May 2, 1999, mentioning his financial status, Li said : "In mainland China I published so many books, but added together, they haven't exceeded twenty thousand Renminbi (equivalent to US $ 2,469). This is what the publishing company gave me. When publishing books in other countries of the world, you know there is a rule, which pays 5 or 6% royalties to the author, so each time I can only get a little bit, a few hundred, or a few thousand dollars."

1. ^ "Falungong as a Cultural Revitalization Movement: An Historian Looks at Contemporary China." Professor David Ownby, Department of History, University of Montreal, , accessed 31/12/07
2. The Past, Present and Future of Falun Gong, A lecture by Harold White Fellow, Benjamin Penny, at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 2001, , accessed 31/12/07
3. American Spectator, March 2000, Vol. 33, Issue 2
4. Porter 2003, pp. 38-39. Available online:
5. Porter 2003, p 197
6. Johnson, Ian. Wild Grass: three stories of change in modern China. Pantheon books. 2004. pp 23-229
7. James Tong, "An Organizational Analysis of the Falun Gong: Structure, Communications, Financing", The China Quarterly, 2002, 636-660: p 636
8. Tong 2002, p 638
9. Tong 2002, p 657
10. Learning the Practice, , accessed 21 July 2007
11. Li Hongzhi, Lecture in Sydney, 1999, , accessed 21 July 2007

Politicized

I do not agree with "At the time of the Zhongnanhai Incident, Falun Gong had evolved to become a *politicized* and highly mobilized form of social dissent.* How is it politicized? It didn't have a political agenda, nor did it intend to change the Chinese governements policy, nor did it claim to have any political aspirations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.164.172.113 (talk) 08:42, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

We should make sure the article represents the full spectrum of views on this topic, also in accordance with their prevalence in the literature.--Asdfg12345 01:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

i miss two realisations, or perhaps 3 in the article. the first is that falun gong, with it's traditional-like (chinese) eastern concept of a deserving(..) 'soul'(karma) , practice and meditation, and attention for cultural practices (music massage i think, etc.) is not very special of original (since it attracts a lot of attention the chinese government then certainly has a right to check consistency and practice), the second is that his residence in new york appears to make him promote materialist and for the followers potentially very dangerous (except dumb) value's, i think it is rather obvious this is enough to show the chinese the affiliation of the founder with new york is not a very fertile one. next we had our own falun gong campaign in poche magazines and glossys etc here (or at least i saw a single example), wich is fortunately not a great succes, because it is not very helpfull if people start adhering to the idea that luxury's like music, culture, social exercise or spiritual development mean people in china are repressed. therefore it could also be interesting and most amusing to get an overview what this wild (heterodox) and if i am not mistaken rather luxurious movement achieved in usia. you have a heap of ppl with a lot of bias against china that are 'quite falun-gonged'? are they efficiently operated in china unfriendly movements, or do they more often end up in therapy? perhaps they just quit the practice soon and have no lasting effects? or do they have loads of dala and fa?24.132.171.225 (talk) 18:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Half of your comment is a forum post, the other half is either difficult to comprehend or doesn't make much sense... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 18:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Gutmann deletions?

This was removed from the article by Colipon: Gutmann argues that because He Zuoxiu is related to the head of public security, Luo Gan, and the journal he wrote the critical article in answers to the state, it was "a signal and trial of the party's designs." Considering themselves "targeted," Falun Gong could "keep quiet - and probably get crushed..." or "stand up - and still probably get crushed."

1. Why were the two sentences the journal he wrote the critical article in answers to the state... and Considering themselves "targeted,"... deleted?
2. The Luo Gan issue is sourced and has not been resolved. How is it relevant that it was published in a U.S. conservative journal? It's unclear how that is grounds for disqualifying the source, and despite the variety of objections, this has still not been explained.--Asdfg12345 00:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The second part of that section does not make sense given the context. The first part still presents no evidence that He and Luo did what they did because they are married to each other's sisters, and, make no mistake, it is still an opinion from one person, especially the statement "a signal and trial of the party's designs." In addition, Gutmann's opinions need to be put into perspective by comparisons to other Falun Gong scholars. Does David Ownby, Ostergaard, or anyone else make similar claims in academic journals? Colipon+(Talk) 04:35, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the second part doesn't make sense given the context once you delete 1). The point is that there is more than one narrative of the lead-up to the persecution, and by rights they should both be presented here. Regarding 2, here are the three sources on this issue:

"It was at that point that a physicist published an article in a Tianjin Normal University journal portraying Falun Gong as a dangerous cult. China isn't the West, and these things aren't random: The physicist, He Zuoxiu, is the brother-in-law of Luo Gan, at that time the head of public security, and the Tianjin Normal University journal answers to the state. The article was a flare in the night sky, a signal and trial of the party's designs." (Gutmann). "He Zuoxiu, a scientist and one of Luo Gan's relatives, perhaps partially motivated by how Li Hongzhi calls modern science limited, seems to have intentionally provoked Falun Gong... Things could not have worked out better for the two if they had planned it — which, it appears, they just might have." (Porter). "A number of factors were involved in the souring relations among Falun Gong and the Chinese state and the news media, including ... lobbying efforts on the part of Li’s qigong opponents and scientists-cum-ideologues with political motives and affiliations with competing central Party leaders..." (Zhao) Emphasis added

About your points, I've never heard that sources need to present evidence for the things they assert or opine. Don't get me wrong, it would be great if they all did, but no article I've seen has operated on that basis--especially this one. Just for example: does He Zuoxiu present evidence for his claims about Falun Gong? (more on his remarks in a second). Ownby does not, as far as I am aware make a comment about this. But nor is it a requirement that every comment or opinion be shared by a variety of scholars for it to be included. Many views are held by a very small minority, but still warrant inclusion (the cult label springs to mind). Some analyses are wholly unique to a particular academic, and are still included. On many occasions, the broad facts are not disputed, but each commentator is adding their own shade. It's unclear why this shade should be excluded while others are promoted. Are you applying the same standards to this information as you would to the information you seek to include? It's unclear to me.

Regarding the He Zuoxiu remark about Falun Gong, you may consider balancing it with: "According to Falun Gong, the cases He cited as evidence of the dangers of Falun Gong were erroneous, since the people who had been supposedly harmed were not even Falun Gong practitioners." which is in Ownby's recent book p. 169. Full quote: "According to Falun Gong practitioners who watched the program, the cases that He cited as evidence of the dangers of Falun Gong were erroneous; the people who had been supposedly harmed were not even Falun Gong practtiioners, they said.... The BTV station must be considered the rough equivalent of the People's Daily as a mouthpiece for state policy and propaganda." -- which was earlier trimmed then deleted. I look forward to understanding your objection to the Gutmann source further. Please let me know if there is something unsatisfactory about my response.--Asdfg12345 10:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

That passage you provide above in itself is highly contentious and I would question whether it really fits as a "reliable source". For one, "It was at that point that a physicist published an article in a Tianjin Normal University journal portraying Falun Gong as a dangerous cult.", this is not even true. If you read the contents of He's opinion piece, he actually comments against qigong in general and only uses Falun Gong as an example of 'qigong-related delusions'; nowhere does he mention that Falun Gong is a "dangerous cult". The rest seems to be merely the author's personal speculation - phrases such as perhaps partially motivated; as for he 'intentionally provoked Falun Gong', let's not forget that he was actually forbidden to write against Falun Gong in mainstream newspapers, so he was forced to take his views to a lesser known college journal read usually by students so it wouldn't raise as much attention. The college Journal, contrary to what the author believes, does not "answer to the state", but answers to the local media department, which is in turn, a few leaps away from the state ministry of propaganda. Unlike what he seems to believe, the propaganda department isn't some Orwellian machine that supervises all of its subsidiaries (see for example, the newspapers controlled by the Guangdong provincial party committee, which diverge significantly from the views of the "Party").

As for Falun Gong denying that He's cases were practitioners... well... Falun Gong similarly denied that the self-immolators were practitioners. The article attributes He's opinions to He. This is neutral, balanced, and easily presentable. It should not attribute He's opinions to some party-state machine when there is no evidence to do so, nor is it absolutely obliged to add on a "refutation" from Falun Gong for every negative point against it. Colipon+(Talk) 16:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The Chinese government has enough division between local, provincial and national authorities that it has actually been cited as a major roadblock to national initiatives for anti-corruption activities, anti-piracy activities and environmental cleanup initiatives. The central party issues directives, these are interpreted by the provinces - and the parties of the provinces will frequently have a very free hand in interpretation and then these interpreted directives are operationalized by local authorities. Variances in budget, personality, dilligence, etc. can all potentially impact the extent to which these initiatives will be implemented at all - let alone in the form initially envisioned at a national level. The idea of China as an absolutist, Orwellian, totalitarian state just doesn't play out that way on the ground - not necessarily because the central party doesn't want that level of control (can't speak to that one way or the other as I don't know) but rather because it's nearly impossible to have absolute control over 1.5 billion people. Simonm223 (talk) 16:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Apologies to be away for a few days. I can see what you are both saying, I don't disagree with it. I'm reading Lieberthal and Shambaugh now. I just don't see how it's particularly relevant here. Colipon, it's unclear how your explanation fits in with wikipedia content policies. We all know that "The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—what counts is whether readers can check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." So I don't really get the objection. The only basis for objection is that it's not a reliable source, not an argument about the veracity of the claims, or whatever. There's a lot of nonsense on these pages, traceable back to reliable sources. He Zuoxiu's comments themselves are less a reliable source that Gutmann's. They're effectively from a primary source. You just made an argument based on your understanding and thinking, and extrapolated it to mean the material shouldn't be included. Misplaced Pages doesn't work like that. There's a stack of stuff I could rebut in the same fashion, but it's pointless, since (see quote above). Anyway, this is fairly elementary wikipedia stuff.

Regarding not adding a response from Falun Gong, could you explain your thoughts on that further? Shouldn't an encyclopedia present both sides? Shouldn't it be clear why they protested? Shouldn't the page seek to explain things for the reader, rather than give them a ready-made package that fits in with our ideas? It's not necessary to include the details of what He Zuoxiu wrote, in the end. But if they are included, and since they are counter to what reliable sources say about Falun Gong, it's only reasonable to include a statement by the Falun Gong side. It's simply not neutral to include such remarks without challenge; it's a big claim that's being made. It is a violation of WP:DUE. He's view in this should be explained in terms of giving the context to the whole affair; but when you expand on his views, giving them detail, when he's not a reliable source on Falun Gong, and not providing any contrary views, it becomes problematic. It's a kind of POV-pushing. In another sense, the simple reason for their protests have not been provided: that the criticism violated Hu Yaobang's 'Three No' policy on Qigong (Palmer, p. 249), that He had "unfairly maligned their spiritual practice" (Schechter, p. 69), or that the remarks He made were "erroneous" (Ownby, per above). It's not that Falun Gong's version of events should take prominence. But things should be presented in an evenhanded way, and with a mind to what the best sources have said on this topic. At the moment the scholarship has been sidelined on this point, to an extent, while a primary source has been elevated. I suggest either remove the sentence where he details his problem with Falun Gong (the allegation about the student not drinking or whatever), or adding in the remark that it was claimed erroneous and the individual misidentified. It just seems a simple matter of neutrality and WP:DUE.

Please advise on the Gutmann issue. It's unclear how the points you bring up, while perhaps with general merit, explain why the three reliable sources on that single point should be excluded.--Asdfg12345 13:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Any thoughts?--Asdfg12345 22:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The Luo Gan/He Zuoxiu thing is still quite alive. There's been no substantive rebuttal of the source. First it was branded unreliable and U.S. conservative, and when I asked for clarity on that, that reason seems to have been dropped for a longer explanation about how the assertions are not true. Then I said wikipedia is about verifiability and not truth, and the discussion stopped. Can whoever wants to continue disputing the Gutmann source please throw your hat in the ring? If it's not a reliable source, please indicate how. So far, that has not been really disputed (only asserted). The thing is published in National Review, it's unclear what the problem is. Do we need to open a noticeboard thing on whether Gutmann is a reliable source? That might be the simplest way of dealing with this, actually. Please advise. Or i'll just do it in a few days.--Asdfg12345 17:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't help but feel that these paragraphs of 'discussion' are a type of bait to shift the burden away from Asdfg himself and onto the users that disagree with him. He introduced the passage, numerous editors have expressed reasoned opinions on why it should not be in the article, yet he continues to insist on it through roundabout ways, even after he has been topic-banned. I will reiterate again that this issue has been addressed many times, thus I will not be going into point-by-point rebuttals. Colipon+(Talk) 18:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Colipon. I simply don't have the time to debate the same argument over and over for months. WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT applies. If Asdfg12345 does go to a noticeboard with this it would be wise for Asdfg12345 to disclose his/her topic ban on FLG topics. Simonm223 (talk) 18:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Same here. Asdfg12345 says that he has rebutted the complaints, but he has yet to convince the other editors that he has actually rebutted them. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This dispute reflects the circuitous arguments that seem to happen regularly. It would help so much if things were just clear, but nothing has been clarified in this, only remarks like "read what he wrote above" or "you're pretending you didn't hear." The reasons for rejecting the info keep jumping. First it was because it was in Porter, who cites Falun Gong website clearwisdom.net throughout his book (forgetting the fact that he is regularly cited, his study was an exploration of Falun Gong, where primary sources are of course going to be consulted, and Ownby calls his work "excellent") and the National Review, an anti-China U.S. conservative publication. Later, these arguments were apparently dropped, and unrelated stuff was brought up that made truth-claims about the content rather than its reliability or verifiability. Colipon, you say "numerous editors have expressed reasoned opinions on why it should not be in the article..." -- I wish that were true. No one has presented a cogent reason. Originally the argument said it was a too conservative source, not reliable. That was it. Others just said "see what he wrote" without putting forward any views of their own. Simon's second last comment isn't relevant at all.

I don't want to rehash everything, so since I've got your attention, can I just confirm that the only crux of the discussion is whether Gutmann, Porter, and Zhao are reliable sources on this? I just want to be clear on what exactly is disputed here. It will really help going forward. Saying "its' been shouted down 100 times, why don't you just go away" isn't going to help clarify the situation, since it's actually unclear what the problem itself has ever been. So: is the locus of dispute whether they are reliable sources, or is it whether, even if they are, that should just not be in the article. Please answer, and we can take the next step. (this appears to be separate from the other part of Gutmann that Colipon deleted).--Asdfg12345 01:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to recap, I want to know whether the problem is the reliability of the sources. If it is, then I can take it to the RS noticeboard. Is the problem NPOV? Then I can take it to the NPOV noticeboard. This dispute needs some outside opinion. I just need to know how to present it. At the moment I'm not sure how I'd explain the dispute in terms of which policy the content is claimed to be breaking. It's not bait, Colipon. Just a very simple question.--Asdfg12345 23:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Since I have received no response, I'll assume that Colipon's objections (of the source being from a conservative newspaper) are the essence of the complaint, and that the problem is that these are not reliable sources on the topic. I will open a note on the reliable sources noticeboard now.--Asdfg12345 01:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Finally left note on NPOV board. --Asdfg12345 02:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

newsletter?

Someone has gone and subscribed my email address to a Falun Gong newsletter called "Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group" :-/ It seems that they have searched my name in google to find my email. Anyone else had the same experience? --Enric Naval (talk) 06:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Happens quite often as far as I know... it's a means to force you to listen to more Falun Gong material... Falun Gong is generally not kind to its opponents - just read up on the Epoch Times article about New York comptroller John Liu. The Epoch Times has an entire website dedicated to attacking Liu because he criticized a Falun Gong practitioner. Colipon+(Talk) 06:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow.... that's something else. But then I guess we should expect that from the epoch times. Hopefully they go too far with their insane allegations and get sued into oblivion. Simonm223 (talk) 13:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

There should be an unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email, shouldn't there? I think the John Liu story is more complex than that, Colipon.--Asdfg12345 13:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I never solicited that newsletter, so it's unsolicited email, aka spam. I don't like that people take the decision of filling my inbox with unsolicited messages .... weekly. I have treated it the same as any spam that I get: not clicking in any link or image, and tagging it as spam so the bayesian spam filtering picks it up and other accounts in the same provider also get it sent to the spam folder. This is the only way to treat spam, honestly, nothing personal against the sender, I am "subscribed" to more than a dozen unsolicited newsletters and I treat them all the same. I already have problems being up-to-date with the newsletters that I have actually solicited. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

"I already have problems being up-to-date with the newsletters that I have actually solicited." <-- I hear that.--Asdfg12345 22:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

"Many academics"? Really?

I saw this in the lead just now. I would suggest that those words be removed. (No, I didn't attempt to remove them editing through an IP account). Two reasons for this are that the accusation or label originated with the CCP and is the CCP's calling-card, if you will, in describing Falun Gong. The label is mostly related to the CCP's "view" of Falun Gong. Another reason is that it's simply untrue that "many academics" use this term to classify or label Falun Gong. In fact, many academics reject the label. If editors were committed to NPOV, I think they would actually note that in the lead. Here's a list of academics' stance on the cult label (credit goes to PelleSmith for compiling this list. I think he left these pages when he got sick of the rampant anti-Falun Gong POV-pushing).--Asdfg12345 23:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Note: I thought it needed a more subtle gradation, since The Economist and Madsen don't say the same kinds of things as Ownby and Johnson; the latter are explicit repudiations, the former a bit more equivocal.--Asdfg12345 00:06, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Use cult

• Kavan, Heather
• Singer, Margaret

Don't use cult

• Bell, Mark R. ("Falun Gong and the Internet: Evangelism, Community, and Struggle for Survival," Nova Religio)
• Boas, Taylor C. ("Falun Gong and the Internet: Evangelism, Community, and Struggle for Survival," Nova Religio)
• Burgdoff, Craig A ("How Falun Gong Practice Undermines Li Hongzhi's Totalistic Rhetoric," Nova Religio)
• Chan, Cheris Shun-ching
• Edelman, Bryan
• Fisher, Gareth ("Resistance and Salvation in Falun Gong: The Promise and Peril of Forbearance," Nova Religio")
• Irons, Jeremy ("Falun Gong and the Sectarian Religion Paradigm," Nova Religio)
• Lowe, Scott ("Chinese and International Contexts for the Rise of Falun Gong," Nova Religio)
• Lu, Yungfeng ("Entrepreneurial Logics and the Evolution of Falun Gong," Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion)
• Ownby, David
• Palmer, Susan
• Porter, Noah
• Richardson, James T.
• Penny, Benjamin
• Wessinger, Catherine ("Falun Gong Symposium Introduction and Glossary," Nova Religio)

Don't accept the cult label

• (sorta) The Economist: "But his argument that the Falun Gong is as dangerous as Japan's Aum cult, which released poison gas in the Tokyo metro in 1995, is particularly unconvincing in Hong Kong, where the sect has a docile following of just a few hundred people." Asia: Jiang almost meets the Falun Gong, May 12, 2001. Vol. 359, Iss. 8221; pg. 45
• Madsen, Richard, “Understanding Falun Gong” Current History September 2000, 243-247. "“Though perhaps near the outer edge of the normal spectrum of Chinese indigenous spiritual practices, Falun Gong does not seem to go far enough over that boundary to be considered a cult."

Reject the cult label

• Ownby, David
• Porter, Noah
• Edelman, Bryan
• Richardson, James T.
• Johnson, Ian
• US State Department
• Amnesty International
• Beyerstein, Barry (a psychology prof and cult expert at Simon Fraser University) http://www.lostflag.com/NOW%20--%20Falun%20Gong,%20Mar%203%20-%209,%202005.htm

Unuseful information

From the article :

One follower believed that it will bring "some sudden change that will be good for good people, but bad for bad people."

I can see it's sourced and I guess this is what's left as a compromise after a long debate, but it is now emptied from any meaning. One random (and a bit childish one at that) voice in a movement of millions doesn't fit in an encyclopedia, feels awkward and knocks out of reading rhythm. I don't even know why it's in the controversies section. Needs to be rephrased or deleted. Fearfulleader (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:16, 31 January 2010 (UTC).

It's the result of a mentality that seeks to paint Falun Gong as an illegitimate belief system, make it sound dumb, hard to understand, and if possible, even devious. Why don't you delete that part yourself?--Asdfg12345 12:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The reference provides information on the Apocalyptic subtext of much of the FLG belief system. The quote itself has been watered down by FLG proponents, I agree, but it's wording as it is now is probably the closest we will get to neutrality while still mentioning FLG Apocalypticism. Simonm223 (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality doesn't always lead to interest, as it is now it's just a random quote. Furthermore, I don't understand how a part of a belief system could be used as controversy about it, only describing the views of outsiders toward this particular belief can be controversial. Especially when most of the big religions have some degree of Apocalypticism. I tweaked a bit the sentence but I still think it should be deleted altogetherFearfulleader (talk)

I don't have a problem with your tweak but I'd oppose removing the sentence altogether. Simonm223 (talk) 13:15, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I added Kavan 2008 with a quote of how the members believe in the apocalypse. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Enric, this edit seems rather cynical, to say the least. Is the purpose of an encyclopedia to make a certain group look crazy, stupid, or heartless? That's what you do when you make edits like that. That's not telling us much about the group, it's not seeking to inform or educate the reader about what these people believe; no encyclopedia would do that kind of thing. These articles should present things in context and try to elucidate whatever the subject is, not be a reflection of the biases of the editors. I would suggest that commentary on the teachings be put in a section about the teachings, and that it should also be much more intelligent, informative, and nuanced. Kavan is not an expert on Chinese religion, she's a communications researcher; so she is probably not a reliable source on Falun Gong's teachings anyway. Even the most basic thing, of presenting her opinion as her opinion, rather than as a "fact" about what Falun Gong practitioners believe, has not been observed. There are issues of reliable sources, undue weight, original research, and neutral point of view here. I suggest seeing what actual experts of Chinese religion, like Ownby or Penny say about Falun Gong's beliefs. They are qualified to comment on the subject, and their words carry far more weight than Kavan's. Misplaced Pages articles aren't supposed to be "hit pieces." It would be just as simple to make a section called "non-controversial teachings" and fill that up; or one called "peaceful teachings" and fill that up with rosy quotes about Falun Gong's pacifistic and "Gandhian" philosophy. Interesting that that's not happening.--Asdfg12345 01:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

This wording is less bad. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

New Intro

I have significantly altered the lede section of this article to more clearly represent the content of the article and describe Falun Gong from a more neutral perspective. Please be bold in editing if any other editors see I have made mistakes or overlooked something. I have also taken off the tag for "Unbalanced Viewpoints" as there seems to be no real existing discussion on this issue. Colipon+(Talk) 23:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The most notable and troubling aspect of this is how all third party views that verify the persecution have been deleted. It's now framed as a series of Falun Gong claims, rather than an actual issue that is happening, and which has been written about extensively. The same thing happened when dealing with the organ harvesting allegations; probably the most notable statement on it--the United Nations Committee on Torture's demand that there be an investigation and anyone responsible punished--was purged in a similar fashion. I'm not sure if this is deliberate or what.

I suggest the information with regard to the persecution of Falun Gong be written to properly take into account the views of reliable sources on the issue, and not merely as "Falun Gong claims," which is both inaccurate and misleading.--Asdfg12345 04:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

You may also reconsider the "proselytising" remark. That was changed from "highlighting the abuses," which is the actual purpose of such public activities like petitions, parades, etc. Does the former have a few good sources?--Asdfg12345 05:03, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. I think the new intro is significantly improved. Good work. Simonm223 (talk) 12:30, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Simon or Colipon, can you please address my complaint: I have said that information about the persecution has been couched as "Falun Gong claims" when in fact there is a wealth of reliable sources on this topic which could be used. By calling them only claims by Falun Gong, this leads the reader to beleive that such claims have not been verified by independent agencies. And since there is such a wealth of independent information about this, much of which was actually in the references before Colipon stepped in, it's unclear why it should be excluded, and this information marginalised. --Asdfg12345 01:31, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments (current revision):

• In the last section of the lede (Its teachings are derived from qigong, Buddhist and Taoist concepts, and draw upon modern science.), reference 6 is somewhat confusingly placed in the middle of the sentence, which appears to be because the word "derived" is taken from that reference. This isn't clear to a reader, though, so I would suggest either putting "derived" in quotes (to make it clear why the reference is there or at the end of the sentence) or, better yet, to reword that part of the sentence and put the reference after "Buddhist and Taoist concepts". The current wording actually could be criticized as plagiarism by some editors, so it would be good to reword...something like
  • it has roots in / has been influenced by qigong, Buddhism, and Daoism, and also draws upon modern science, etc. The wording is still close, but not too much. I'm not sure what the best way to reword "derived" would be, you might want to look at other religion articles to see how they handle that.
• The claim about the government's "revising" the 'membership' number to 2 million is not mentioned in the source given, so I removed it. And if it is re-added, it probably needs a more robust source than just an NYT news article; the ideal thing would be to cite both of the government reports themselves.
• Reference 1 is broken, apparently Leiden has discontinued its web hosting service. I found an archived version here, but I have two questions about the reference before I add the archive link:
  • What makes this a reliable source? Who is "Barend ter Haar" (he's certainly not this guy, who died in 1902).
  • I don't see how this reference supports the claim made in the second place it's cited, "...who charged that teachings were pseudoscientific and harmful to the public. I can't find that in the page itself, and the quotation on the footnote is just for the first place where it's cited, not for the others.
• Why is there such a big sentence about the 1999 Zhongnanhai protest, instead of just a minor mention (like "...responded to its critics through protests—at least one of which involved as many as 10,000 practitioners—and lobbying..."). I know 1999 is an important year for FLG, but unless this sentence says more about why that protest in particular was important, it seems a bit random.
• Citation 15 should give some indication that it's actually a web.archive link, not a normal one (the best way is to use the |archivedate= and |archiveurl= parameters of the citation template, and to keep the original url in |url=).
  • Taken care of.
• The phrase "Falun Gong groups have since moved abroad" suggests that all of them have gone abroad. Is this true? And what exactly is meant by "groups"—FLG-related organizations, or all practitioners? (If "groups" means just any practitioners, then certainly they haven't all left.)
• There is some repetition in the end of the last paragraph. Two sentences in a row begin "Falun Gong groups have since...", so the second one should be reworded (should be easy, something like "They have also..."). Three sentences in a row begin "Falun Gong".
• I'm not sure why "the group has emerged as a notable force in opposing the Communist Party and its policies" is included, especially with only one source (which doesn't say this explicitly, unless I missed something). It seems a bit empty—it was already clear that FLG opposed the government, and saying they've "emerged as a notable force" doesn't add much and sounds a bit peacockish.
• The last sentence, on FLG websites claims about 'membership' numbers, seems oddly placed here. Can it go to the 2nd paragraph, where gov't claims about numbers are included?

That's all, rʨanaɢ /_contribs 15:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Reception section

The Controversy section should not belong under the "Beliefs and teachings" heading. This "Reception" heading can include the Controversy section as well a Advocacy section from various sources to help illustrate the contrasting views.

--Mavlo (talk) 04:49, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I just popped by this article to find out about the group, and I thought it was confusing to find a reception section separate from history. The spirit of this re-write seems helpful enough, but not the label or placing. (1) Two label suggestions: "Reception" and "Advocacy" (that is, the meanings of the words, not the content of the sections per se) suggest something that belongs in the history section. Maybe just a section (I think after, not before, the history section?) on "Criticisms" followed by "Reactions/Responses" to them? (2) Organization: bring the 'cult label' discussion into the criticisms/controversy? I know the word 'cult' itself is ambiguous, but as it's introduced with regard to Falun Gong it seems - from this article - to have been clearly intended to be pejorative.

Good points. With regard to the cult label, in the context of Falun Gong I think it is able to be shown that the vast majority of reliable sources place this term, as it was used against Falun Gong, in the context of the persecution/anti-Falun Gong propaganda campaign. I will get some sources on this later, but I think there are few writers who discuss this outside that context. If that is the case, I would think that wikipedia should reflect this and include the cult section as a sub-section to one about the propaganda/media campaign. Looking at the list of academic sources which adopt/reject the label, this also seems to be the case. This logic may be faulty though; if so please point out how.--Asdfg12345 07:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Reception should come after the "history" section. It's usually at the end of articles like these. Agree that "Cult" also belongs under this section. Colipon+(Talk) 16:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Why was the Reception section removed? Why was the Controversy section placed back in Beliefs and teachings? Please explain.--Mavlo (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

This behaviour is problematic. Let me leave a note on Mrund's talk page. Mavlo is within his rights to revert that, in my view. No attempt to engage in discussion was made, and not even an edit summary left. That's destructive editing. --Asdfg12345 04:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have provided a reason for reverting. Sloppy of me. Half of what Mavlo added was unsourced and all of it was pro-FG massaging. I have no quarrel with the proposed restructuring, just the added content. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 08:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

That the material he added presents a pro-Falun Gong point of view is not a reason to remove it. As far as I know, it followed a section that presents a point of view critical of Falun Gong. You will have to explain more clearly why it's problematic to present both pro and anti Falun Gong points of view, rather than just anti Falun Gong points of view. I didn't get a clear look, but I thought it was all sourced material.--Asdfg12345 01:02, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually all content within the Advocacy section were properly sourced and are exact quotes from their sources. The reason it is "pro-FG" was to balance the Controversy section, as I had already explained above. --Mavlo (talk) 01:36, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

There's no reason to have a "reception" section in an article like this. Reception is for movies, books, plays, etc. It sounds almost belittling to have a section on FLG's "reception". "Controversy" is just fine, because controversy is what it is. And in the current revision, the Controversy subsection is under "Public debate", which is also fine with me. rʨanaɢ /_contribs 15:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

New Single Purpose Accounts show up

In hes five months as a registered user on Misplaced Pages so far, Mavlo has acted as an unabashed pro-Falun Gong Single Purpose Account. Myself and many others are quite relieved that we have recently managed to rid these articles of both pro-FG and anti-FG SPAs. Therefore I would suggest that Mavlo invest hes wiki time, which is in itself of course very welcome, in a wider thematic range of articles and leave the FG ones alone. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 08:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd also suggest he edit other articles, but it's quite inappropriate to warn someone off editing a certain topic.--Asdfg12345 00:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Aren't all accounts able to contribute to the FG page within their right to do so? Considering my five months here I really haven't contributed that much to be termed a SPA. Also, due to the time constraints of life, and a general habit I have developed over time, I try to dedicate myself to a minimal number of tasks. I believe this focus only helps to make whatever is I do more thorough and fair, instead of tackling too many tasks at a time. Thus I will continue to contribute to this particular topic until my schedule allows me to allocate more time to other wikipedia topics. --Mavlo (talk) 02:11, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No, actually SPAs are explicitly discouraged. Particularly biased agenda-pushing ones. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 07:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

As are meat puppets and sock puppets of blocked users. Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The accusations and insinuations you guys are coming up with are a bit odd, and slightly troubling. I would suggest focusing on the actual article. As for the section, I don't know if it's best to segregate responses into "controversies" and "advocacy," which kind of seems to be two POV magnets; it may be better to have a discussion of "Reception," and include elements of what is there now, but make it more theme-based. That is, information isn't segregated based on whether it is perceived to be positive or negative toward Falun Gong, but based on what it actually says. For example, a paragraph or so about teachings, and what commentators have found odd, hard to understand, or problematic--and then what others have found normal for Chinese folk religion, understandable in context, or not problematic (or splicing it together). There are other topics that could be explored in a reception section, too, like what support Falun Gong has received by what quarters of society, for example. Richard Madsen gives a discussion of this, citing, for example, how Falun Gong's conservative sexual ethic may alienate some more liberal minded types, while it being a non-Christian belief means it hasn't received huge support from the usual constituencies that promote freedom of religion. Just an example. I think the current section simply offers polarised views which aren't necessarily too informed or informative, and is basically a channel for unexplored opinion-giving. In particular, the opinions expressed in the "advocacy" section clearly aren't advocacy. It would have thought it would be more useful for the reader to allow certain themes more space, but breaking it into "positive" and "negative" doesn't seem to allow that. 2 cents. --Asdfg12345 01:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

None of that has anything to do with the sudden cropping up of new SPAs right after you and HIG are blocked from editing the page directly for incessant POV pushing. Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Mavlo (talk · contribs) is obviously a POV-pushing SPA sock as can be judged from his edit history. --Defender of torch (talk) 04:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep, just FYI, I'm actually the puppetmaster behind anyone who adds information balancing a negative POV on Falun Gong. Also any information about the persecution, too. It doesn't stop at Mavlo. This goes deep!--Asdfg12345 16:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Well we know what the bard had to say about that. Simonm223 (talk) 20:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Great. Do you agree with the ideas expressed above for how to structure the reception section?--Asdfg12345 00:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

I do not agree with proposals coming from blocked accounts. Simonm223 (talk) 15:20, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

You're such a friendly person, Simonm223. Does anyone else consider my suggestion useful or appropriate?--Asdfg12345 01:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Idea for improvement

Hello. I have an idea for the "cult label" section: it is to separate the aspects of the use of the cult label that relate to the Chinese government and put those in the section that deals with the views of the Chinese government. Then in the section of "public debate," include the various characterisations of Falun Gong by media and scholars, including the cult label, and basic analysis of how Falun Gong has been discussed in the public domain. This has some good textual support, including a journal article I came across recently. Adam Frank's book chapter also takes a "discourse analysis" type approach to the issue; in fact, there are several. It would mean that the aspects of response/counter-response to government propaganda could be addressed separately from how Falun Gong has been taken up by Western media and academics. The two are of course related, but by treating them separately the article will allow further exploration of both those views. An explanation of intersections and influences in both those fields would be helpful. That's my thought. I'll make some changes now and the editors can share ideas. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 14:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding this: "Western media's response was initially similar to that of the anti-cult movement, but later used less loaded terms to describe the movement." I cannot find the first part in the source. Could anyone point me to the page? This may be wrongly attributed. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 15:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The structure looks fine to me. Good work. Colipon+(Talk) 21:02, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I have encountered some sourcing irregularities in the text. There are several places where a source is cited, but where what is written in the article does not appear in the citation. I will make some changes and leave notes here. It took a bit of time to go through these. This is a subject I know something about, having read David Ownby, James Tong, and David Palmer's relatively recent texts; but there are of course intricacies and intricacies. I will make the changes and provide some clear reasons here. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the following, in each case I have checked the sources in question and explained below any issues I found. I make these changes (mostly deletions, actually) on the proviso that if my research turns out to be mistaken, someone will be able to fix it just as easily and we'll all have learned something. I haven't checked all the sources carefully yet.

• The sentence: "Its rapid growth generated attention from Chinese journalists, skeptics, scientists, and religious institutions, and brought about friction between Falun Gong and its critics, who charged that its teachings were pseudoscientific and harmful to the public."; was sourced to Patsy Rahn and Barend ter Haar. I could not find anything to substantiate this sentence in either of those sources. I may have overlooked something. The most Rahn seems to say is (p. 41): "In 1995 his teachings began to come under criticism for being superstition, and in 1996 he withdrew the group from the qigong association, thereby removing its official registration." ter Haar does not seem to go into this at all. Since I think saying "Its rapid growth generated attention from Chinese journalists, skeptics, scientists, and religious institutions." is not controversial, I have left that, even though it does not have a source. I am not sure how strictly sourcing policies are enforced though.
• Similarly with "As early as 1995, critics called Falun Gong "superstitious" and were skeptical of its claimed health benefits." Rahn only seems to say that sentence above in relation to this. I removed that sentence too, since it is unsupported.
• Nor could I substantiate "Sima drew special attention to Falun Gong, alleging that Li Hongzhi used psychological manipulation and a questionable mixture of traditional thought and modern science to sustain his teachings." For starters, Ownby does not appear to mention Sima Nan's criticism of Falun Gong, though he does mention Nan's criticism of qigong. Secondly, I do not believe a link to a Hong Kong Taoist wiki (it appears to be a dead link) is a reliable source. Given that the sentences before it lead into this one, I simply deleted the paragraph. Nan's criticism of qigong may be notable, but I could find no mention of his criticism of Falun Gong in either Palmer or Ownby. Since the reference to Ownby's text was here, I just moved that to the paragraph; now Ownby is cited as discussing the Guangming Daily incident (which I think he does).
• Regarding the note about the Buddhist Association comparing Falun Gong to Aum Shinrikyo in 1998, I have not been able to substantiate that either. I need to get ahold of the text in question. At least, Palmer does not mention this. I will look into this particular issue further another time. At the moment I've just drawn a question mark there. I notice there is a source from Benjamin Penny that should address this. I will follow that up and provide the result of my research another time. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 17:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

As a major contributor to the current introduction, I can testify that some parts of it was merely my own attempt at summarizing what was already written in the article. The lede of an article does not necessarily need to be sourced to the teeth (for example, in Barack Obama, where it is not sourced at all). I do not believe that any of the content was controversial, and received numerous endorsements above for its content, and thus would call for that section to be restored. As for Sima Nan, I would also advise against removing paragraphs wholesale simply because Sima's critiques of Falun Gong were very widely known - it is just a matter of pinpointing a good source for it. Remember that these sources are not limited to Palmer and Ownby. You might also be interested to look at the Sima Nan article for sources. Sima's critique was largely on Qigong groups who claim supernatural powers, and Falun Gong seemed to be the "representative" of this qigong clique that Sima zoomed in on. Colipon+(Talk) 17:26, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the page that discusses how leads are supposed to be structured says it "should be carefully sourced as appropriate..." I would also have thought that leads need to be careful not to overreach toward certain arguments, and be clear about which are mainstream views and which are not. Regarding Nan's criticism of Falun Gong, I just mean that it is not mentioned in either Ownby or Palmer. I will check the Sima Nan article to follow up. I would wonder about how notable his criticism of Falun Gong could be if it did not appear in these major sources, though. As you say, it may indeed be that the content was not controversial, but academic integrity is important and Misplaced Pages ought to respect that principle to the utmost.--TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with reinserting that material which appears to be unsupported by good sources. As far as I understand, the lead is to introduce and present a general overview of the subject and its salient points. That would mean obviously undisputed points. This inclusion does not have a source, and does not seem to reflect a general summary of the subject usually found in quality secondary and tertiary sources. Lionel Jensen's entry in the "Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture" may be useful as a benchmark for how a professional encyclopedia deals with this subject. I have to step out now, but there were other issues. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 17:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your enthusiasm in editing the article. Falun Gong's two most vocal opponents were Sima Nan and He Zuoxiu. Even if Sima does not appear in Palmer or Ownby (although I'm fairly certain it does) it warrants inclusion. The fact that Falun Gong attacked and harassed its critics before '99 is a well-known fact supported by numerous sources. In any case I am terribly fatigued from editing these articles and combing through propaganda on both sides. I trust that you will make it into something better and that your enthusiasm will not go to waste. A word of caution that editing this article will certainly increase your wiki-stress, just be prepared. Colipon+(Talk) 17:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Some material you should read, TheSound, before you go on editing, is this page and this page. In addition, another FLG-advocate banned user is back after his 6-month sanction expired. Wish you all the best. Colipon+(Talk) 00:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your friendly note. The links you sent are eye-openers. It is clearly a subject that arouses emotions and has the potential to polarise debate. The first link you provided seems to explain why, a couple of years ago when I visited the page briefly, it read something like a Falun Gong pamphlet. I suppose it's natural for situations like that to evolve on Misplaced Pages. I am still in the midst of discussing how to include some potentially "controversial" information about the role of sado-masochism in Michel Foucault's life and work; from this I can see how proponents of the subjects of articles may want certain issues brushed aside. I am pleased to see the inclusion in the current article of Falun Gong's more seemingly eccentric beliefs. Progress toward open engagement with those issues has obviously been made. For my part, I do not want to get involved in any polemics on this subject. I was reading the article and began checking the references, and noticed the irregularities. I haven't finished going through them, and will just do a bit each day. Below are some more findings and explanation of changes. If this meticulous approach is not welcomed, I guess I'll take my business elsewhere and let the polemicists battle it out.

Regarding Nan's criticism of Falun Gong, I did check both Palmer and Ownby and it is not noted. As I say, they do note his criticism of qigong, however, and the violent repercussions toward him because of it. The articles linked from the Nan page are interesting, but if his criticism of Falun Gong specifically has not been noted by major scholars, I'm not sure how notable it can be said to be. The articles linked on that page are friendly to Nan, but those I checked are a bit vague on the details of the criticism itself. At the least, his early FLG criticism seems to have gone under the radar, while those news items appear situated in the post July 20, 1999 context. Perhaps it would do to note it more briefly. The Buddhist criticism of Falun Gong, on the other hand, seems to have legs. Benjamin Penny devotes an article to it, and Palmer a miniature sub-section. It was presented inaccurately in the article though. This took quite some time to sift through. Below are my changes for that and other aspects (I am about to make them).

• The sentence "In its January 1998 meeting, China's Buddhist Association compared it to dangerous sects like Aum Shinrikyo and calling it xiejiao" is cited to Clemens Stubbe Ostergaard, who refers to a footnote. The footnote (p. 224) says in part: "A strong and elaborated condemnation, comparing the Falun Gong to the Solar Temple Order and Aum Shinrikyo, and using the dreaded expression xiejiao (twisted learning, heretical sect), came as early as the January 1998 meeting of the China Buddhist Association." I checked this against two other sources, Penny and Palmer. Ostergaard is explicitly contradicted by the former, and implicitly by the latter. Let me explain. Penny (2005, p. 37): "One major contrast with the post-July 1999 critiques is the absence, in this article, of the term xiejiao... Rather than describing Falun Gong as a xiejiao, the term waidao is used in the title of this article." Further, according to Penny, Falun Gong was not compared to modern cults as Ostergaard claims. (Penny 2005, p. 37): "The category mixin as it occurs in the discourse of the Party-state whether collocated with minjian, as in this example, or with its common qualifier fengjian -- feudal -- or alone, is one that immediately engenders suspicion and condemnation. In other words, whereas in the post-suppression period Falun Gong is seem as comparable to Heaven's Gate, the Solar Temple, and Aum Shinrikyo and needing to be crushed as a danger to society, here, in early 1998, it is a Buddhist heresy best understood in Chinese historical terms." I also checked Palmer (p. 262-263). He notes Buddhist criticism of Falun Gong, but says the same thing as Penny, and does not say that the Buddhists compared Falun Gong to Aum Shinrikyo. Further, both Penny and Palmer say that in January of 1998 Falun Gong was discussed in a meeting. Then in March, the polemic appeared in print. What Penny and Palmer refer to above is the print article, which was from March. Ostergaard refers to a "strong and elaborated condemnation" in January. He seems to have confused the issue. The reason I believe Penny and Palmer have got it right, and Ostergaard wrong, is that both of them refer to primary sources that they have translated themselves. Further, Penny's whole article is on the Falun Gong/Buddhism criticism and counter-criticism. Ostergaard does not cite the source of the footnote. As a side note, Ostergaard's book chapter does not appear to have been cited by his peers, and when I asked David Ownby he said he had not heard of either Ostergaard or the chapter. Yet his chapter is the most frequently cited item on this page. In any case, for the Buddhist criticism I have moved Ostergaard's interpretation to a footnote, as standard in academic practice for noting discrepancies, and recast the criticism in the terms found in Palmer and Penny. I have also briefly noted the response of Falun Gong practitioners.
• The sentence: "In response, founder Li Hongzhi called on disciples to "defend the Fa" by lobbying media outlets and government officials to censor content critical of Falun Gong" is referenced to Palmer (p. 249). However, Palmer reports the response of FLG practitioners as: "Thousands of Falungong followers wrote to the Guangming Daily and to the CQRS to complain against these measures , claiming that they violated Hu Yaobang's 1982 'Triple No' directive." I do not know where this came from, but I have simply replaced it with a paraphrase of what that citation points to.
• "Zuoxiu was unable to get any critical article published, and he wrote to the Party head Jiang Zemin in vain." This is referenced to p. 215 of the Ostergaard text, but there's nothing about this on p. 215. I'm not sure who inserted that, but maybe they would know the source of this claim.
• I included what I consider an insightful point made by Patricia Thornton on the idea of a "boomerang effect," where when these oppressed groups make an attempt to enter the realm of public debate, if they do not cross their t's and dot their i's, it can end up working against them in some quarters.

One final thing is, one editor made two edits that removed information that had recently been added, and also added back the information I removed--removed after showing how it did not correspond to the citations. But that user made no discussion here, so I don't understand this dynamic. The material I removed was clearly not consistent with the stated source. And the material added appears to have been to good sources. I think an explanation would be appropriate. I left a note on that user's discussion page. I find it odd, but I'm not stressed... yet! --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 16:26, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Good work. I think Oostergard provides an 'alternative narrative'. Having lived through this era of Falun Gong before the gov't crackdown in China, in many cases I am much more inclined to agree with Oostergard's observations. Of course, this is just my subjective judgment. But I do feel that giving Palmer and Ownby primacy may be misguided and does not give the whole picture. But I am confident in your work in balancing sources, as you seem to be doing a commendable job sifting through this mess. Just a small note. Please remember that Chinese surnames precede the given name. I.e. Sima is the surname of Sima Nan, not Nan, and He Zuoxiu's surname is He. Please just make a note of this when editing the article as to not make it appear unprofessional. The user you are dealing with, in my experiences, is a practitioner-editor who has been one of the most vocal proponents of Falun Gong. He was banned for six months and now have returned, and, having been subject to his insults and rudeness in Falun Gong discussions in the past, I cannot forsee myself getting involved much again in this article should his presence here continue. As I am busy in life I am not about to enter any wiki-drama again. Best wishes. Colipon+(Talk) 21:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Colipon. Hope your winter was pleasant. I suppose TheSoundAndTheFury was talking about PCPP; the last time I checked, he still wasn't a vocal proponent of Falun Gong. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 01:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

TheSoundAndTheFury, good job! And Olaf, chucklechuckle, nice to see you back...last time I checked, you haven't done anything during your ban from FLG articles, but...Im sure you'll enjoy your time here as a silent opponent of FLG...--Edward130603 (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Colipon, thank you for your note on Chinese names. I do not know why I thought that Sima Nan's last name was Nan; that is slightly embarrassing. I said I would continue to comb the citations, and here are some more findings and explanations for some edits that I will make in a moment.

• Tianjin: One point I have noted is how the Tianjin demonstration is treated here, and how it is treated in a few commonly cited sources. I put forward the view that the information presented on this page should broadly conform to the sources available. Here are three explanations of that incident. Note that currently it says: "The Tianjin party and government authorities did not respond favourably, police were dispatched and practitioners were beaten and arrested." This is referenced to Schechter.
  • Schechter wrote (p. 69): "Riot police were dispatched to the scene, where they beat demonstrators and arrested fourty-five people."
  • In Ownby (p. 171) it's "The response of the authorities was to call in the riot police, who reportedly beat an undetermined number of practitioners and arrested 45."
  • In Palmer (p. 267) it's "Three hundred riot police were dispatched to disperse the demonstration. Some Falungong followers were beaten, and forty-five were arrested. Hundreds then marched to the munipical government to demand their liberation."
  • Since that's two commonly cited sources talking about riot police (even a specific number of them), it's probably an accurate assessment. I have updated the article to reflect this, also noting one more point that is to be found in a variety of sources: That after the alleged beating/arrest, the practitioners went to the municipal government in Tianjin and were told they had to go to Beijing to deal with the issue. (Palmer, p. 267; Schechter, p. 69; Ownby, p. 171) This makes the segue from Tianjin to Beijing a bit clearer, too.

• He Zuoxiu: The other item I noticed was how He Zuoxiu's polemic was explained. My edit of this is an attempt to make what Misplaced Pages says more closely resemble what mainstream sources say. In my understanding, this is the requirement of the neutral point of view policy, in particular the "due weight" clause.
  • Ownby (p. 169) "According to Falun Gong practitioners who watched the program, the cases that He cited as evidence of the dangers of Falun Gong were erroneous; the people who had been supposedly harmed were not even Falun Gong practitioners, they said." Then on p. 171: "The events which immediately preceded 25 April, which constituted the spark which lit the fuse of the larger demonstration, were completely consis tent with the history of Falun Gong reactions to perceived media misrepre sentation. He Zuoxiu was once again at the heart of the controversy, having published an article on 11 April 1999 in the Tianjin Normal University's Young Reader magazine, in which he argued that young people should not practice qigong, illustrating his case with the same examples he had used in his tele vision interview in May 1998, which had sparked the important Falun Gong demonstration at the television station. He also compared Falun Gong prac titioners to the ignorant and superstitious Boxers and denounced Falun Gong for recruiting children in primary school playgrounds. As many as 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners protested the publication of the article and made their discontent known both at the university and at the Tianjin municipal offices. The response of the authorities was to call in the riot police..."
  • Schechter says (p. 69): "It began as a media protest... against what they considered an inaccurate, even slanderous, attack on Falun Gong, launched by He Zuoxiu... One of his denunciations took the form of an essay, "Why I am Opposed to Qigong Practice by Teenagers," which appeared in the Teenage Science-Technology Outlook, a state-sponsored magazine. In the shrt piece, he challenged Falun Gong's claims of being scientific and reported that a "post graduate in my institute had two relapses of mental disorder after he practiced Falun Gong." This article was one of several he wrote critiquing Falun Gong... Falun Gong practitioners believed that He Zuoxiu had unfairly maligned their spiritual practice with the first magazine article. According to one supporter, when the magazine would not agree to carry a response, practitioners gathered at the editorial offices in Tianjin. By April 22, several days later, their numbers had grown to a few thousand. Riot police were dispatched..."
  • Palmer says (p. 267) "A week earlier an article by He Zuoxiu had appeared in an obscure student magazine of Tianjin Normal University in which he attacked Li Hongzhi and compared Falungong to the Boxer rebellion, which could bring ruin to the country. He criticised the recruitment of children in primary school playgrounds by Falungong practitioners, and claimed that the mental states provoked by Falungong meditation could cause psychiatric illness. Within hours of the magazine's release more than a hundred messages were posted about it on a Falungong online bulletin board service, discussing how to respond. The article was seen as highly offensive by Falungong practitioners, who gathered to protest in meditation posture around the university administrative building. According to Falungong sources, the magazine editors initially agreed to publish a correction, but then suddenly changed their attitude and refused to do so. The number of demonstrators grew day by day, as the magazine editor refused to comply with their demand to recall the magazine from circulation, to publish official apologies, and to ban any reproduction of the article by others."
  • My conclusions from this is that 1) All sources give both the Falun Gong and skeptic/critic view. In Ownby it's that the cases cited (the same claimed Falun Gong cases were cited in the Beijing Television broadcast and the Tianjin publication) were claimed by Falun Gong to be "erroneous," and in Schechter and Palmer it's "inaccurate, even slanderous," "unfairly maligned their spiritual practice" and "highly offensive" respectively. 2) The page does not currently state that the cases cited by He were claimed by Falun Gong not to be Falun Gong members. 3) The part about "the magazine editors initially agreed to publish a correction, but then suddenly changed their attitude and refused to do so" is quite interesting, and corresponds with Ownby's analysis on pp. 168-171.

• Sima Nan: I believe that, similarly to Tianjin and He Zuoxiu, this incident should be reported in more-or-less the same way that it is repeated in the sources available. After looking at the (quite revealing) sources linked from the Sima Nan page, it is clear that Sima Nan's input into criticism of Falun Gong is most notable as a post-July 20 artefact. As he notes, his early criticism of Falun Gong did not make waves in China (nor did it, as mentioned above, in the annals of scholar's notes of early criticism of Falun Gong). So I think it would be most appropriate to include Sima Nan's criticism in that context, that is, post-July 20. To provide the context for this I have drawn on James Tong's recent text, along with that of Xing Lu. This clarifies the importance for the authorities to have posited "good" science and Marxist-Leninist Thought against "evil" religion and superstition. Sima's role in the post-July 20 context appears to be along these lines, as illustrated in the sources to be found on that page. Clearly he did not support the suppression, as cited in those sources; but it is merely that his notability corresponds to both that period of time and the rhetoric of "Uphold science, eradicate superstition." So I believe that's where a note on Sima's criticism is most appropriate, and I have put it there.

• Also, I forgot to append Ostergaard's divergent view of the Buddhist criticism in the footnote. I will do that.

I may list some other changes that I think would be appropriate for this page at a later time. I am finding this level of source scrutiny and meticulousness a good intellectual challenge; getting down to these details is what good scholarship is all about. It is also mentally taxing, so I will take a short break from this page after these edits. First, I will reiterate some elements in the page that currently need to be verified:

• "Some 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners invaded His house, and then they gathered every day at the station during two months..."; prima facie this looks like a mistake, because 2,000 people could not possibly "invade" a person's house (the meaning of "invade" is also unclear here. Does it mean "enter by force"? That's what I take it to mean.) That particular line has no source. The next line is sourced to the Human Rights Watch report, and again p. 215 of Ostergaard. I have tagged that line for a source. Further, I removed the scare quotes from the word "slandered." They appear to be used here not in quotation form but in ironic way, which seems inappropriate.
• "As a result, He Zuoxiu was unable to publish articles critical of Falun Gong, and he wrote to the Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin in vain." This is again cited to p. 215 of Ostergaard, but does not appear there. I have put a quote request tag on it. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 16:55, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Your meticulous work in this area is quite admirable! I agree with the majority of points you raised. What I am really interested to find out now is the background of Mr. Schechter and Mr. Oostergaard. I know Schechter already has his own Misplaced Pages article. We had a discussion over at Tiananmen Self-Immolation, if I remember correctly, and came to the consensus that Schechter's source should only be used when proper attributions are given and with due weight. Having read Schechter's book on Falun Gong, I can't say it comes off as a neutral account, nor is it really academic like Palmer and Ownby. I am less familiar with Oostergaard, but his works seem relatively fitting and more believable than Schechter. If we only rely upon Ownby and Palmer, then we limit this article essentially to a paraphrased account of those two people alone, with any divergent views, for or against Falun Gong, given minimal weight. That is my biggest concern right now. If it were easier I would search for non-aligned Chinese sources as well to balance out the very "Western" narrative, but given the nature of Chinese journalism and how it is prone to bias, this has proven difficult. This is why I had asked for the inclusion of Sima Nan, who seems to provide a leading voice in the pre-7-20 critiques of Falun Gong; As such, I also disagree that he should only be included in the post-7-20 setting, simply because Sima often makes a point in his interviews to show that his criticism of Falun Gong has little to do with support for the Chinese government and more to do with his dislike for charlatans and people who claim supernatural powers. Sima also remarked that he thought the Chinese government's suppression of the movement had gone too far. Sima is mainly known in China as a 'debunker' of the supernatural. Once admins address the issue of SPAs and consistent abuse on this article, I will be happy to come back and collaborate with you to finish this gargantuan task. Colipon+(Talk) 22:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You've raised a number of important issues, so forgive me if my response is slightly complex or overly long. I am enjoying this discussion. I agree that the background of these individuals is relevant, and also agree with some degree of circumspection in using a source like Schechter. He wears a pro-Falun Gong bias on his sleeve (and now that I have read the full Ostergaard piece, the same could be said in the opposite direction). I think it is easy to deal with. Readers want a mainstream, informative, and accurate account of this phenomenon, not one that is tainted with ideological-political biases. Both writers put a "spin" on their assessments, which is clear in how information is used, how it is presented, which facts are emphasised, which left out, the tone used, and so on. In disputed cases, we should consult the widest number of sources, and as far as possible take a look at the source that they use. For example, with the Penny/Palmer/Ostergaard issue above, I checked all sources available and noted what each had said, and where they had obtained their information. It became clear that Ostergaard was mistaken in his comment, so his view was shunted to a footnote and the more mainstream scholarship given greater prominence. One common factor in assessing the "mainstreamness" of a source is often how much it has been cited: to some extent this shows the influence of that source and acknowledgement of it among peers. There is certainly a time differential in the Ostergaard/Schechter studies, but whatever the case, the former yields three citations, none to scholars writing about Falun Gong, while the latter is cited 26 times.

Though not an academic text, Schechter's has been an influential one. (In light of that, I must admit that it is unclear why Ostergaard's analysis is the most cited on the page; he obviously presents an "alternative" narrative, as you rightly point out, but the way he is used does not appear to reflect this.) In most cases, however, this should not be overly significant. We should present facts, as far as possible, and keeps things clear of spin. When Schechter gives his cosy opinion of Falun Gong, it can be made clear that it's his opinion, and if it's shown to be wrong by other sources, it can be excluded or moved to a footnote. This is standard practice. That this page would represent a largely Western narrative is perfectly natural, and exactly what a mainstream, English language Encyclopedia should provide. The overwhelming majority of all the factual information is available in multiple sources, is largely undisputed, and often it seems that the only thing that differs are matters of interpretation. When matters of fact differ, all major views should be noted. In constructing the central narrative, we should look at how mainstream sources construct the central narrative. The points of differing interpretation are largely footnotes to the facts, rather than prisms through which facts (I do not mean "truths") are presented.

A good example is the line in this document that says "For Palmer, the Tianjin protest was another sign of Falun Gong's "militancy"; for Gutmann, it was because "refuting lies" is a central part of Falun Gong's moral system." First we are given what happened, then a note on what it means according to X and Y. As regards Sima Nan, whatever the case about his criticism of Falun Gong, it seems clear that it received notability only in the post-7/20 context; in the major sources his criticism is not noted at all. If there was no 7/20, perhaps he would not have made a splash. Whatever the case, we can only go with what we have. I do not think we should re-present information in secondary sources much outside the discursive frame in which it was presented in those sources; dealing with primary sources requires greater care. That would leave the door open to hard-to-resolve disputes, because who is to say in which context certain things be framed? It is better to keep to the sources themselves in providing the frame. I believe that existing Misplaced Pages policy already clarifies how to manage these issues, and that broadly speaking they are the requirements of any unbiased scholarship. I have another thought after reading the neutral point of view policy page again, outlined below. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Another point I will change in a moment relates to the "controversies" section. I think that the way it is structured now gives too much prominence to the views which "advocate" Falun Gong's way, in how those remarks have been given their own subsection. I believe that information should be integrated into the Controversies, because they are really just part of the controversies. According to the policy on Article Structure, this is advisable, too: "Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents." So I will integrate the text. If there is a problem with this, please advise. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 04:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I made those changes. Along the way I deleted several pieces of gushing praise for the group that didn't seem appropriate for an encyclopedic treatment of the subject (like: "there could be no gentler religion than the Falun Gong" and "practitioners he met in China emanated a "sense of calm and generosity"" etc.). If this was mistaken, and those remarks have some utility, then consider restoring them and perhaps explaining why. I also found that a few things were incorrectly attributed, and corrected one of them. That was the phrase "Falun Gong claims these are smears planted by the Chinese government," which didn't really reflect what was actually said in that source. I changed it to: "A Falun Gong practitioner said these views were held by "people who don’t understand Falun Gong and the propaganda from the Chinese government."" which seems more in line with what actually appeared there. This is beyond the question of whether such articles are appropriate sources for this. I also wonder whether this comment: "Falun Dafa Information Center claims, without substantiation, that journalists picked up on Li's remarks upon the prompting of Chinese state media, but confirms that "Falun Gong’s founder mentioned the issue."" is an accurate representation of the views of the Falun Dafa Information Center on that issue. I took a brief look at the page, and I think their view could be better represented. Another day, perhaps. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 04:39, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I am in agreement for the most part. I cannot give a lengthy reply as I am quite busy, but it seems like you are working towards NPOV in a very diligent and dedicated fashion. When I have more time I will look more into sourcing myself, but I will message you if I do. Colipon+(Talk) 04:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, another source you can look into is Human Rights Watch. Even though you'd expect a human rights organization to produce reports that are extremely sympathetic to Falun Gong, the report by HRW was surprisingly balanced - rejecting many Falun Gong claims while also calling on the Chinese government to stop its abuses. Colipon+(Talk) 05:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

PCPP's disruptive edits

I have started an RfC on this user's conduct. He has now again restored and deleted content that is going through tedious discussion above, even after being reverted. This kind of behaviour should not fly. More details are in the RfC. --Asdfg12345 01:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't raise the issue here if this were an isolated incident. I see that it is not exactly Falun Gong related pages alone that the user targets but material pertinent to human rights violations by the CCP. Here, for instance, the user blanks 12 paragraphs of well sourced and centrally relevant content with a sneaky comment "rv pov material." Here, again with no edit summary or talk comments, a paragraph disappears: . And in this edit dated March 1st, several paragraphs are blanked with a similar comment - "pov cleanup." I believe this edit/blanking would need more explanation than a "questionable sources removed" comment - and, hence, am restoring the content.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I seek explanation for the following three edits:

• was named "moved burgdoff comment"; the edit, while moving the Burgdoff comment, also reduced it, and deleted this: "Falun Gong claims that the Chinese government's crackdown against the group has resulted in torture; genocide; violation of the right to life; violation of the right of liberty and security of the person; arbitrary arrest and imprisonment; violation of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and conspiracy to commit violations of civil rights within the United States." I note that the source was the Columbia Journal of Asian Law. I would like to know why this was deleted. I would also like to know why the edit summary only said "moved burgdoff comment," when it was more than moving the Burgdoff comment. Part of the Burgdoff quote was also deleted: "Falun Gong practitioners, like most people who participate in a religious tradition, freely pick and choose from the official teachings according to their individual inclinations... for most practitioners Falun Gong is fundamentally about individual ethical development."" If it was felt necessary to delete these two quotes, an explanation as to why would be appropriate. I would still like an explanation.
• changed several items of terminology as they were stated in the source. For example, "propaganda" became "statements by the Chinese government" and "the regime" became "the Chinese government." In neither case did the source say "statements by the Chinese government" or "the Chinese government." The source stated "propaganda" and "the regime." I would like to know why those words were changed. In the same edit, Sima Nan was changed from "a hot commodity" and "establishment darling" to a "prominent cult critic." I would also like to know why those terms were changed.
• I think this is good, expanding on the issue and presenting the relevant views in a fuller way.

I assume the three edits were made by PCPP. I would appreciate an explanation of the changes in terminology and the deletions of some parts of the text. Thank you. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 14:24, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The second point on the list is easily explained and justified; you guys don't know how to quote. If indeed that is the word-choice of the source, then such word-choice must be in "". If it isn't, it can and should be changed to neutral terminology. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 14:52, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

• Do you mean that the words "propaganda" and "regime" are not neutral, and should be placed in scare quotes on Misplaced Pages? --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 15:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
  • "regime" is definitely not neutral. What I mean is that when there is a passage that could be considered controversial, it is always better to quote directly rather than re-phrase and run the risk of having people understand that these are the words you chose as an editor. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 17:12, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
    • Its quite obvious to see that propaganda and regime are indeed not neutral, Sound/Fury. What do you think when I say: The United States Regime is currently using propaganda. Note the negative connotations both words have.--Edward130603 (talk) 20:17, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
      • Just a short remark that the scholar who used these terms is James Tong. You can see his information here:. He is not a biased scholar or a China basher. I do not believe these terms are biased in this context; they are regularly used in academic studies to refer to the Chinese Communist Party and its media activities. U.S. propaganda is referred to as U.S. propaganda without needing to be put in quotes; see Chomsky's work, for example. These words are quite regularly used. For now allow me to do three things: the first is that I will undo the changes, because they were not explained, retaining the information that was added, but restoring the language that was used according to the sources. Next, I will put in quotes the parts that refer to "regime" and "propaganda." Finally, I will make a notice on the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard to check with the wider Misplaced Pages community on whether these terms are biased or not. My view is that because they are commonly used by China scholars, we should not seek to enforce our version of orthodoxy over the terminology. These people have worked in the field for decades and are the experts. Generally speaking, they should be more qualified to judge what the neutrality of bias of certain terms than we are. That is just my opinion. I will be interested to see what is the view of the wider community on this. It does raise an interesting point, though. I have another concept for minor improvement that I will outline in a moment. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I left a remark above asking for the sources for certain comments attributed to Ostergaard. I checked the pages referenced and could not find the material cited. As I brought one of those up twice, and several days ago, I think it is fair that the information now be removed until a source be found. I will make an edit to do that. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

A) The Burgdoff comment was placed right under Kavan's criticism of FLG, and is used in a sense to dismiss Kavan's claims. I've placed it in a more appropriate section with other comments more supportive of FLG. The FLG statement itself is a pointless addition used as a rhetoric, when in fact FLG's position has already been made in the introduction and leading paragraphs. The quote is excessive and the previous sentence already outlined his position

B) Per words to avoid, these terminology carries negative connections, and should be replaced or rephrased with more neutral words, unless they're actually quoted from the source.

C) Ditto --PCPP (talk) 05:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation. I find the changes in "A" fairly reasonable. Regarding B and C, the words "propaganda" or "regime" don't appear among the words to avoid. That mostly appears to be reserved for other issues. I left a note on the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard, and the message I get is that these words do not need to be strictly placed inside quotation marks whenever they appear, but they should not appear in the Misplaced Pages voice, and should be cited with a source attributed. I believe the section in question cites the relevant sources, and uses terms like "writes X" and "according to Y" when appropriate.--TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Questions by Olaf

I have some questions about the page in its current form:

• Why is there no subsection on the persecution? It would clearly seem appropriate and in line with Misplaced Pages convention and policy.
• Where does the word "proselytize" appear in the sources cited for the use of that term in the lead? What is the meaning of "Falun Gong groups have since moved abroad"?
• Can the claim "Western academics generally describe Falun Gong as a new religious movement" be substantiated?
• Why is the alleged self-immolation incident placed in "Continued protests and statewide suppression" rather than "Media campaign"?
• Why does the lead suggest that the 'persecution' is a series of claims by Falun Gong practitioners and not verified or discussed by third parties?

Thanks! ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 13:32, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

None of these piddling issues make any sense unless you're trying to massage FG's public image, Olaph. Remember where such massaging has put you in the past and back off. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 16:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Please answer my points in detail. They all make a lot of sense. Past breaches of the civility policy - if we want to put it that way - do not invalidate my arguments. I will keep insisting that all relevant points of view are covered with due weight, and that the entire article is transparent and verifiable. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 16:25, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

• Actually, I considered that some of these are quite reasonable, and I was quietly wondering about one or two of them myself. At least, these are some ideas to work off. I will make a few changes and write why here, and others can share their views. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 23:11, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the changes, I made the two of them that seemed most immediately sensible: that is, to make the "persecution" its own subsection, and link out to the main article. I have found that this is quite common with Misplaced Pages articles, and makes sense; there is a policy called "summary style" that I read the other day. After reading this page a couple of times, I was wondering why there was no section on the persecution. This also seems to add a more harmonious balance, since "History" otherwise had seven subsections! The only other change was the Tiananmen immolation incident, I moved that up as suggested. Whether the protesters were members of the Falun Gong or not, I suppose will never be known, but it's well-known, and not very controversial that it was a media artefact. Rather than presuppose it was a protest by placing it in the protest section, I think it safer to set it in the "Media" section and let readers make up their mind. I have a few other ideas for improvement that I will seek input on later. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 00:03, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, TheSoundAndTheFury. It's good to have some new blood around. I recommend you take a look at the long and winding history of disputes on these pages. Mrund's seemingly abusive comment can only be understood in that context. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 00:04, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Abusive?--Edward130603 (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

One small item: the source cited for this statement "Within the first month of the crackdown, 300-400 articles attacking Falun Gong appeared in each of the main state-run papers, while primetime television replayed alleged exposés on the group, with no divergent views aired in the media." is actually a Falun Gong member. I looked up his profile and he has published several articles extolling Falun Gong online. I wonder whether using this as a source is appropriate. On the other hand, what he says is probably not disputed either. This may be a grey area.

Olaf, I have read some of the conflict surrounding this. It's too banal to read too much. You are no angel yourself, from what I can tell. I think our focus now should be on energetic discussion of the article rather than derogatory or other remarks about individuals. Misplaced Pages seems to have a latent tendency for the latter, whereas we should strive for the former. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 00:10, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Things got a little heated in the past, I know that. But let me assure you that I am committed to making this a featured article. If all editors truly respect Misplaced Pages's core policies, a cooperative environment will naturally flourish. (One friendly note: talking about Falun Gong 'members' implies that the practitioners would have formally joined the movement, which is not the case, as there is no official membership.) ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 00:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Yep, unofficial membership still counts.--Edward130603 (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I have renamed the "The 'cult' label" section to "Categorisation" and rewritten some parts of it. My reasons for doing so are to allow the debate to be more inclusive and broader. I have also noted some of the previous discussion above which appears to demonstrate how that label does not have currency among scholars dealing with Falun Gong (Ownby's also gives this impression). Rather than having a section devoted to debating something that is only one part of the wider issue of how Falun Gong is to be categorised, I thought it would be wise to simply expand the potential of that section. The variety of ways that Falun Gong has been categorised would then have a chance to be discussed. It is also an attempt to get away from the CCP/Falun Gong polemics of "cult/not-cult," and perhaps provide a more informed and meaningful discussion to the reader, rather than only directly competing views. Different things can be true at the same time. I was somewhat inspired by the essay on being bold:; so I decided to try my hand. I would be very pleased to discuss how this section could be improved further, or to know if I have made a grave error. Olaf Stephanos, thank you for the note on "practitioners," I will consider adopting this term (I concede that Ownby and Tong seem to). Might you be too sensitive with regard to the word "proseltyzing," though? It may not have a specific source, but is this not what Falun Gong practitioners do? --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

TheSoundAndTheFury, you go to great lengths to prove out a doctrinal issue above, about whether and precisely how the Buddhist Association criticised Falun Gong in this or that way, but when it comes to a contentious word that has no source you are a bit more blase? It also doesn't matter if it's true (I assume Falun Gong practitioners would dispute it; they would probably argue that they are attempting to raise awareness of the persecution rather than promote their belief system. And, indeed, their intentions should surely one of the defining factors in how their behaviour should be characterised)-- but it still needs a source. Further, even if it has one source, that doesn't mean it's common or should be in the lead. Same for "generally describe as an NRM." Needs a source, or a long list of academics that call Falun Gong an NRM. Putting this all in the section categorising Falun Gong, as you have done, makes sense though. I would just suggest maintaining high sourcing standards on all fronts. In fact, there was already a lead before Colipon unilaterally rewrote it into this. Please take a look. It's also ironic to note that Colipon having a problem with an unsourced statement of "many academics" is fine, but Olaf having that problem is a "piddling issue." I can only sigh. --Asdfg12345 07:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Moving on from minor language issues, I noticed that an important section was missing: the coercive measures that have been applied to the Falun Gong flock in China to have them recant their beliefs. James Tong, among others, provides an in-depth analysis of it, with some remarks about the veracity of the information. I considered all this appropriate, and introduced a condensed version of the chief claims. I also moved some of the other paragraphs in that section around in an attempt to get a better sequence of information. There are many other reports on all these aspects, but Tong seems to transmit the principle elements. Better to get to the point quickly with something like this. The other change I made was to delineate "Inside China" and "Outside China" in the Organisation section; it seemed an obvious division. Then there was just putting the word "reportedly" about a death in custody. --TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

In light of the section I introduced, I had another thought. It is not touched on explicitly in the article - and I do not know that there are sources for this - but it may be relevant to show how the Falun Gong denominations outside China have incorporated those reports of abuse into their public representations as a persecuted group. The issue of how the persecution has been taken up to create positive representation for Falun Gong, and the rhetorical strategies at play behind that, would be interesting for a reader new to the subject.--TheSoundAndTheFury (talk) 03:14, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with TheSoundAndTheFury on both coercive measures and Falun Gong's 'use' of these reports. Human Rights Watch chronicles this as well, in addition to James Tong, who is a good source. Colipon+(Talk) 03:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Resistance

What was the policy based reasoning behind using the word 'Resistance' as a section heading to describe Falun Gong's response to the actions of the gov of China ? This strikes me as an unusual approach in a wiki article. We don't normally accept one sides narrative and label things as resistance do we ? I'm thinking of other situations where an organization has been declared illegal by one or more governments and 'resists' according to their own narrative e.g. many terrorist groups. Would 'Response' be more neutral ? Sean.hoyland - talk 03:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't comment on the rationale, but the term has some support from the sources at least (just did some quick searching). Sorry for the messy referencing, just want to make this post quickly and do other stuff.

Beijing v. falun gong 01/26/2001 The Globe and Mail

Since the ban was issued in July, 1999, falun gong has kept up an underground campaign of resistance. Some followers have used the Internet to distribute messages protesting against the ban and trumpeting the virtues of their movement, which preaches ethical living and good health through meditation and breathing exercises.

Bowing Low to China By Tunku Varadarajan 03/27/2001The Wall Street Journal

The young Murdoch -- a college dropout, now CEO of his father's Hong Kong-based Star TV company -- gave an impressive, almost balletic, performance of the genuflectory arts last week at the Milken Institute. In words that astonished those gathered for the institute's annual business conference, James Murdoch, all of 28 years, lit into the Falun Gong religious resistance movement in China, describing it as a "dangerous" and "apocalyptic cult," which "clearly does not have the success of China at heart."

REVOLUTION OF THE WHEEL - THE FALUN GONG IN CHINA AND IN EXILE A report derived from the CIPU China Country Assessment

It leads one academic source to state that he wishes to examine Falun Gong in terms of a religious movement: that the "fanaticism" of practitioners is a resilient and resisting expression of faith inherent to the type of movement. "Its public expression reflects the urban and text based nature of the movement, which more or less prescribes this form of visible resistance.

The Falun Gong, Religious and political implications Julia Ching American Asian Review; Winter 2001; 19, 4; Academic Research Library

In sum, Falun Gong represents not only a mass revolt against governmental control in the PRC, but also a resistance "with Chinese characteristics" against the dominant Western mode of "religious freedom." The Falun Gong debate calls into question international standards and the human-rights based ideology. Until the tension between religious belief and its manifestation can be satisfactorily resolved, we will continue to witness state manipulation of freedom of religion in order to subvert religious groups.

I think the term is explanatory, since it is a response of resistance. Could be wrong. --Asdfg12345 03:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't respond on the resistance issue because I wasn't quite sure how to respond. A search for the term resistance in sources will find the term resistance in those sources. Those same sources will use other terms in addition to the term resistance to describe the actions of Falun Gong such as popular dissent, protests, martyrdom, forbearance, demonstrations, orchestrated media events to use some terms from the CIPU China Country Assessment as an example. An objective reason for sampling the term resistance from this set of terms and related terms like response isn't clear. At face value it looks non-neutral. It looks like Misplaced Pages's narrative voice taking sides in a political dispute. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:56, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how "resistance" is taking sides in a political dispute. Is it disputed that they are resisting the persecution? Does that give them undue credit for their efforts? I don't understand how resistance is slanted one way or another. My only issue with "response" is that it's a little bland. But maybe it's better. PCPP, regarding the sub-section, the PAGE is called "Persecution of Falun Gong." If you want to get that changed, you'll have to worry about that separately. Until that's changed, there's no sense going around everywhere else inserting euphemisms. This is more a technical issue than a content/judgement issue. The page is called that, so basically there's no reason the subsection should not be called that. --Asdfg12345 04:31, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, the source cited for the sentence "Within the first month of the crackdown, 300-400 articles attacking Falun Gong appeared in each of the main state-run papers..." decidedly uses the term "persecution" rather than "crackdown." It's fine to make sure the terminology accords with the source, as you did in the Amnesty case. But changing it from what the source said is not okay. I'm going to tell that other who changed it earlier. --Asdfg12345 04:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Without an objective reason for sampling the term resistance from a set of all terms that sources (including the Chinese government) use to describe the actions of the movement there is no reason to consider this term anymore suitable than other terms. In that statistical sense, the term is highly disputed because it is one of many. The term resistance, as the Wiki article about resistance movements correctly points out, is generally used to designate something that is considered legitimate from the speaker's point of view. It's not a neutral term by any means. Bland terms are better simply because this is an encyclopedia. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree with Sean.hoyland's assessment on this. If there is a general idea that the term 'resistance' connotes legitimacy to the Falun Gong's efforts, where the body of reliable sources do not, then the term would be a breach of neutrality.

But I must then pose the rejoinder: if it could be shown that the Falun Gong's efforts in China are seen as legitimate by many reliable sources, then would the term be appropriate? I'm not about to spend time on finding that out, but as an intellectual exercise I am curious about whether it swings both ways. The secondary question is what would count as 'enough sources' to be able to assert that the Falun Gong's efforts were seen in this or that way. But it may be easier to just go with 'response.' The Sound and the Fury (talk) 09:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, some recent news here. I'd suggest this is relevant for the page. --Asdfg12345 05:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Subheading 'persecution' or 'statewide suppression'

I added a source for the 'most persecuted' statement. I have left the other changes except one, because this isn't a subject I want to get into. I notice above that nothing was said in response to Asdfg12345's list of sources which use the term 'resistance'. The only other change I made was to rename the subheading 'persecution'. After looking at the background and RfC of the user who changed it, and noting there is an article titled 'Persecution of Falun Gong', I don't expect this to be problematic. If the individual in question disputes 'persecution' as a subheading, he or she should note such below. Zujine (talk) 12:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The section was called "statewide suppression" until recently . The "persecution" label itself was subject to a lengthy AFD debate with no consensus --PCPP (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Briefly, my view is that what that page is called is a matter for the editors of that page. As a subheading of this page, it appears to me simplest to go with the existing name. There may have been no consensus on an AfD, but the page is still called 'persecution.' If it was called something else, and someone wanted to make it say 'persecution' here, I would oppose that too. This isn't the appropriate place for that content/neutrality debate. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 09:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I still think that term should be avoided per WP:LABEL, as it should be either attributed to the source or replaced with more neutral wording. In fact the term "persecution" is seldomly used in the article, so I don't think the heading is appropriate.--PCPP (talk) 10:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not what the policy on labels meant. Please try that on over at Rwandan Genocide, about how "labelling" the genocide is bad. I totally agree with the two eds above that as long as the article on the persecution stands, the section should be called that here. and it's very ironic that you point out that the word is not overly used in the article: it has been repeatedly deleted by you, Mrund, Colipon, ohconfucius and co! So it's a wonder it's in the article at all. Just as a point of basic logic, it shouldn't be continually sanitised. These high jinks should stop. --Asdfg12345 23:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

This will be my last input for now. No clear reason has been raised for why 'persecution' as a subheading is inadequate. Zujine (talk) 01:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

My confidence that Misplaced Pages does not bow to political influences regarding 'sensitive' subjects was enhanced after reading this article. The current case is not much different; a spade should be called a spade. Zujine (talk) 01:14, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with the word "persecution" in and of itself being used. I see serious WP:DUE and WP:NPOV issues if we constantly harp on that same label over and over again, especially when we use it as a descriptive noun "the persecution" to refer to all suppression of Falun Gong in China to arouse sympathy and lend legitimacy to the movement. Falun Gong has zoomed in on this idea of "The Persecution" as a central point of their protracted PR campaign, and you find that most searches of "Persecution of Falun Gong" turns up Falun Gong-sponsored websites. Indeed, even Human Rights Watch avoids using this term to describe the campaign in their reports. Mainstream media also avoids the label "persecution", except for the Epoch Times. I direct you, for example, to David Ownby's treatment of the term: and you will see what I mean. Ownby, who is (relatively speaking) quite sympathetic to Falun Gong, only uses the word "persecution" 27 times in the body of his entire book - not to mention that most of these instances are to describe Falun Gong's own claims or to describe what has been happening specifically to the practitioners. Saying the practitioners of the movement has been the targets of persecution is accurate, saying that the movement is under "The Persecution" (as Falun Gong claims) is inappropriate for an encyclopedia, unless almost all sources universally describe the crackdown of Falun Gong as "The Persecution". As such, I would not be opposed to having a section on "persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners", but I do think when more appropriate alternatives such as "Coercive measures" are available, they are more appropriate. We should give the most neutral treatment of the issue whenever we can. Colipon+(Talk) 01:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear whether there is a reason to assume that it isn't already bowing to political influences by using the term persecution rather than another term. It is clear that the term persecution is one of the widely used terms to describe the Chinese government's response to Falun Gong (especially by Falun Gong themselves) but I haven't seen any evidence presented that demonstrates that it's the most policy compliant term. Clearly the Chinese government doesn't regard it as persecution so we already know that the term is potentially problematic from the non-negotiable WP:NPOV compliance perspective since their view is without doubt a very significant view. Does the term persecution summarise 'fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources' ? I don't think it does because it ignores a significant view which it's difficult to dismiss as a fringe view. On the other hand when sources like HRW and numerous other reliable sources use phrases like 'aggressive and often violent crackdown' it's clear that the term persecution isn't exactly misleading and if it's biased it isn't very biased. I think this is a case where it's better to go for generic, factual, non-emotive, encyclopedic terminology like 'Chinese government response' to avoid narrative wars. I don't think a 'Persecution' section heading would be seen as appropriate or last very long in other articles that describe extensively reported human rights violations by a state for what they regard as legitimate security reasons against a set of people e.g. in the Israel-Palestine conflict for instance. Sean.hoyland - talk 02:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Other contributors may be able to respond more thoroughly than myself, but the issue of the Chinese Communist party versus Falun Gong isn't narrated in the same way as the example you give of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Only in the official view are there 'legitimate security reasons' for the detention and torture of FLG adherents. While the view of the Chinese government as the Chinese government's view is significant, human rights researchers and other scholars put little stock in it. The CCP is obviously not a reliable source on its own treatment of Falun Gong. The case of Gao Zhisheng may be a good case study in this. The rationale is also troubling, because, if extended, it would mean the Abu Ghraib page name would also need to be changed to something entirely uninformative.

My view is that the term is not controversial, and nor does it bow to political sensibilities; it merely reflects a common usage among scholars and HR researchers on this issue. It is clearly not the only term used, but there is currently a page of that title. Attempting to skirt around that fact with euphemistic expressions seems unnecessary.

I suspect this debate has been had a number of times before. Regarding the prevalence of the term, I would leave it to some other editors to assert. The real issue is a matter of what that page is called. While it's called 'persecution' I will support this article reflecting that. Apart from that, I mostly agree with Colipon's remarks. Zujine (talk) 02:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

The CCP is however an impeccably reliable source for their own views on the nature of their response to Falun Gong. We don't have the option to ignore it because it isn't a view that can be dismissed using the word 'only'. Compliance with NPOV is a mandatory requirement so choices are constrained. It's not an attempt to skirt around facts with euphemistic expressions because 'Persecution' isn't a fact, it's an opinion. Opinions can't be asserted as if they are facts using Misplaced Pages's narrative voice (see Misplaced Pages:Npov#A_simple_formulation). The real issue is demonstrable policy compliance. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

While the CCP is obviously an RS for its views, its views themselves are not reliable. Or we would have different articles for The Holocaust, Rwandan Genocide, and as an editor above put a different spin on it, the Abu Ghraib abuse story. Of course the group perpetrating the crimes does not recognise them as such. Or all those articles are now "Nazi Germany's response to Jewish people," and "Hutu's response to Tutsi's," and "US army personnels' response to Iraqi prisoners." Persecution is as much a fact as the above mentioned cases of murder and abuse. All the same documentary evidence is available, and a large amount of secondary support discussing the "cruelty," "brutality," "viciousness," "ruthlessness" etc. of the persecution (in the words of secondary sources who I can dig up later). It's actually silly that these expressions find no place in the article, when Falun Gong is happily described with a string of cherrypicked criticisms. I will find the sources for those expressions and someone may wish to include them in the article, as a brief survey of what noted sources have said. In any case, persecution is not an opinion, it is fact, and discussed as such by reliable sources. The CCP is a tiny majority in its view that its actions against Falun Gong are legitimate, and the majority views sees it as persecution (or other language of similar meaning). It does not respect the policy on parity of sources to posit that the CCP's views kind of "cancel out" that of HR orgs, scholars, US Congress, governments around the world, and a mountain of documentary evidence. That's setting a tiny minority against supermajority, because the fact that the persecution exists is not disputed except by the CCP (as far as I know. But in any case, there are a huge number reliable sources documenting and discussing the persecution). I'm even surprised we're having the discussion about whether the persecution is real or not. That is widely corroborated. --Asdfg12345 06:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Also, I have to slap my forehead when I see this. Turns the whole process of discussion into a farce when it's all ignored like that. Words to Avoid is not related to this at all. The real issue is with the actual page itself; if there's a problem with the title it needs to be fixed there. It's already named "Persecution". The beef with that word is elsewhere. PCPP, you are being disruptive again. I'll note this on the RfC, and I encourage the other editors who have unwittingly wandered into this mess to do so as well. Including the ones that disagree with me. --Asdfg12345 06:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

According to who is the Chinese government unreliable? You? Falun Gong? The naming of the Holocaust, Rwandan Genocide, and Abu Ghraib has been widely reported by the media and academic sources, whereas you couldn't even prove that the academic community have a consensus on that label. The only source that uses "persecution" exclusively are Falun Gong themselves and its umbrella media groups like Epoch Times.--PCPP (talk) 06:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

are you saying the CCP is a reliable source on its treatment of Falun Gong? Let me get this straight. I'll respond to the other question once you answer that. --Asdfg12345 06:52, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

And are you saying that FLG is a reliable source when commenting on the Chinese government? LMAO--PCPP (talk) 07:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Well done for ignoring discussion, subverting the consensus-building process, and generally turning things into another polemic and farce, PCPP. Great work. You should forward the link of this discussion to your minder and ask for a payrise. --Asdfg12345 07:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Says the Epoch Times "journalist". A search on google scholar on Falun Gong + persecution/crackdown/suppression etc yielded similar results.--PCPP (talk) 07:10, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Wta#Article_and_section_titles is directly relevant to this kind of issue. "Article and section titles should be chosen, where possible, to avoid implying a viewpoint." Sean.hoyland - talk 07:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That's why the 'Human rights in <country>' series of articles aren't called 'Human rights abuses in <country>'. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe some questions and remarks would help to keep the discussion going. Sean.hoyland, could you please respond to Asdfg12345's rhetorical point about why the same naming standard isn't applied to other articles like 'Genocide of...' and the many 'Persecution of...' (Jews, Christians etc.) articles? The treatment of Falun Gong is as much a fact in the literature as any of these other crimes, and the point you are making would presumably not only be applied to one subheading of one article. PCPP, I am going to change the heading back to 'Statewide suppression,' which is how it was before this fracas - and I do not think you should have changed it while discussion was ongoing. Asdfg12345 complains about how discussion broke down, but his later input is itself not conducive to intelligent debate. I hope this note is helpful to get things back on track. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 08:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

You're asking me to comment on the inconsistent and heterogeneous application of policies across the project. There isn't really much I can say about that other than the obvious point that it shouldn't happen. I guess the 'Persecution of...' series of articles are about subjects which, for the most part, have the benefit of a historical perspective where consensus has emerged that there is such a thing as the 'Persecution of...' using that terminology. If there is consensus that there is such a thing as the Persecution of the Falun Gong then it will be obvious from the sources in the same way that it is obvious from the sources that what happened in Rwanda was a genocide and that what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison was torture and prisoner abuse. Is there a consensus that the Chinese government's actions towards this group can neutrally be described as persecution or is it a viewpoint on a spectrum of viewpoints ? Yes, there is a set of facts that detail the actions of the Chinese government but even if there were a one to one mapping between those facts and the facts in another time and place about another government and another group it doesn't follow that the descriptive term of the set of facts such as persecution should be the same in both cases. The descriptive term has to come from the sources rather than being derived from the collective property of the facts in the eyes of wiki editors i.e. we can't say 'situation A is similar to situation B therefore...' because it's synthesis. We can't synthesize the term persecution from the set of facts ourselves. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is in the sources as persecution, including terms like "vicious persecution" etc. It's also called other things. The facts of what the CCP has done to Falun Gong is not disputed. "Persecution" is one word used to describe it. So are "crackdown," "suppression," "genocide," etc. "Is there a consensus that the Chinese government's actions towards this group can neutrally be described as persecution..."? Many sources use this term, just like other terms, and the overall facts are not disputed. Since the page is called "persecution of Falun Gong", it seems that should just echo throughout the encyclopedia as it might, and if there's a problem, go change it there. --Asdfg12345 06:34, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so let's look at a high quality source. HRW can reasonably be considered to be extremely biased in favour of human rights. Word frequency indexing of the source 'DANGEROUS MEDITATION China’s Campaign Against Falungong' indicates that 'crackdown' is used 75 times and 'persecution' is used 9 times. It's this kind of objective analysis that can validate statements about terminology....and 4 of those instances of 'persecution' in the report are from Falun Gong sources and one is about Tibet. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

The term 'crackdown' is also used more frequently than 'persecution' in the source that is used to support the term 'persecution' in the title of the main 'Persecution of Falun Gong' article, i.e. "Congressional Research Service-The Library of Congress: Report for Congress: China and Falun Gong". Word frequency indexing shows that 'crackdown' is used 14 times and 'persecution' is used 6 times. So, picking the term 'persecution' is beginning to look inconsistent with sources. Sean.hoyland - talk 14:19, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe how many times this issue's been discussed. Like I said, the Human Rights Watch source is actually quite balanced. I've tried to advance use of that source but been blocked by users like asdfg for a series of bogus reasons. I opt not to edit war so I have not tried since. Colipon+(Talk) 15:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Sean, this naming issue has a fraught and troubled history. There have been dozens of arguments and analyses and discussions. Any source mining exercise would need to be done on a larger scale to be useful. Check this out. There are numbers there. And that is only the most recent blow-up. Searching through the archives would turn up many more similar sets of arguments. My basic point here would not be to prove or argue that the word "persecution" is the most used--there is, however, no real problem with it, since it's often used interchangeably with other terms--but that there is an article with this title now, so for reasons of consistency, I would suggest that other pages referring to it just adopt that name. That's my basic point. "persecution" may not be the best word. I think it's suitable. But about this subheading, I don't think it's worth any more time. "Statewide suppression" accurately described the situation. --Asdfg12345 23:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

'persecution' or 'statewide suppression' WP:V compliance

The following section has poor WP:V compliance as far as I can tell. I've fixed the "dangerous" ref and replaced the redundant "human" ref so that they both point at the same thing and to allow readers to access the HRW report and read it for themselves.

According to Human Rights Watch, China's leaders and ruling elite were far from unified in their support for the crackdown; though James Tong suggests there was no real resistance from the Politburo. Some leaders suggested that the group be brought under bureaucratic control of the party, like other religious institutions. Many managers of enterprises and bureau chiefs were also not enthusiastic about the crackdown. They treated "recantations" of practitioners under their jurisdiction as a mere formality and turned a blind eye to continued practice of Falun Gong.

I'm not sure the report supports the first sentence. HRW don't use terminology like 'ruling elite' in their reports. There is a sentence on page 12 that says "According to a Falungong spokesman, until then “the government had been mostly supportive of us... Many top leaders seemed to support us.” That is not HRW speaking. The rest of the section has no refs. This seems like a problem.

Sean.hoyland - talk 11:20, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

That report was one of the best pieces I've read on Falun Gong, and one of the most balanced. Any serious Falun Gong researcher should be reading it, in addition to Ownby, Palmer, and Chinese scholars. Colipon+(Talk) 12:21, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The Controversies Section: Notable problems

I have a few remarks regarding the Controversies section. For starters, the sentence "The principal controversies are its views on homosexuality and inter-racial children, and its claims of superpowers" was referenced to and . However, neither of these sources say that those are the "principal controversies". The first gives some quotes from Li Hongzhi's teachings; the second talks about how some people perceived parts of Falun Gong's teachings as "homophobic". Neither explain how those beliefs fit into the corpus of teachings as whole, how relevant they are, or how significant they are.

The next paragraph begins "Quoting Li, the New York Times said...". Li, however, does not state this in that lecture. Rather than getting into the absurdities of matching sources, representing the view that Craig Smith's view is disputed, and all that jazz, this can be fixed by simply finding another source. Ownby can be used to represent Falun Gong's teachings on interraciality. This cuts right to the best source on the subject, while maintaining mention of it (which seems to have become highly important for certain editors). In that sense, I don't seek to delete it, but merely make it respectable and put it in context. The reader should be presented with something that actually explains what practitioners believe, rather than something that is aimed at playing to the reader's stereotypes and that deliberately makes use of inaccurate referencing.

Given that the sentence "The principal controversies..." is a synthesis, I will simply remove it. I don't think any meaning is lost by doing so, because the "controversies" are still represented, and it is implicit that they are controversial.

Secondly, I have replaced Craig Smith's assessment with Ownby's. David Ownby is a much better source, avoids the obvious inaccuracy, fixes the undue weight issue (Ownby devotes a single line to the interracial issue in a book of over 200 pages), and provides the context that was otherwise missing.

I'm looking forward to some constructive discussion. Thanks. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 23:33, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the changes and the sources. A discussion of interraciality is indeed missing from the lecture in question, so the source is inaccurate. A similar thing happened with Ostergaard, above. The new formulation reads neutrally, and I think it's an improvement. Generally, however, that section reads like a pastiche of voices rather than an intelligent exploration of Falun Gong's controversial teachings. Further, it fails to explain how, exactly, those teachings are controversial, and to whom they are controversial. At the same time, I'm not sure where an introduction to this side of things is available in the literature. But I think the above is an improvement for now. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 00:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

You may want to check out Richard Madsen's treatment in Current History, he discusses this. If I think of more I'll note it here. Ethan Gutmann notes a few points to consider, too. --Asdfg12345 06:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Adding material from several sources

I added some information from three different reputable sources: Patricia Thornton, Mark Palmer, and Fewsmith & Wright. I'm looking forward to a good encyclopedic rewrite of these sections; I urge other editors to take part in it. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 00:24, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you take a closer look at the sections to which you added information. Some of it is poorly sourced, some totally unsourced, some of it is thinly disguised anti-Falun Gong propaganda (without a source). It needs a fine-tooth comb. Please consider putting some time into that, Olaf (or anyone else who cares for proper research). --Asdfg12345 06:21, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I removed a lot of the additions. Olaph, stop swelling the article with unnecessarily detailed propaganda. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 10:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I, too, found some of Olaf's additions excessive. In my view, the problem has always been one of undue weight. This is the main Falun Gong article - everything should be in summary form. Colipon+(Talk) 12:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems like the only thing that was deleted was some detail about the media campaign ("thirty-minute evening news program aired practically nothing but anti-Falun Gong rhetoric in which academics, former followers, and ordinary citizens spoke about how the cult cheats its followers, separates families, damages health, and hurts social stability, according to China scholars Daniel Wright and Joseph Fewsmith. "The government operation has been a study in all-out demonization."") and "Another 1,200 government officials were detained and required to study Communist party documents and to renounce any allegiance to the movement."

Fewsmith has been in the China studies game for a looong time, so he's a damn good source. I haven't read much of Wright, but I checked out a bibliography in a book and he has obvious credentials. Compared to some stuff in this document that has no sources at all, the above seems warranted - to me at least.

But after reading through this article and a few of the others, I think Colipon is spot on: there's too much detail on minor issues here already. But I don't agree that the insertions currently under discussion are about minor issues, or are too detailed. And Wright and Fewsmith are certainly not a "propaganda" source as Martin Rundvist says. Homunculus (duihua) 15:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Colipon and Runkvist seem to imply that they'd like to have the articles cleaned up. I agree, they don't seem very encyclopaedic at the moment. It's good to know that the kind of details that were brought forth in my edits are just unnecessarily swelling up the article. I'll take a look at some other extraneous details later tonight. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 15:55, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Martin Rundkvist has a very particular taste for relevant details. Olaf has a point. The articles need careful inspection and possibly rewriting. I am lamentably busy at the moment, but I seek to devote some time to this topic area in the near future. I used the PRC's anti-Falungong discourse as an example in my Master's Thesis on symbolic violence. I am not going to take part in your personal grudges, though. —Zujine|talk 00:58, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Three issues in the lead are sticking out like a sore thumb

I tried to initiate discussion about these matters before, but nobody seemed to take it seriously enough.

• Where does the word "proselytize" appear in the sources cited for the use of that term in the lead? What is the meaning of "Falun Gong groups have since moved abroad"?
• Can the claim "Western academics generally describe Falun Gong as a new religious movement" be substantiated?
• Why does the lead suggest that the 'persecution' is a series of claims by Falun Gong practitioners and not verified or discussed by third parties?

Any comments? ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 16:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

1. Ethan Gutmann, An Occurence on Fuyou Street, National Review 07/13/2009
2. Cite error: The named reference Ownbyfuture was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
3. Wang Anlin (1999). "Learning dialectics, resist Heretical Teachings". Taoism.hk.
4. Cite error: The named reference bejesky was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
5. Cite error: The named reference burgdoff was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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