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"Extreme-right"

In the lead, The Epoch Times is described as promoting extreme-right politics. There are 3 sources provided: NYT, New Republic, and NBC. I checked these 3 articles one by one and found that both NYT and NBC mentioned "right-wing", only New Republic mentioned ET has in common with "extreme right-wing". I feel it is not a good idea to mislead that NYT and NBC associated the ET with extreme-right, so we should make it clear. The notability of New Republic is not as good as NYT and NBC, I suggest we move this reference to somewhere in the body. Precious Stone 14:57, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I would be wary of using language like "extreme right-wing," particularly when the label is applied by sources that are quite far to the left, where perceptions of what constitutes "extreme" are....rather strained. Support for Trump is not evidence of "extreme" right-wing tendencies. TheBlueCanoe 21:51, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Let the record show that the above editor just referred to The New York Times, The New Republic, and NBC News as "quite far left". Funny stuff, and much in line with the user's frequent attempts at scrubbing the article. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd just like to say that the discussion and edit warring going on here is quite dismal. The point is not "scrubbing" content, or constantly emphasizing that "look, they're RS." The point relates to WP:DUE and what constitutes a neutral, informative, encyclopedic treatment of this issue. The material can be presented in a neutral tone, with proper context, and perhaps a clearer delineation of the actual relationship between the entities in question. This stuff is in scholarship I have been looking at, and we don't need to rely on reporters pursuing a story against a competitor to tell us about the organizational structure of Falun Gong. For that, we look at the research of those who have lived among Falun Gong for years and wrote ethnographic studies on it. That is how this stuff should work.

It's also my observation (as a drive-by editor/commenter on this page) that there was hardly any genuine attempt to build a consensus on how to properly present this material. The favored presentation was repeatedly added, discussion was called censorship, and now here we are. I think it's better to simply edit the content to make it better and more neutral than remove it, however. That is not helpful. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 15:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

"reporters pursuing a story against a competitor"—what are you talking about? :bloodofox: (talk) 17:23, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Citation typo

There seems to be a typo causing citation text to show up in the main article. In the Persecution section, Causes subsection, paragraph 3, there is nonsense at the end ",.ref name="ReidG">Reid, Graham (29 April–5 May 2006) "Nothing left to lose" Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine, New Zealand Listener. Retrieved 6 July 2006.</ref>". I would fix it myself, but I don't have edit permissions. Astropiloto (talk) 20:15, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

@Astropiloto:  Done thanks! — MarkH₂₁ 20:30, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Suggesting for editing this contentious topic and getting on the 'same page'

In the current set of edits that were just made (and reverted) and in the ongoing discussions above, there are multiple open 'lines' of discussion and disagreement. I suggest that these been broken up and discussed separately, in multiple threads simultaneously. For example, one section could be about the lead. Discuss only what should be in the lead paragraph on the FLG's* involvement in media etc. Another section is about the section in the article where these issues are hashed out. And when editing, I suggest NUMBER YOUR EDITS and write a corresponding number on the page, so //that actual edit// can be discussed. It is completely unproductive and pointless to do reverts which are going to include like 20 contentious things. Break each of the contentious things up into 20 (or whatever) separate disputes, and hammer each one out, in the section which it corresponds to.

For example, maybe someone objects to the block excerpt from NBC because it's simply a WP:DUE issue; or objects to the point about the precise financial relationship between "Falun Gong" and those media companies being unclear (when, according to these scholarly works, it's actually quite clear); or objects to whatever else. Edit it as you see appropriate (delete, refactor, find a better source), NUMBER IT, start a discussion ABOUT THAT EDIT. Then the editing and discussion can be dynamic, multi-threaded, and consensus reached on each point of dispute separately.

I don't know if this is standard practice, and if anyone has a better idea, please suggest it, but that is how I propose we proceed. Please let me know if this suggestion is not clear.

*well, the article is not going to put it vaguely like that: "the FLG" is a shorthand we use. In most cases we would specify if it's "the teachings of FLG," or "people who practice FLG," or "an organization founded and primarily staffed by people who practice FLG," or whatever it may be. This is not a single organizational structure, but a practice spread across the world, where the individuals who practice it do things in order to gain social recognition (and in their religious goals, "saving people," if I have the terminology correct.) And yes, I have been reading David Ownby's book and three dissertations by anthropologists which we should be citing. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 15:24, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I get that there's an effort by adherents to paint Falun Gong as an 'ancient and international spiritual practice' rather than a new religious movement centered on Li Hongzhi that operates out of a secretive compound in Deerpark, New York. However, as numerous media sources make abundantly clear, the organization is also quite politically involved, and there will be no scrubbing this from the article because Misplaced Pages isn't censored. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:18, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

"This is not a single organizational structure, but a practice spread across the world, where the individuals who practice it do things in order to gain social recognition (and in their religious goals, "saving people," if I have the terminology correct.)” Yeah, that describes almost every single religion on earth... FG isn’t special or unique, we treat them like any other New Religious Movement. I see no disagreement among non-SPA editors btw so I’m not convinced there are any real content disputes here. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Bloodofox:@Horse Eye Jack: I have no idea what "the efforts of adherents are," or who are supposed to be the SPAs here. My comment above was a meta-proposal as to how disputes be navigated, as a technical manner, going forward. Would you both please respond to the suggestion itself rather than simply reiterate your personal opinions about Falun Gong and other editors? Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 06:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Can someone suggest a focus for an RfC?

I think this would help deal with the issues and bring in editors who haven't been involved with the article, but I don't have time to do it. It needs to be done in strict accordance with WP:RfC. Doug Weller talk 08:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what an RfC is gonna solve, the problem isn't lack of new faces its a lack of new faces who stick around under assault from the “regulars” here, anyone who disagrees is labeled an “activist” and threatened with ARBCON . I would have left this page as quickly as I came a month or so ago if my normal reaction to being hit wasn’t to hit back 2x as hard, the abuse you have to put up with to contribute here is more than any wikipedia editor should ever have to endure.

I’d support an ANI for BlueCanoe and Marvin 2009. Both seem to have spent the last decade being disruptive on FG related articles, Marvin’s first edits more than a decade ago were promotional edits for New Tang Dynasty Television and more than a decade later they’re still barely strayed beyond FG related pages. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: it would be WP:AE, not WP:ANI. But thinking about it more, an RfC over the NRM issue would probably be a good starter. I'm not going away. If no one else wants to start one, I will on the NRM issue alone. Doug Weller talk 18:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: It is a pity you used an inexperienced new user's editing error (the first edit over 10 years ago) for misleading people. I have relied to you on this topic twice.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RRArchive410#User:Marvin_2009_reported_by_User:Horse_Eye_Jack_(Result:_)

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Marvin_2009#Conflict_of_interest

As to your accusation "spent the last decade being disruptive on FG related articles". I have mentioned to you:

As far as I noticed, historically speaking, activists often came to do things forbidden in WP:SOAP. As WP:ARBFLG shows, 2 of them were indefinitely banned for this topic. Years back, another 2 anti FLG activist users I encountered were also banned for the topic. Activists can be easily identified, as they tend to add WP:OR contents or CCP related unreliable sources. They are not necessarily CCP followers though. BTW, users who try to prevent activism shouldn’t be called “disrupting” wiki pages, nor should they be labelled as FG followers or COI in an attempt to discredit them.

Preventing vandalism by some activists on controversial topics, spent many of my edits. While other pages are not as controversial as these, there is no need for much talk or changes. The key for identifying activist is as WP:SOAP mentioned

“content hosted in Misplaced Pages is not for: Advocacy, propaganda. …You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your opinions.“

I did not advocate my own opinions in the articles, but have rather accurately represented what reliable sources say which was not “deflected criticisms” of Falun Gong.

I have confidence my edits were made while sticking to Wiki rules and under good faith. Again, I have never been and am not paid by anyone to make edits in Misplaced Pages.

BTW, there are really a lot warnings and a lot of AN/I on your talk, including one friendly message from admin Doug: https://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Horse_Eye_Jack#

@Marvin 2009: The last half of your comment is unrelated to anything here, and is a strange ad hominem. Can we focus on this? — MarkH₂₁ 21:52, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

that was to address the false accusation “spent the last decade being disruptive on FG related articles". I have no intention to attack any one. Precious Stone 22:05, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Not a false accusation, 7 of your top 10 edited pages were within the FG space and 10 of 10 of your top edited talk pages were within the FG space when I first advised you of how your editing history was likely to be perceived as WP:SPA if you kept pushing it. You also copy pasted whole sections from your talk page onto mine without providing an explanation and disparaged me in edit summaries and on talk pages, excuse me if I find your behavior to be disruptive and aggressive. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 22:38, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Let’s focus on the content dispute. — MarkH₂₁ 22:55, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I revisit this page after years to find it's like being in a time warp. The SPAs are still there pushing their propaganda, and fighting even the smallest attempts to steer the article away from their orthodoxy. Plus ça change. -- Ohc  15:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Full Protection

Due to ongoing edit warring, I full protected this page. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 21:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Guerillero: The edit warring here is ridiculous, and editors who have been deleting / inserting content while discussions are ongoing should be sanctioned.I think that indefinite full protection causes some collateral damage though, since not all of the recent edits nor editors have been involved in the prolonged dispute. Only five editors that have been involved in the edit war, and not all of them have been forcing their edits through mid-discussion. — MarkH₂₁ 21:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@MarkH21: I full protected for 10 days, and I will look dimly upon a return to edit warring when that expires. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 21:58, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Guerillero: Ah, sorry I looked at the timespan of the move protection instead of the edit protection. Nevermind then! Yes, please do, this article has seen more than enough disruption. — MarkH₂₁ 22:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC on describing Falun Gong as a new religious movement

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Religion and philosophy When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Should this article say in the lead that Falun Gong is a new religious movement? Doug Weller talk 08:53, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

A - Yes.
B - No.

!Votes

Note that this is not a ballot and the closer will make a decision based upon the quality of the arguments.

• Weak yes but for wholly OR reasons. It seems to be it meets the overly wide definition of what religion is today.Slatersteven (talk) 09:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, it clearly is one. If Buddhism is a religion, even though many of its practitioners are atheists, then Falun Gong is certainly one too. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) 10:01, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, there are many RSes that describe Falun Gong as a new religious movement such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and countless academic sources. Just a few examples:
  • Chapter in an Oxford University Press book
  • peer-reviewed East Asian studies journal article
  • peer-reviewed sociology journal article
  • peer-reviewed sociology journal article
  • peer-reviewed communications journal article
  • peer-reviewed academic journal article
  . — MarkH₂₁ 10:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. The article already mentions that academics of religion label it a new religious movement and doesn't provide any academic counterexamples. Followers of the religion really only reject the label because:
  - they want potential supporters and converts to think it's complementary to whatever belief system they already hold (c.f. similar attempts by Scientology and Trancendental Meditation).
  - they think the religion is the correct and eternal form of the Qigong practices that all historical Buddhist and Taoist sects imperfectly imitated and corrupted. (Vajrayana in turn has a comparable history of claiming to be much older than it really is, so I guess that part is traditional).
  Neither of those reasons is part of our mission. The only reason to not label it as such would be a level of WP:GEVAL on par with listing Mormonism as the religion of the Kingdom of Judah. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:22, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes I don’t know why we would treat them differently from any other new religious movement. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• A (yes) Even if there were followers of FLG ideology in earlier times, its existence as a large, cohesive spiritual organization with leadership and codified tenets (Teachings of Falun Gong, 1992) is undoubtedly "new". Its leader claims practicing this "higher form of qigong" (that he discovered) allows one to attain Tao...alongside "supernormal abilities and gong potency" like levitation...which are not possible with the lower levels of qigong people were practicing earlier. This distinction especially--that only his qigong methods and teachings lead to higher states of being--disqualifies FLG from being truly "ancient". As for the religion aspect:
  • FLG has an origin story for mankind.
  • In Falun Dafa Li proposes general religious themes like central tenets and "evils" to avoid, and then formulates a detailed, systematic doctrine outlining a path to salvation.
  • As with other religions (and cults), "bad things" are ascribed to the machinations of unseen/unrecognized beings or wills--in FLG, these are aliens that have come to Earth to take over humans' perfect bodies (by fomenting the conflicts that stimulate technological progress, which eventually will lead to our ability to clone humans, to whom "the gods in heaven will not give ... a human soul", allowing the aliens to replace the soul.) These evil beings manifest more often and more clearly as you progress through the cultivation process, and you must guard your xinxing against mounting "demonic interference" (taking the form of sexy ladies and telephones ringing when you're trying to do exercises).
  • "Good things" like being healed are of course attributed to the cultivation system, and "if your illness has not been cured, that is ... an issue of your enlightenment quality". (And if your illness later returns, it's actually not the same illness but rather "tribulations" arranged by Master Li to improve your mind-nature; if you are a true cultivator you can no longer get "human" illnesses because " been busy coming in and out of " curing you. Even if you don't feel cured). JoelleJay (talk) 19:13, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes it is what it is and that is why many reliable independent sources describe it as such. We could even consider the current mention overcited. —PaleoNeonate – 07:38, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes until there are good alternatives. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 09:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• No - not as the single, master description, but Yes as one of several labels or categories that has been used to describe the practice.

That is the nature of the dispute here, which was not captured by the original question.

No one on the relevant talk page has argued that the NRM label should be excised, or that it is not used by reliable sources. Rather, the question is whether it is the term that should be given prominence in the first sentence of the article on Falun Gong, or whether there are better options. Academic sources describe Falun Gong using several different terms, often interchangeably (e.g. a religion, a religious movement, a qigong practice, a 'cultivation practice,' a spiritual discipline, and so forth). At least two scholars have argued that the "New Religious Movement" label does not make sense as a description for Falun Gong. Given that such a dispute exists, and that other descriptors may be more accurate, this should not be the single, authoritative definition used to describe Falun Gong. (Note that until last month, the lead sentence referred to Falun Gong simply as a "religious practice," and earlier versions used "spiritual practice.") TheBlueCanoe 04:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes per MarkH21's sources, this appears to be the most common label and we should follow RS accoding to core content policy. buidhe 00:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• No(t as the main definition). But it's complicated.

  The question as posed is leading. The question could have also been "Should Falun Gong be called a religion/spiritual practice/discipline/etc. in the lead?" To which one would also have to say "yes, along with the other ways it has been classified."

  It is unclear why New Religious Movement should be the primary or controlling classification. It is not clear that it is the most common "label" - and in any case, good social science (and tertiary sources) proceed not by labeling things, but by describing them.

  I would modestly suggest that we editors not be too ready to "read into" a phenomenon like Falun Gong Western-oriented styles of thinking and classification, and instead examine the anthropological and area literature that has focused on such phenomenon, situating them in a specific Chinese cultural context.

This is what I came up with at my university library in 40 minutes of digging. I am sure there is a great deal more to it.

The question of classification is not simple in any social science, especially on matters of religion.

I do not think we have any warrant to simply override all this and declare a "master definition" to which all others are subservient due to our particular tastes.

What was the description before all this? Based on the above, I think if there has to be a single master definition, it be the most widely accepted — i.e. "religion" or "religious practice" — with the various alternatives then given in the appropriate place ("self cultivation practice," "new religious movement," "social movement," "spiritual discipline" etc. etc.)

"Religious practice" or "religion" is already covered by "new religious movement." The latter is primarily a sociological classification that is disputed in the literature and is only one among a number of classifications available for Falun Gong. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 06:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. Reliable sources—including handbooks on new religious movements—flatly and overwhelmingly refer to Falun Gong as a new religious movement. This is only really controversial to adherents, particularly those who hope to veer the conversation away from discussion about Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong's compound headquarters in Deer Park, New York. It's fairly typical for groups like these to present themselves as 'ancient' and as a 'spiritual movement' to obfuscate their pyramid-shaped structure, but Misplaced Pages isn't censored. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:46, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

For readers unaware, here are just a few examples of how unequivical scholars are about this observation:

• Barker, Eileen. 2016. Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements, cf. 142–43. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1317063612
• Clarke, Peter. 2004. Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1134499694
• Hexham, Irving. 2009. Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements, pp. 49, 71. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0830876525
• Junker, Andrew. 2019. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora, pp. 23–24, 33, 119, 207. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108655897 ("Even though Falun Gong began as a quigong group, it is now widely regarded as a new religious movement", p. 33)
• Oliver, Paul. 2012. New Religious Movements: A Guide for the Perplexed, pp. 81–84. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781441125538
• Ownby, David. 2005. "The Falun Gong: A New Religious Movement in Post-Mao China" in Lewis, James R. & Jesper Aagaard. Editors. Controversial New Religions, 195–96. Oxford University Press.
• Partridge, Christopher. 2004. Encyclopedia of New Religions: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities, 265–66. Lion. ISBN 978-0745950730.

And if that didn't make it clear, and although adherents will claim otherwise, there's nothing remotely controversial about this in academia—we have plenty of quotes like, "Western scholars view Falun Gong as a new religious movement (NRM) though any connection or claim to religion by adherents is strenously denied by adherents." (Farley, Helen. 2014. "Falun Gong: A Narrative of Pending Apocalypse, Shape-Shifting, Aliens, and Relentless Persecution" in Lewis, James R. (editor). Controversial New Religions. Oxford University Press.) :bloodofox: (talk) 06:26, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. And yes, maybe there is some historical nugget, but, like Mao's co-option of "traditional" Chinese medicine, any resemblance to the historical is largely coincidence. Guy (help!) 22:42, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• Very strong No, not as a bald statement. Nathan868 was not looking at the full breadth of scholarship on May 10 when he changed the wording from "Chinese religious practice" to "Chinese new religious movement". Bloodofox doubled down on the previous term by adding the adjective "overwhelmingly" while citing a bunch of sources, but even these did not tap the breadth of scholarship. Some of Bloodofox's sources describe the Falun Gong in complex or multiple terms, for instance Andrew Junker who calls it first a social activist group and then a religious movement. And his James Lewis source is from 2005, before Lewis learned more about the movement and radically changed his position. His 2018 book Falun Gong: Spiritual Warfare and Martyrdom is a much better assessment. We should call the Falun Gong a political activist movement that evolved into a religious movement in order to carry out its goals. The chronology is critically important here. Binksternet (talk) 02:37, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Junker himself repeatedly refers to the group as a new religious movement throughout his book, as cited in the article (p. 33: "Even though Falun Gong began as a quigong group, it is now widely regarded as a new religious movement"; p. 24: "a politicized new religious movement", p. 29: "not only is Falun Gong a new religious movement, it is also a case of a charismatic community led by the heroism of a faith healer turned messianic preacher", etc.). It is indisputable that academic sources in fact overwhelmingly refer to the group as a new religious movement, as has now been repeatedly demonstrated. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, it ought to be stated as a new religious movement since there are several reliable sources pointing it out to be a religious movement. Idealigic (talk) 22:49, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• @TheBlueCanoe: There were an awful lot of edits that removed the words newreligious movement from the lead sentence entirely though.It’s the most common descriptor by RSes compared to the example alternatives that you list, so it’s not unreasonable for it to be the sole descriptor in just the first sentence.Regardless, you have a proposal for an alternative lead sentence incorporating the other terms? — MarkH₂₁ 11:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

  It's not actually clear that it is "the most common." But even if it were numerically, the books by Benjamin Penny, Junqing Wu, David Ownby, and Ming Xiao all suggest that the matter is far more complex. They do not primarily adopt this classification, but others like folk religion, lay religion, religion, etc. All of those sources are embedded in the native linguistic and cultural context of Falun Gong; quite different from a Western discipline (new religious studies) whose primary function is in a sense precisely about sociological abstractions. This is the point Ownby is making above. Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 06:44, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Cleopatran Apocalypse: A handful of sources that apply different labels or debate categorization doesn't change that; Misplaced Pages reflects what most RSes say. Regarding your specific quotes:
  • All of the quotes from Weihsuan Lin just say that they have spiritual practices, rather than call Falun Gong a spiritual practice.
  • You quote Benjamin Penny's uses of other labels; he himself has also written (bolding mine):

    Falun Gong is a new religious movement that grew out of the widespread enthusiasm for qigong during the 1980s and early 1990s in China.
    — Benjamin Penny, Chapter 28: Falun Gong from Handbook of East Asian New Religious Movements, Brill Publishers, 2018.

  • You also quote David Ownby who himself wrote a book chapter called The Falun Gong: A New Religious Movement in Post-Mao China as well as (bolding mine):

    There is little doubt that the most objective Western scholars would categorise Falun Gong as a new religious movement.
    Falun Gong is now undoubtedly the best known of Chinese new religious movements
    — Ownby, David (2003). "The Falun Gong in the New World". European Journal of East Asian Studies. 2 (2): 303–320.

Nobody is saying that these labels are mutually exclusive, but it's pretty clear that a vast number of RSes describe it firstly and plainly as a new religious movement. There's no reading into this from editors; the examples I listed above are good social science (and tertiary sources) from reputable academic journals across a variety of disciplines and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and there are countless others. — MarkH₂₁ 06:59, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both (@MarkH21: and @Cleopatran Apocalypse:) for the measured analysis. We could use more of it.

I'm curious how you think we could establish what "most RS" say, or what the most common term is among academics studying FLG. It seems to me that, before we can assert with confidence that this is what most sources use, we would need to do a pretty extensive survey of the academic literature and actually try to do a quantitative (and qualitative) assessment. That would be a major undertaking, and I can't claim to have done this. But having read most of the major scholarly texts on this topic, it seems to me that is no consensus on how to describe the practice, as so much of it is contingent both on the cultural context and the scholarly discipline (e.g. sociologists may be more partial to NRM, while historians of China may use terms that are more adapted to that culture). While there are indeed large numbers of RS that use the NRM label, there are at least as many that use "religion," "religious movement," "faith system," "qigong," "cultivation practice," etc.

So, given that we don't know what term "most" academics use, and that scholars in fact use many different labels interchangeably and with great frequency, what criterion should we apply when deciding what description to give? Three things come to mind (you may have more ideas):

• It should be a term that has broad support among reliable sources, particularly academic sources
• It should be as accurate as possible (which may also mean it should be quite a broad category)
• It should be a term that is at least somewhat accessible and recognizable to an English-speaking audience
• Insofar as some categories are contested, it should be as neutral as possible,

Is that reasonable? If we can agree on this, then settling on a word would be easier. TheBlueCanoe 20:16, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

The problem is the only term which fits the above criteria is New Religious Movement and thats exactly the term which is being objected to. We’d be right back at square one. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

That's clearly not true. "Religion" or "religious practice" or similar also fits these criteria. So does "spiritual practice" or "spiritual discipline" or similar. We have options. But is there agreement that these criteria are appropriate? TheBlueCanoe 00:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I’m sorry but they don’t. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:25, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

As I've had to explain to salespeople elsewhere on the site, synonyms aren't different things. "Contemporary" = new. "Spiritual" = religious ("Spiritual but not religious" just means "I'm enthusiastically indecisive about my religious beliefs, probably as a result of being more broadly than deeply educated about theology"). "Faith system" = religion. "Grouping" = movement. "Network" = movement. A contemporary faith system network is a new religious movement. A modern spiritual grouping is a new religious movement. The "other" terms that scholars are using are synonymous with New Religious Movement.
If FG wasn't centered around the teachings of Li Hongzhi, then FG sites wouldn't collect everything he's written and said to the exclusion of other Qigong teachers. Because Li was born just last century and (even if he is just rehashing older ideas) he disavows the authority of any surviving lineages that predate him, his teachings are new. These teachings might generally be about "self-cultivation" but explains it with and provides means that are well within the realm of religion (any attempt to label it "science" would require a "pseudo-" in front of it). And this is a distinct movement, or else all this would just be a couple of sentences in the Qigong article. It is not Chinese lay religion in toto as was inaccurately quoted earlier. It is a new religious movement, full stop. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Can someone finally explain to me what the real issue is with a description along the lines of "Falun Gong has been described as x, y, , and z", as long as we identify the most common characterizations in reliable sources? Obviously NRM is one of them. To me it's clear that there are good arguments supporting various definitions, some of which overlap to a degree. I'm not in favor of any kind of ambiguous word salad, but the concept of a hermeneutic circle applies here as elsewhere: all parts are part of a whole, and nothing can be truly understood or defined without its cultural, historical and literary context. While I'm personally agnostic about all kinds of spiritual matters, I know enough about Chinese history, culture and the classics of comparative religion to oppose reductionism and oversimplification. This dispute is between those who seek to pinpoint a single, specific ontological slot and those who believe that Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source that should simply describe what reliable secondary sources are saying. My understanding is that the latter is what WP:NPOV is all about, and that it is also a guardrail against ideological or tendentious editing, even when it is not immediately apparent to the vested parties.

To draw attention to just some of the complexities, I'm quoting Noah Porter's thesis , with a reference to Xu Jian's article in The Journal of Asian Studies:

"Falun Gong was first introduced to the Chinese public as a qigong practice, not as a religion or superstition (although even in China, these boundaries been contested). Qigong is primarily seen as a way to keep healthy rather than a religion; the Chinese government has generally tried to encourage it 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 (Kipnis 2001: 36). “Chinese traditions assume a profound interpenetration of matter and spirit, body and soul Like most qigong practitioners, Falun Gong do not make a clear distinction between physical and spiritual healing” (Madsen 2000: 244). Even within qigong, there have been struggles between science and supernaturalism: 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 psychosomatic discourse emphasizes the inexplicable power of qigong and relishes its occult workings, whereas the rational discourse strives to demystify many of its phenomena and to situate it strictly in the knowledge of modern science. " Bstephens393 (talk) 01:35, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Scholarship on the topic of the Falun Gong overwhelmingly and flatly refers to the Falun Gong as a typical new religious movement. Examples include the following:

• Barker, Eileen. 2016. Revisionism and Diversification in New Religious Movements, cf. 142–43. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1317063612
• Clarke, Peter. 2004. Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1134499694
• Hexham, Irving. 2009. Pocket Dictionary of New Religious Movements, pp. 49, 71. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0830876525
• Junker, Andrew. 2019. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora, pp. 23–24, 33, 119, 207. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1108655897
• Oliver, Paul. 2012. New Religious Movements: A Guide for the Perplexed, pp. 81–84. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781441125538
• Ownby, David. 2005. "The Falun Gong: A New Religious Movement in Post-Mao China" in Lewis, James R. & Jesper Aagaard. Editors. Controversial New Religions, 195–96. Oxford University Press.
• Partridge, Christopher. 2004. Encyclopedia of New Religions: New Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities, 265–66. Lion. ISBN 978-0745950730.

And these are just a few extremely obvious examples from a span of over 15 years. We report on what reliable sources say, and reliable sources are not ambiguous on this matter. Media sources, on the other hand, note that the new religious movement is frequently referred to as a "cult" (a recent example), which is also quite typical for new religious movements. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Thats a very good point... I hadn’t noticed that the whole “use all valid descriptions” crowd has not once mentioned cult although that would unquestionable be on the short list if we’re making a list of valid ways to describe FG. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:56, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The question that Bloodofox answered (repeatedly) is whether there are reliable sources that describe Falun Gong as NRM. That is not the question I posed. For instance, under this talk page section, the collapsed list of sources posted by User:Cleopatran Apocalypse contains various mainstream descriptions and their sources. None of the editors has provided the rationale for an exclusive master definition instead of an inclusive list of reliably sourced definitions, one of which is New Religious Movement. I keep wondering how many more times, and with how many alternative phrasings, this same-old question must be brought to our attention. (As for Business Insider, there is currently no consensus on its reliability.) Bstephens393 (talk) 02:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I am in favor of an inclusive and complex description rather than a cherry-picked exclusive master definition (as if such a thing would ever be representative of all the literature.) To me it looks like those in favor of the NRM label are looking for the presence of that phrase rather than looking at the complex breadth of descriptions in those same sources. And as I said in the above section, the Lewis source from 2005 is said by Lewis himself to be incompletely researched with faulty conclusions. Lewis wrote a much better book in 2018, Falun Gong: Spiritual Warfare and Martyrdom, which followed his 2017 paper Understanding Falun Gong’s Martyrdom Strategy as Spiritual Terrorism. Lewis says he had "failed to keep up with the developing scholarship on Falun Gong" and, after a firm reassessment in 2015, he says the larger picture of Falun Gong showed itself to be complicated and contradictory. Lewis makes a strong case for the Falun Gong to be a cult following a charismatic leader, Li Hongzhi (LHZ), who clearly thinks of himself as "Buddha returned – or as a spiritual master superior to the historical Buddha." LHZ repeatedly calls for his followers to martyr themselves in defense of Falun Gong. Lewis also talks about how Falun Gong is very much a political organization, despite disavowals of that aim by LHZ. Binksternet (talk) 03:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Scholars use the phrase new religious movement for what is coloquially referred to as a cult. That's why media sources repeatedly refer to Falun Gong as a cult whereas scholars flatly and overwhelmingly refer to the group as a new religious movement.

The new religious movement itself, of course, would prefer the general public to think of it as an ancient tradition rather than a new religious movement financially and ideologically centered on Li Hongzhi—but that's not the reality of the situation, of course. This very typical of new religious movements.

But don't take it from me: "Western scholars view Falun Gong as a new religious movement (NRM) though any connection or claim to religion by adherents is strenously denied by adherents." (Farley, Helen. 2014. "Falun Gong: A Narrative of Pending Apocalypse, Shape-Shifting, Aliens, and Relentless Persecution" in Lewis, James R. (editor). Controversial New Religions. Oxford University Press.:bloodofox: (talk) 05:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't seem that the key problematics identified by The Blue Canoe have been addressed, and instead people are simply asserting their preferred term. The sources we have at present give a variety of terms for defining, classifying, and describing FLG - with NRM being among them. (Note also that most of the sources which use NRM are in the field of NRM studies or sociology; just as many of the sources that come at it from an area studies or cultural field use terms like 'spiritual practice' or 'religion' etc. Each group of scholars wants in a sense "ownership" of the phenomenon, to be the ones who speak about it authoritatively. It seems that FLG is all of these things, depending on who is doing the classifying. We are in the invidious position of having to implicitly adjudicate between how much prominence is given these discourses, while keeping in mind all of Misplaced Pages's content and neutrality policies.)

This is not a question of what goes in the article at all, but about which is the very first definition provided. The Blue Canoe suggested that it be "a term that has broad support among reliable sources, particularly academic sources; be as accurate as possible (which may also mean it should be quite a broad category); be a term that is at least somewhat accessible and recognizable to an English-speaking audience; Insofar as some categories are contested, it should be as neutral as possible." These are sensible guidelines, and the responses so far have not disputed their appropriateness, or suggested other guidelines for adjudicating, nor responded to how X term is best justified with reference to those guidelines. They have simply asserted their preferred term. But given that we have a dispute, we need to have a common language for resolving it.

With this in mind... I think that terms like "traditional practice" or "faith community" lean a bit too much to one side, whereas terms like "social movement" and "New Religious Movement" lean too much to the other. All are valid descriptors in my mind, and there is space for all such classifications in the article... but as a single, simple, uncontested term (in the scholarship), I think that "religion" is fairly hard to go past. Something that is an NRM is perforce already a religion; i.e. NRM is simply a more specific description sociologists use for certain kinds of religions.

FLG does not like the "religion" description, because they are unincorporated (though its practitioners establish corporations themselves) - but it is manifestly a religion. Nor is the term "religion" a primarily sociological classification, or term of art, of only a few decades vintage, the application of which specifically to FLG has been contested (including by Ownby himself, saying the term “makes no sense” in the Chinese context; I guess his view changed over time? I read his whole book recently - recommended - and he also notes there that the NRM term is scholars' "way of disputing Chinese authorities’ claims about the dangers inherent in the movement without necessarily telling us much about Falun Gong itself"; elsewhere he writes that NRM studies is a "a highly divided and polemicized field" which "spends too little time on the context and history of individual groups" and too much time classifying "good" groups and "bad" ones. He also notes that for all of the FLG social movement activism, it is deeply religious in character. Junqing Wu also raises doubts about the utility and neutrality of the NRM appellation, saying that it has actually just become a byword for cult. That seems another reason for not using this term as the master definition for Falun Gong, since the first term used should be the most scrupulously neutral.)

It almost seems as though the stakes of this discussion are about whether the term is used on the page at all. That is not the case. It is about the very first declarative sentence which establishes what Falun Gong "is". This term should be the absolutely lowest common denominator in the sources - not something that is in dispute, and around which controversy swirls. Falun Gong is a religion. Is there anyone here who disputes that?

Therefore I suggest that we cut our losses, call it a religion in the first sentence (Benjamin Penny's book does so in the title), and then get into the complexities and disputes around classification and the competing scholarly disciplines that vie for authority to define Falun Gong and on what basis, in the body of the article.

If the NRM term has become more accepted recently (presuming we can show that) then that would also be worth noting.Cleopatran Apocalypse (talk) 12:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

You write: "This term should be the absolutely lowest common denominator in the sources - not something that is in dispute, and around which controversy swirls."

Agree - that captures the criterion I outlined on using a label that is as neutral as possible. And yes, if Falun Gong is a NRM, it is most certainly also a "religion." Religion is also a term has extensive support in the academic literature ("The Religion of Falun Gong" is literally the title of one of the leading scholarly works on the topic).

One quibble is that "religion" is not perfectly without dispute either, because it doesn't reflect the self-understanding of the practice itself (surely, this is one point of view that ought to be considered. We shouldn't be excessively deferential to a faith system's view of itself, but when describing a faith system, we have to at least provide the means of understanding it from within its own ontological frame). In the Chinese context, some of the objections that scholars have raised on the NRM label are also applicable to the "religion" label.TheBlueCanoe 18:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

These attempts at wiggling away form the widely applied term "new religious movement" and complaining about scholarship while also lambasting US media as 'left wing' aren't going anywhere. Scholars overwhelmingly refer to the group as a NRM. Media sources, on the other hand, repeatedly note that it has been widely referred to as a cult.

Those are easily the two most widely applied terms when referring to the Falun Gong, both among academics and in colloquial discourse. We even have direct quotes from scholars saying exactly that, as I've repeatedly quoted. I think we've had more than enough obfuscating, blurring, and wriggling to avoid these realities on this page, particular from one-issue accounts that mysteriously arise from dormancy when these topics come up on Misplaced Pages.

This is particularly an issue given that the above two accounts have complained about media more broadly elsewhere on this page, here and here. Lobbying to attempt to remove the phrase NRM is, of course, in line with the desires of this particular group, but not what the vast majority of reliable sources on this topic reflects. :bloodofox: (talk) 19:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to ignore comments that aim to impugn the motives of other editors, or that repeat earlier assertions that have already been refuted (e.g. "scholars overwhelming use x term" is an assertion that cannot be made without doing a comprehensive survey of the academic literature. If it were undertaken, one would find considerable disagreement among scholars. "Many scholars use x term" is a valid statement, bu just as one can make that claim about the NRM designation, one can also apply the same method to find ample support in academic literture for "cultivation practice," "Qigong," "Religion," and so forth). I proposed above that the way forward here is to establish agreement on the criteria that should be used to decide on the summary description offered in the opening paragraph. Here again were the criteria I proposed (with amendment as explained):

• It should be a term that has broad support among reliable sources, particularly academic sources
• It should be as accurate as possible (which may also mean it should be quite a broad category)
• It should be a term that is at least somewhat accessible and recognizable to an English-speaking audience (while avoiding excessively Euro-centric definitions or concepts)
• It should be as neutral as possible (e.g. avoiding labels that are highly contested).

I added one qualifier to third point above. While it seems obvious that the term we use should have a plain, English-language meaning, we should be careful to avoid a very Euro-centric definition. We have to remember that this is an indigenous Chinese faith system/practice that, as many scholars have noted, defies easy categorization based on "western" concepts. An article about a Chinese faith system should not attempt to force it into different, culturally specific categories at the expense of accuracy. Similarly, we should bear in mind that, when dealing with certain sociological terms, a word's use within an academic discipline is not always the same as the popular meaning of a term. If there's agreement on the criteria, then we can have a meaningful discussion about which terms best match them. TheBlueCanoe 18:01, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Dude you’re beating a dead horse... Just stop. Its interesting that you brought up Qigong, would you be surprised to know that your first edit to wikipedia was on that page? In fact your first edits appear to be related to the exact same discussion topic we have here... Falun (symbol) and New Tang Dynasty Television followed Qigong. You certainly have been active in this space a long time, now why would someone who has been active in the space for so long post such blatant bullshit as "We have to remember that this is an indigenous Chinese faith system/practice” why? The idea that FG is one of China's indigenous religions is laughable, its younger than most of the other NRMs with wiki pages. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:58, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

NPOV and due weight in section organization

Currently, the first section of this article following the lede is titled "Shen Yun, The Epoch Times, and political involvement.” It includes long excerpts of exclusively critical/one-sided news reporting on these two entities, with a fair bit of loaded language thrown in for good measure.

Editors defending this section have argue that the material is “well sourced,” and therefore should not be removed. Alas, WP:RS is not the only content policy on this encyclopedia. If it were, the encyclopedia would become a massive garbage heap of disjointed facts and statements. We are editors: our job is to curate, to select, to summarize, and to present information in a manner that is narratively coherent, digestible, and that represents a neutral point of view.

To that end, even if this entire section passes WP:RS (and it might not; I’ll leave that open for now), it most definitely fails to adhere to other content policies, notably WP:NPOV, WP:DUE. Here’s a non-exhaustive explanation of why:

• The placement of this section at the top of the article’s body is narratively incoherent, and assigns it undue weight and prominence. The article should absolutely include summary descriptions of the media/arts organizations established by Falun Gong adherents, which include Shen Yun and the Epoch Times. But these organizations didn’t arise in a vacuum. They grew out of a very specific context: scholars tend to situate this as part of a broader claim-making strategy that the Falun Gong community adopted ‘’as a response to the suppression in China’’ (refer to Ownby, Penny, Junker, Noakes, et al). The creation and orientation of these organizations can only be understood in light of Falun Gong's broader history, beliefs, and its suppression in China. These are essentially activities undertaken by members of an exiled faith community, as a response to a persecution.

Narrative cohesion demands that, in an article about Falun Gong, we first introduce what Falun Gong is, the historical context in which it arose, the history of antagonism and repression by the Communist Party, the scattering of a diaspora, and the response from Falun Gong to that repression, and the assessments thereof. That is why information about the Epoch Times and Shen Yun (etc.) had been placed under the subheading “Falun Gong’s response to persecution.” It either belongs there, or perhaps “Falun Gong outside China” or “international reception.”

• The placement of this section at the top of the article’s body is an example of WP:UNDUE. This is not an article about the Epoch Times and Shen Yun. This an article about the faith system of Falun Gong. There are multiple books written about the persecution of Falun Gong, the history of Falun Gong, the beliefs system of Falun Gong. There are ethnographic studies of the diaspora communities, and books about Falun Gong’s international advocacy. There are at least three whole books focusing on allegations of state-sanctioned organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. An article about Falun Gong should cover these topics in a way that is coherent and proportional to their prominence in reliable sources. That some Falun Gong-adjacent organizations have been criticized by left-leaning media organizations for their support of Trump or for disagreeing with the theory of evolution (or whatever) is not the most important thing about Falun Gong, and we misrepresent the body of literature on this topic when we pretend that it is.

• The placement of this section at the top of the article’s body is an example of WP:RECENTISM. This one is obvious. In an article about a globally dispersed faith community with an interesting and complex history, we should take a long-term, historical view, and not allow the article to be overtaken by whatever the recent controversies are.

• The content of the section is exclusively negative, and is not a representative sample of the full range of academic discourse on these topics. This section is sourced entirely to fairly recent (last few years) news article, from organizations that are all identified as leaning quite far to the left of the political spectrum, and all making essentially the same criticisms. Irrespective of where this section is in the article, the content of the section itself fails WP:NPOV; it is cherry-picked and fails to represent a full or representative spectrum of views in a neutral and proportional manner. Positive, or even neutral, assessment of the Epoch Times or Shen Yun are missing entirely, as are responses from these organizations to the criticisms that have been made. The use of lengthy excerpts lifted straight out of these articles is especially bizarre.

I'll note that the addition of this material never gained consensus on the talk page. Editors have simply edit warred to keep it in, in various incarnations. The WP:BURDEN now rests with them to explain why it should be kept in this form. TheBlueCanoe 20:16, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Man, these attempts at scrubbing the article to parrot the Falun Gong's narrative sure are relentless, but they're rarely this transparent. The "globally dispersed faith community" this guy is talking about is new religious movement based out of Deer Park, New York that rotates around the teachings of one man, Li Hongzhi.

For years, this article has been haunted by editors such as this guy, who have aggressively pushed, lawyered, and edit-warred to ensure that the article reads as a puff piece for Hongzi's new religious movement. These swarms of editors are now on the defensive because within the last year media has caught wind of the Falun Gong's politicial activities and support of far-right groups and conspiracy theories, alongside relentless promotion of Donald Trump through the group's media extension, The Epoch Times.

Now they're pushing to have the material wholesale removed—the sources are legion, and it's not happening. In fact, what the article needs is a total rewrite reflecting what reliable sources actually say about the pyramid-like structure of this particular new religious group and its activities, something this article currently goes to great lengths to avoid. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:50, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

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