Talk:Falun Gong/Archive 28

This is an archive of past discussions about Falun Gong. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 25

Archive 26

Archive 27

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unsorted 2008 topics

Another example of POV pushing

This article cites the same David Ownby 9 times. While 1 reference to the Qubec Justice's statement has been BLANKED and HACKED UP. If this is not POV pushing I don't know what is. Bobby fletcher (talk) 07:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The article is biased, not from a neutral point of view, and untrue. (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Foundation_issues). Please look at the Chinese version of the page (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B3%95%E8%BD%AE%E5%8A%9F). This page must be previously edited by Falun Gong practicers or anti-communists against Chinese government. As a Chinese, I am feeling my country and me are deeply insulted. Please inform a Chinese admin and do enough research, before making judgement about this issue. Falun Gong is regarded as a cult in China, and it is against Chinese government in many ways. Any book or website concerning Falun Gong is baned in China, because it makes people suicide, as well as not taking medicine when sick. Please do not put an article about Falun Gong written by a Falun Gong practicer on wikipedia, as it is a mislead to readers, as well as an insult to the Chinese goverment and Chinese people. Jasontable (talk) 09:08, 2 July 2008 (UTC)Jasontable

I agree with Bobby Fletcher and other commenters. This article is a disgrace to Wikipedia. I've seen well-sourced references to criticism of FG move from the introduction to a position five screen pages down, and then get erased. Several of the most active editors of this article are simply FG apologists. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 10:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Randi isn't a "well-sourced reference" on this topic. The best well-sourced references on this topic are Sinologists who research Falun Gong, and their views are presented in the lede and elsewhere. They don't do the sensationalist angle that some may prefer, but that's just academia, I guess.--Asdfg12345 13:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I object to your, again, obvious attempt to marginalize discussion critical to FLG in order to maintain a POV in this article.

[archived discussion on Randi foundation un-archived. Obviousely it's not settled. Will also ask for admin opinion.]

Notability of James Randi Foundation

James Randi Foundation is a notable organization:

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=James+Randi+Foundation

Above search yielded over 2000 past news articles.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 00:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

lol, the point is that Randi is a partisan skeptic, not an expert on Chinese religion or culture, his website is little more than a blog (see WP:SPS), so he's not a reliable source for commentary on this topic. If his musings were published in a reliable source then they might be admissible in some form, but they're not, I'm afraid. --Asdfg12345 02:36, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Following your logic, perhaps you shold remove all the Kilgour Matas stuff: 1) it is self-publishing (kilgour report is sponsored by Falun Gong; see report appendix on "expense reimbursement" by CIPFG; 2) Kilgour website is little more than a blog. Bobby fletcher (talk) 20:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Difference is that Kilgour's an expert on this subject, and the report has been hugely influential and republished elsewhere. If a scholar picks up Randi's comments then they can go in the article. --Asdfg12345 22:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Asdfg12345 Please put the PRC government sourcyou BLANKED BACK

I asked the Admins and they disagree with your "inadmissible" BS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Is_Chinese_government_website_notable_source.3F

Please put the two PRC government source back in per instruction by the Admin.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 23:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

First re the tag: I won't fight any more on that. Edit warring over a POV tag is really silly. It seems the objections have become justifications in their own right. Secondly, there was no "instruction" to put it in, and editors of the page should discuss it and figure out the best way. At the moment I've left three notes which have not been responded to. I believe that it is important to understand this issue and its context to make intelligent and informed assessments about it. If you want to put "The CCP calls Falun Gong a cult" etc. in the lede, I'm saying that this will have to be qualified by more information such as: "This is widely seen by (commentators/scholars/writers) to be propaganda, as a way of turning public opinion against Falun Gong and attempting to legitimise the persecution." -- something like that. It would be referenced, of course. --Asdfg12345 00:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The admins have made their opinion clear:

Admin Everyking - however, there can be no basis for objecting to their use in citing the claim that the Chinese government considers Falun Gong a cult. Indeed, the Chinese government is the best possible source for the Chinese government's official position on Falun Gong

Admin Jenny - The removed edit looks fine to me, but the sourcing isn't so good... This is better: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ce/ceat/det/zt/jpflg/t105141.htm

The Xinhua news agency is a perfectly reliable source on the statements of Chinese government officials

Admin Samuel Sol - I do think the statement is fine, and should be in the lead. As a great deal about Falun Gong is the controversy with the Chinese government. And Jenny is on the spot about the sources two

Where did they ever agree with your weak reason to stall this edit???

Based on abve support from MULTIPLE ADMIN, I'm going to put the edit back as they have opined and suggested.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 02:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be ignoring the thoughts I wrote on this. I wrote three or four paragraphs on the ANI page. Again, I request that you respond to the points raised in them. Just so I'm not ignoring others': yes, I acknowledge these views. The bottom line is that editors of the page should discuss the contents together in a mature way. The points I raised on the ANI page are still waiting for a response. Simply because a few people (or sysops, who can do a few more things with the software than regular editors, and do not necessarily hold more weight than others in terms of their opinions on content) have voiced their opinion, doesn't give a green light. I think things like this should be resolved with civil discussion and a free exchange of ideas. That is the spirit wikipedia is supposed to be edited in. Seeking outside opinions is definitely important, in fact vital, but I still feel that there are many outstanding issues, which I have raised, and which anyone who is not too familiar with this subject may not immediately recognise. To put it simply, in response to the above, I would just reiterate my wish that the arguments I raised (or ideas, understanding etc.) be engaged with. --Asdfg12345 08:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I did respond. I pointed out your hypocrisy in objecting to Xinhua now, while defending Epoch Times with "can still be used for FLG's view" when other editors have told you Epoch Times is unreliable. Go ahead insist on your view is somehow more valid than MULTIPLE editors and MULTIPLE admins.

Xinhua and Chinese government site are perfectly reliable source for Chinese government's view. In another word - what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

I feel I have sought out a prepondrance of opinion. If you feel otherwise we can take this admin opinion to arb.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

responded on the ANI page. The case of Epoch Times and organ harvesting is different. It would be like, for example, the section about the cult label on the persecution page. That starts off with CCP media, then goes onto the third party things. It's because they initiated that chain of thought/writing. In the organ harvesting case, Epoch Times initiated that line of enquiry, if you know what I mean. The page doesn't have much on Epoch Times except as a meaningful way of contextualising it. I also never meant to insist that my view was more valid that others'. I merely put my view forward, and asked that the arguments in it be addressed. I don't think that's unreasonable.--Asdfg12345 22:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Even more Admin Opinion Against You, Asdfg12345

Two more response from the administrators to Adsfg12345 in the ANI cited above:

Look Asdfg12345, the most important thing about Falun Gong, for us totally unaware of its practice is the controversy with the CCP. One single statement about it on the article, does not fail WP:UNDUE, specially, as I said on your talk page, for THIS specifically piece of information they are a WP:RS. And about your bit about propaganda. I read that article almost as an altar and a praise to Falun Gong practices. It totally fails WP:NPOV, and I'm deeply worried about a possible WP:COI from you, since the only contributions I could see on your history are related to Falun Gong. Samuel Sol (talk) 12:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Writing as an onlooker who has no dog in this fight, Asdfg12345, your argument against using CCP or Xinhua here strikes me as an act of wikilawyering. While these websites are not considered neutral or accurate about the Falun Gong itself, as Everyking pointed out above they are reliable about what the Chinese government thinks. And since no one here (as far as I can see) denies that the Chinese government is acting in a hostile fashion against the Falun Gong, inclusion of their opinion is relevant (as opposed to, say, the Larouchies or the Ethiopian Orthodox Church). The only gain I can see here if these sources are excluded from this article is to suppress mentioning what the Chinese position is at all -- which does not help our users. Suppose a user wants to know what the Chinese POV is in order to debate & refute it: by not including a link to this source, we have made it more difficult for this person to prepare for this debate. I believe this responds to all of your objections, even the ones you do not want to repeat. -- llywrch (talk) 19:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Asdfg, what happened to the stuff you wrote about "listening to others"??? MULTIPLE editors and MULTIPLE administrators disagree with you. And these new opinions echo those of us who have tried to get thru to you in vain - Conflict Of Interest and POV flag for examples.

All these documented pattern of behavior has led me to conclude I can no longer Assume Good Faith.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

responded above. I don't understand your second-final sentence.--Asdfg12345 22:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Stop behaving in bad faith, Asdfg. One of the editor has clearly stated his response addressed ALL your concerns, and the consensus is the edit is good. Put it back please. Bobby fletcher (talk) 22:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Disputing "branded" POV edit made by Asdfg12345

This edit has changed a neutural statement representing the Chinese government's veiw (previously cleared by adminstrator) into a POV statment that is again pusing the editor's POV. Bobby fletcher (talk) 23:48, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

gong v dafa

I think this article needs to standardize it's usage of "Falun Gong" versus "Falun Dafa". Assuming they mean the same thing, just one term should be used throughout (except for quotations of course). I didn't do it myself, in case I'm mistaken about the terms being interchangeable. --Rob (talk) 20:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussing the lede

PCPP, please discuss changes to the lede here. I would revert you because you have violated wikipedia's content policies, but I am unable to do so since I have made a commitment to revert no more than once per article per day:

For example, why change "been described as controversial" to "gained attention and controversy" -- the first is a passive description of what what those sources say, the second is attributive to Falun Gong, and extends beyond merely what those sources say to suggest something about Falun Gong itself. May seem like a minor point, but I'm sure you grasp what I'm saying. Just on that anyway, the whole sentence reads "The group has gained attention and controversy, in 1999, when the Chinese government labelled Falun Gong as a cult and banned the practice..." -- and this is original research. Those sources didn't say that. You are making an original synthesis.
Secondly, you say the label has been "disputed" by others, when in fact they have rejected it entirely and said that it's part of a propaganda campaign. You deleted those parts (that guy is a top academic, but anyway, I won't fight on that source, there are tons of others).
The second change attempts to water down the sources a bit, and it also introduces grammatical errors. For example, it says "Reports of torture has surfaced, with claims of illegal imprisonment..." -- when in fact it would be more accurate to simply say that reports of x,y,z are widespread. "has surfaced" is a bit vague, and gives the impression that there are only a few of them, or something. There's actually something like 55,000. There's something like 3,500 cases of confirmed death through torture (i.e. they've got family testimony, photos, police records, etc., or a combination of evidence) , and estimates of double that.
The other things, where you deleted "gentlest religion", and "propaganda", without a real explanation... I think that is unfair. Landsberger, if you read his bio, is an expert on Chinese propaganda, he's a tenured academic. WP:SPS are permissible under circumstances, and this would be one of them, for example: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications" (emphasis in original). But anyway, it's easy to find many sources that say that. I might even be able to find a dozen. But deleting it without discussion seems a bit stiff. Instead there are CCP sources, the justification for which has not even been established. I gave many examples on the ANI page, but they weren't responded to. Just to rehash one: go to the Judaism page and put down Hitler's views on Jews, then another sentence saying how others see these as propaganda. Is that the neutral point of view? I probably wrote over 500 words there, and there were probably 3 or so key strands of argument. None of them have been addressed. It's taken me about 20 minutes to write all this, and I believe that I have kept a civil tone and stated clearly the arguments I'm trying to put across.

If you intend to respond, you might as well just keep it to addressing the points I raised on the ANI page that dispute the CCP even going in the lede in the first place. The rest is academic. That is the first point of discussion. I only put those other things in as a kind of response to having my arguments ignored and my intentions questioned, about the initial issue, as I had no other recourse. I'm not going to edit war. But now I find that even this was half deleted and sliced up. How do you understand this situation? --Asdfg12345 14:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I have concerns on the "cult" label being pushed in the lede without sufficient background or context. Is should be discussed with appropriate background of the CCP propaganda . It is well documented by Amnesty, HRW, Kilgour-Matas, US Congress Resolutions 188, 304, etc and many other sources how the "cult" label was coined by the CCP shortly following onset of the persecution campaign to justify its persecution of millions. Reverting to the more objective previous lede.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 17:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it ought not be in the lede at all. That still hasn't been addressed. The page on the Chinese Communist Party does not say that Falun Gong practitioners actually think the CCP is an evil cult, so why should it work the other way?--Asdfg12345 00:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

We have the opinions of 3+ admins saying it's ok to address the Chinese government's views in order to show the conflict between FLG and the PRC. Samuel Sol said it best: The Government, like it or not, be it democratic or not, is the most important body of each country, and there opinion care relevancy. Not so much can be said about groups criticizing it.--PCPP (talk) 03:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

What? That fails to address the issue entirely. How does the Chinese Communist Party's view on Falun Gong, which is widely understood to be purely propagandistic, have particular relevance to characterising Falun Gong? Because Falun Gong was first taught in China? Because Falun Gong is persecuted in China? Well, if the CCP's opinion is so important, why don't we also include the opinion that certain officials and and official bodies gave before the persecution, such as the awards given to Li Hongzhi, and the comments about how Falun Gong could save the government billions in health care costs? Such cursory dismissals of complex arguments, I feel, are really unsatisfactory for addressing this situation. And again I give an example of why the jiuping shouldn't be used in the article on the CCP, if it works the other way. I also want to point out that I feel that you and Bobby are simply not addressing the key issues I am raising, after repeated instances. (Just a side note, not that it makes any difference whatsoever, but Samuel Sol and Jenny/RegenerateThis aren't admins.)--Asdfg12345 04:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the lede should include the fact that FLG is viewed as a cult or that it is banned in the country of its origin, which also happens to be the largest country in the world in terms of population. I dont think this is an issue of POV or propaganda. But its a matter of fact which happens to be very notable worldwide. From the excerpts of WP:LEAD: The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any.. Just my opinion on this. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 05:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Kawaputra. In fact, I think you need to be a FG devotee to not agree. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 08:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Asdfg, you can not simply say whether something is propaganda or not. You should demonstrate why, from you point of view, that it is considered to be propaganda by listing statement from third party sources that say so. Most importantly, its up to the reader to decide what is propaganda, since often one person's propaganda is another person's truth. I think the current wording is fine, with the PRC's position balanced out by third party criticism.--PCPP (talk) 15:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Kawaputra, Martin, PCCP, and all the Admins that chimed in - Asdfg you are just repeating the same thing that's already addressed by MULTIPLE ADMINS. You are so obviousely acting in bad faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Falun_Gong#Asdfg12345_Please_put_the_PRC_government_sourcyou_BLANKED_BACK

Bobby fletcher (talk) 22:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

A few points in response, and to Enric, below--just thoughts on this issue that I would welcome being addressed:

FLG is persecuted in China, not simply banned. That's relevant, and it's in the lede.
The reason for this may or may not need to be mentioned in the lede, as there are a number of reasons floating around. If any of them was to go in the lede, I think it should be that of the most notable reliable sources, perhaps not merely that from Falun Gong or from the CCP. (this is also to Enric)
The labelling of Falun Gong as a cult, according to the sources cited in the lede, and a bunch of others, has its context within the repression of Falun Gong, not as a statement to characterise Falun Gong itself.
Again the example that the page on Judaism does not contain Nazi hate speech, along with a refutation of such hate speech.
The question is: should the explanation as to why the CCP persecutes Falun Gong, (or, rather, the different explanations, such as one from the CCP, one from Falun Gong, several from third parties, which also offer strong counter-criticism of the CCP view) go in the lede? Just as an example, the CCP will say that it banned Falun Gong because it was a cult causing trouble and deceiving people. The fact is, the original ban didn't make any mention of cult, it banned it as an illegal social organisation. Later on in October Jiang passed a law banning cults, while Falun Gong was labelled a cult, or an "evil cult", or slightly more poetically, a "cult of evil". So, do we give all these explanations in the lede, which is about the entire subject of Falun Gong, which includes so many different facets (notwithstanding that the persecution is an important one)? The lede can only be so long, where is there space for addressing this?

To Enric:

The cult thing is a fringe theory in Falun Gong scholarly literature, it's not supported by mainstream scholars (it's actually discredited by them), and it's seen as no more than a crude propaganda label
On the second point, you might check out the persecution of Falun Gong page, which contains much of that relevant information about the use of media, and the cult label in particular, in the context of the actions the Chinese authorities took against Falun Gong practitioners. Perhaps the main page could be longer, but there are many daughter articles to this topic, and they all need a kind of placement on the main page, so I'm not sure how to handle this issue.--Asdfg12345 05:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's address those points:

It should appear on the article because it's a very notable fact. That a religion is declared a cult by the government of the most populated country on the world, where it has been a popular phenomena, is very notable, and it should appear on the article. and this is a very notable fact that should appear somewhere. How it should exactly appear is a different question.

Oh, yeah, and the ban and cult labelling on China are also notable for this discipline because it's a traditional chinese discipline, so it's been labelled a cult on its place of origin.

Asdfg points out that it appears already on persecution of Falun Gong, but that's a subpage of this page, so it's sort of already appearing on the article.
The fact that the cult definition is unfair or not is not relevant to the fact itself appearing on the article. It should appear because it's a notable fact, not becase of its fairness or unfairness.
Looking at the new sentence on the lead that is being disputed right now, it already details both the scholar perspective that it's discredited and its use as a convenient label for prosecution, so I don't see how the new sentence fails to address any issue.
Finally, WP:WAX What about Article X is not an argument to remove notable facts from a lead, specially when it's also infringing on Godwin's law. Basically, Judaism has a lot more history than Falun Gong, spanning thousands of years. The relative size of The Holocaust compared to thousands of years of anti-semitism is very small. The relative size of the Chinese government ban and cult labelling is huge in comparison with the short history of Falun Gong, with most of its fame coming from its actions on China, while judaism was already notable way before Nazism.

I would say that the inclusion on the lead is pretty much warranted, and that this ought to be at most a discussion on how it should be worded. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Haha, I appreciated the link to Godwin's law. Thanks for this. I had not actually considered those points in this light. I suppose the notability is the clincher. Then it's fine by me. If the context of this label can be briefly given, i.e. it was made after the decision to eradicate Falun Gong, as a tool for marginalising and persecuting them, and it's dismissed by scholars, then I suppose that's all we can do. Don't worry, there are sources for this (e.g. Nov 99 WPost: "It was Mr. Jiang who ordered that Falun Gong be branded a 'cult,' and then demanded that a law be passed banning cults...", and the specifics ought to be discussed. I think the triple-scholar-rejection looks a bit lame, it can be more elegant than that. Thanks for the comments. I hadn't seen it that way. You are right. --Asdfg12345 15:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Lo cambié recién, ¿ya que te parece?--Asdfg12345 15:45, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool! Now it's more in context with the ban thing. I added "four months after the ban" to make the temporal timeline more clear for the reader. (I'm happy that I was of help for you :) ) --Enric Naval (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I have slept on this edit and it still seems a bit odd. It is a single detail among the multitude of points surrounding this issue, and while it is notable, it's placement still seems unwarranted. For example, the media campaign also included saying that "International anti-China forces" were actually behind Falun Gong, and also that Falun Gong practitioners kill their family members and commit suicide, and even, I think somewhere, engage in bestiality. These are obviously the grotesque extremes of frantic communist hate propaganda, but they are also all parts of their media campaign. The cult label, perhaps less lurid, is still one among these. For all those reasons you mention above, couldn't we substitute "cult label" for any one of these other dastardly descriptors, and any one of those would be just as notable--perhaps even more notable? I think there are kind of wider issues. The cult term then is clearly not a way of characterising Falun Gong in the lede, but merely a specific detail of the campaign against it. Then why significantly more important than any other detail? --Asdfg12345 23:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Just another note, something occurred to me. I assume no one would actually think it appropriate to include the Chinese authorities claim that Falun Gong practitioners in China, after 1999, committed suicide and homicide frequently--then, you know, include something from scholars or Amnesty saying this is propaganda and rubbish? Or any of the other wild claims. But why the cult one? Does it seem somehow more 'reasonable'? Isn't this original research? The differing views for the reason for the persecution, I think, ought to be given their own breathing space somewhere else. I don't get lifting one detail out of the wider thing and putting it in the lede. Thoughts?--Asdfg12345 23:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

1) Multiple administrators already disagreed with your "placement still seems unwarranted" opinion. Bobby fletcher (talk) 23:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

starting the house from the roof

You guys, why don't you add the "cult" thing first on the body of the article, and then you can add it to the lead? Citing WP:LEAD: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article (...) summarize the most important points (on the article". Right now the lead should only only talk about the ban, since the ban is mentioned extensively on the article, while Falun Gong being considered a cult or having cult characteristics is not mentioned anywhere.

You should add the cult thing on the same section as the ban, explaining when the chinese government declared it a cult, and how this declaration is related to the ban (was it after or before the ban, was it inmediately after the ban, is there some scholar analysis independent from the chinese government of how Falun Gong has got or hasn't got cult characteristics, any country listing it a legal religious organization, some Amnesy International report stating stuff about it being a cult or not? You know, some encyclopedic stuff) --Enric Naval (talk) 22:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Because certain FLG disciple editors keep blanking out this fact. Even after the edit was taken to Admin for clear, they still insist on arguinging, hacking it up, eventually blanking it once again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive442#Is_Chinese_government_website_notable_source.3F

Here's the latest attempt that has once again disappeared from the article. If you know how to ask for Admin intervention I will make my opinion known, as I have never had any problem with anyone while editing, I don't know how to deal with it.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 07:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

justifying the tag

Pls note on the page that gives guidelines for how POV tags are meant to be used, it says "The above label is meant to indicate that a discussion is ongoing, and hence that the article contents are disputed and volatile. If you add the above code to an article which seems to be biased to you, but there is no prior discussion of the bias, you need to at least leave a note on the article's talk page describing what you consider unacceptable about the article. The note should address the problem with enough specificity to allow constructive discussion towards a resolution, such as identifying specific passages, elements, or phrasings that are problematic." (emphasis added) -- I will not speculate on the apparent spirit the tag has been put on the article in, but if this isn't addressed say, within 12 hours, I will remove the tag and ask that editors respect these guidelines. Such tags are supposed to be when there is a dispute that is colouring the article that has not been resolved, not simply because an editor does not like the article, or something. There's a big difference.--Asdfg12345 00:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Mind you, there is a current dispute going on over the addition of the Chinese government source in the lead. Until that is solves, stop trying to remove stuff.--PCPP (talk) 04:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand, but I want to say that it is really important that you engage in the discussion taking place, rather than--as it seems to me so far, to be honest and blunt--obfuscating it. It seems that none of the four or five strands of argument I have raised against the CCP thing going in the lede have been responded to. I am all for seeking outside opinion, but it must be qualified and discussed. Opinions that are not backed up or informed do not seem all that valuable for such a complex subject. The people who left comments on the ANI page said some broadly useful things, but did not engage in the points I raised, and no one else did either. So what I'm saying is, you must engage in the discussion on this topic, not perpetuate disagreements for the sake of having a POV tag.--Asdfg12345 05:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

here's yet another disput not resolved - someone has removed the edit cleared by the admins. You even hacked it up with bunch of POV follow-ups, but that's still not good enough I guess.

I too vote for POV flag stays, as numerous dispute continues. Specificall unsavory and abusive behavior by you - Asdfg12345.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 07:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you engage in any of the discussion about this? Can you introduce highly contentious edits, then ignore all the discussion, and when they get removed complain that you have been treated unfairly? It is transparently the case that this is what is happening. Anyway, the discussion to engage in is above, and you're still encouraged to do so.--Asdfg12345 08:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't make it any more clear - MULTIPLE ADMINISTRATORS AND MULTIPLE EDITORS DISAGREE WITH YOU!!! Yet you still instist on blanking things you don't like, and pretend you are somehow the decider of anything that's "awsome" enough to keep. The edit in question is good, put it back.

It really is that simple. Bobby fletcher (talk) 22:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you are showing a worrying understanding of wikipedia processes and consensus building. This isn't all about sharpening your head and ramming your way through, it's about intelligent discussion and a free exchange of ideas. Your note, with screaming caps, demanding that I accept the view of other editors, is quite odd. I never said I was the arbiter of what's best, I just raised my objections and asked that they be responded to. Two other editors also shared their views, and I saw the issue in a slightly different light. Relax.--Asdfg12345 22:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Please read what you wrote: "I wanna delete it unless there is some awesome reason to keep it." What if everyone think like you do, with their own measure of "awesome"? Again the fact is multiple editors and multiple administrators diagree with you, but you still blanked/hadk edit you don't like. A simple NPOV sentence that clearly belong in the lead has been hacked into a POV and quite inflamatory statment with your "brand". This is a fact. Bobby fletcher (talk) 23:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead

I hate to jump into conflicts, but I must say I can't see anything wrong with the sentence some editors insist on removing. It's neutral, it sums up the position of the chinese government and gives a realpolitik explanation of that position. If anything, I could understand pro-CCP editors complaining that it's a bit harsh on the government for an introductory sentence. FG's notoriety is in no small part due to its repression by the CCP, therefore the persecutor's position is pretty relevant. yandman 11:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello yandman. There is a section just above called "Discussing the lede". At the moment, there is ongoing discussion about just this question. I think the best thing would be to simply read what's there and respond to it. In particular, I note several issues with the material that do not seem to have been responded to by anyone. I don't think you need to worry about jumping in, and of course we should try not to make these discussions conflicts, but there has been a lot of words typed about all this, and specifically, against this phrase going in the lede, and it would be great if you engaged in this discussion rather than reinserting the disputed material without doing so. These are my thoughts on it. Since I disagree with this material, and have stated the reasons many times, and they haven't been responded to, I am going to go ahead and undo your edit and ask that the issue be properly hammered out.--Asdfg12345 14:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think I wasn't clear enough. I jumped in, but not blindly. I was witness to the discussion at ANI (where several fellow administrators held the same opinion). I then read this, and other, discussions. Indeed, the post by Enric Naval sums up the point of view of many editors pretty well. yandman 15:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep I agree, now. I did not share this view until I read Enric´s comments, the notability and context is kind of, significant..--Asdfg12345 15:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Great. I'm going to change "authorities" to "chinese government", because it's not immediately clear who we're talking about. In addition, "controversial" is not a criticism. If everyone is against something, it's not controversial. The movement is controversial because some oppose and some support. So (following Britannica's way of presenting it), "The group has been described as controversial by some" will become "The group is controversial: while described as ... by some, most scholars ...". yandman 16:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't accept the cult remark attributed to "some" -- the point is that the cult thing is primarily CCP propaganda, certainly not a mainstream academic view. I think it is okay to say that some say Falun Gong is controversial. I mean, the thing is, Falun Gong itself didn't do anything much except get persecuted, I think it is more appropriate to make clear that some people say it's controversial, rather than Falun Gong itself being controversial--catch the meaning? --Asdfg12345 16:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

But that's the problem. Everyone says it's controversial, not just some. Is there one person out there who thinks it isn't? Even Britannica have it in their first sentence: "Falun Gong: controversial Chinese spiritual movement...". "Controversial" isn't the same as "criticisable". Only the CCP say it's a cult, but everyone says it's controversial. Hell, if it wasn't controversial we wouldn't have a talk page that is now approaching critical mass. By the way, Britannica talks about "the medical establishment" as well as the CCP, but isn't clear: the chinese medical establisment? International academics? CCP lackeys? yandman 16:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this is more of an issue with the english language, to be honest. "Controversial" is a neutral statement giving the fact that there is a controversy (justified or not), not a criticism. In much the same way you would say "communism is controversial: some like it, some don't, and there is tension between the two". yandman 16:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It is a vague remark, I feel--why not just describe the apparent "controversies"? I can understand the urge for journalists to reach into their bucket and retrieve this term, but for wikipedia, I don't see the advantage in defining Falun Gong as controversial instead of being more clear about what the apparent dispute is. Falun Gong is the five exercises and spiritual texts--is that the controversy, or the things that happened surrounding too many people doing that in China, and the consequences? I don't think it's a neutral, descriptive term in this case, as there is not a parity of sources. I don't even think the controversial thing followed by the gentle thing is appropriate for the lede to begin with, to be honest. But if other sources have said it, and editors think it's a good idea, then... but it should still be attributive rather than definitive. Know what I'm saying? --Asdfg12345 16:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean. To be honest, I'm uncomfrotable citing another Encyclopedia (EB online and paper, in this case). Having WIkipedia say "E.B. describes the group as controversial" seems kind of clumsy. Maybe the E.B. ref should be on the word controversial. yandman 17:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well I think the whole sentence is redundant anyway. Referring to another tertiary source is also not advisable (three of the four references were to tertiary sources). The point is, in other sources they use this as a cheap one-liner. I think we can set our standards a bit higher, and where others are careless, wikipedia can be careful. The gentle seemed inappropriate, though I'm also unsatisfied with an unqualified and unsubstantiated controversial from three tertiary sources and a newspaper abstract. bah, I'm going to sleep, got to wake up in five hours. --Asdfg12345 17:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: I wanna delete it unless there is some awesome reason to keep it.--Asdfg12345 17:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why we have to mention the word "cult" in the intro? How come the entire Communist Party of China article does not contain the word "controversy" once? There is no balance at all between these articles. Benjwong (talk) 18:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The edit is cleared by MULTIPLE ADMINISTRATORS. See discussion above: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Falun_Gong#Asdfg12345_Please_put_the_PRC_government_sourcyou_BLANKED_BACK

Bobby fletcher (talk) 22:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I still think there are issues. For example, the nine commentaries calls the CCP an evil cult. That's fairly notable when you put it into the same terms as the original question: a hugely popular, avowedly non-political qigong practice, practiced even by tens of thousands of cadres, gets banned and persecuted, then 5 years later comes out with a blistering political tract concluding that the entire Chinese Communist Party is actually an "anti-universe force" and an "evil cult"--that sounds fairly notable! But I think there is a snowflake's chance of hell of getting that in the CCP article lede. Questions remain...--Asdfg12345 22:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Some points:

it's the actions of the chinese government that are controversial, not the government in itself
the CCP article does not have the word "controversial", but it does have a whole "criticism" section
I think that the official label given by the chinese government is "cult", not "evil cult". The persecution article can have all the details, like the government officials and party newspapers using the words "evil cult" or "cult of evil"
As I already said, for a religion, getting called a "cult" on its country of origin is a big thing, that's why this should be treated with more detail than the other stuff. Also, it's a label with big repercusions as it automatically marks all the group activities in China as cult activities.
The lead can quickly summarize the most important accussation from the chinese government (the organ harvesting) by just saying "convenient propaganda, [20][21] and has also accussed the group of harvesting organs from live persons, [ref] a accussation that has been dismissed by Amnesty International. [ref]". There is just not enough space on the lead to detail all the accussations.
If you look at the four sources for this edit changing "has been called controversial" to "is also sometimes thought to be controversial" you will see that the most adequate wording would be more like "is defined as controversial by many" or simply "is usually defined as controversial":

Britannica: "controversial Chinese spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992;" [1]
belief.net: "beliefs and origins of this controversial movement." [2]
about .com: "Falun Dafa, controversial Chinese sect." .com/cs/falungong/
Halifax Daily News: "Practitioners of Falun Gong, a controversial Chinese religion, will (...)" [3]

About this edit removing "being described as a cult by some" because it uses the qualifier "some", looking at the same four sources again, "some" is totally incorrect. It should say "being described as a cult by the Chinese government":

Britannica: "was a great concern to the Chinese government, which viewed Falun Gong as a cult." [4]
belief.net mentions nothing [5]
about .com "(...) chinese sect" .com/cs/falungong/
Halifax Daily News: "(...)while China maintains it is a dangerous cult" [6]

Cheers --Enric Naval (talk) 02:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Might have been easier if you'd numbered them, heh

The CCP's term for Falun Gong was 邪教, something like "heterodox teaching". a western PR firm suggested to them the defter translation of "evil cult". Xiejiao is translated as evil cult by xinhua and other Party propaganda organs; that's the staple term.
the bigger thing is getting persecuted, the cult label came after the persecution, as a way of doing the persecution. As I say, it's merely another detail among the many. A religion getting a giant propaganda campaign against it in its country of origin and having the whole population told that it teaches to kill people etc. is fairly notable--tell me, what's more notable, being called a cult, or being accused of committing murder and suicide? Why don't we put that in the lede, then, going by the same logic?
<deleted more references to WP:WAX>
As one particular aspect of the comprehensive media strategy against Falun Gong, I still fail to see the use of mentioning it in the lede. I mean, it mentions torture, should we also mention that electric batons are one of the most common forms? or "particularly with electric batons"? the cult label is like the electric baton of media campaign. I just don't get the particular importance.
I'm confused by your note beginning "The lead can quickly..." -- I don't know who is accusing who of what in the sentence you provide. Sorry.
About the controversial, I think this may be somewhat misleading. For example, I could cite hundreds of articles and stuff that don't use the term. If the apparent controversies are not going to be illustrated, and I'm not aware particularly of what they might be, then I don't see the sense of including that description. If there was some specific, notable chasm in the literature on Falun Gong, with a parity of sources, then I wouldn't object. At the moment it is vague and unsubstantiated. Besides, I thought wikipedia isn't supposed to rely on other tertiary sources.
the last point is related to the others above I suppose. misgivings still unresolved. Have I brought anything new to this exchange? Mainly I think now the relevance of this particular claim going in the lede needs to be addressed. Yes, it was an important part of the media campaign to brand Falun Gong a cult--though it was also an important part of the violence campaign to use electric batons; it was also an important part of the general campaign to fire people from their jobs; it was also an important... and so on. Since this term is not acting as a description of Falun Gong in the lede (clear on that, right?) then it is merely a detail to the mechanics of persecution. So why particularly relevant, so far above the multitudinous other tools used by the Party? It must be explained why it is not sufficient to leave it for the appropriate section. Personally, I can't see how it isn't. If I have not expressed something clearly, let me know, I should be able to re-explain it in a different way, and in more depth.--Asdfg12345 09:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The word "cult" is very relevant in the context of the persecution, but it is so heavily loaded and slanderous that we must pay particular attention to this issue. It has no significance outside of the CCP's attempts to marginalize, alienate, and justify the unjustifiable. Thus we cannot isolate such terms from the broader discourse. It certainly deserves its own chapter, namely Persecution of Falun Gong#The cult label; but just like we cannot understand why the CCP is labeled a "cult" by Falun Gong unless we take the ongoing persecution into account, the same applies vice versa. Many would argue that Falun Gong's characterisation of the CCP is closer to the actual truth, but we still don't see such words in that article's introduction.

Therefore, if we choose to insert the 'cult' label into the lead section of the Falun Gong article, but it is considered inappropriate for the CCP article, we would have to assume that the CCP is a major player, but Falun Gong is not, and thus the Party's viewpoint would be deemed more important than that of Falun Gong. But that's simply not the case. Leading sinologists, including David Ownby, have stated that the Falun Gong issue will continue to bear a major impact on China; indeed, even the title of his recent book is "Falun Gong and the Future of China". And as the relevant academic community has quite straightforwardly stated that the CCP is spreading political propaganda, with intent on inciting hatred and discrimination, shouldn't that make Falun Gong's viewpoint on the CCP even more relevant? Of course, we're striving to write a professional encyclopedic article here. We should always contextualize properly, and the lead section is not intended for such elaborations. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 11:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

By your logic, we should insert al-Qaeda's opinions on the US government page entirely because the US government's views on al-Qaeda as a terrorist group is on the lead of their article. Ownby's opinions remain his personal opinions, and his views on Chinese propaganda should be no different from Rick Ross or James Randi's opinions on that FLG is a cult. And FLG never had a concise view on the PRC that represent the whole group. --PCPP (talk) 15:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

what the..?--Asdfg12345 15:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) sorry for making such a long post.

@ Asdfg, OK for using "evil cult" instead of "cult", I didn't know the exact chinese translation.

@ Asdfg. About naming the cult label and not naming the other details. As I said, I consider the "cult" label by the chinese government to be a notable thing, not just another detail. I am not sure, but I think that, of all the badmouthing by the chinese government, the cult label is the most famous one.

@ Asdfg. About other details apart from the cult thing. We can't put every detail on the lead, we have to cut at some point or the lead will get too long, and the third paragraph in the lead is already getting too long, and the lead is starting to go against the 3-4 paragraphs limit. My suggestion above about adding the organ harvesting thing was to add one small short detail that showed the outrageous accusations made by the chinese government, and I picked it just because it has its own article and its own reports from Amnesty International (which means that it's probably a lot more notable than the other accussations). You see, we can't add every accusation that the CCP has ever made because there is a lot of them, including depictions with nazi svastikas [7]. At most, pick a source saying that the CCP has made a bunch of false accusations, and add a short sentence somewhere near the ban sentence.

Continuing the above point, there are too many torture details, and none of them is so much more relevant than the others than it warrants including it on the lead and leaving the others out.

@ Asdfg, about "controversial", it's probably OK to use tertiary sources to substantiate that some tertairy sources are using a certain word. Also, a google search [8] finds plenty of sources labelling Falun Gong as controversial "Controversial New Religions" book or describing controversies caused by Falun Gong [hhttp://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/07/entertainment/et-chinese7 "Ties to Falun Gong add controversy to the Chinese New Year Spectacular"], and controversial actuations "In one scene a Falun Gong dancer is killed by dancing Chinese police, who strangle her with a red flag." "Politicians urged not to attend controversial Chinese stage show" "Some of these dramas depict the persecution of Falun Gong members in China (...) Policemen come in and drag the practitioners off and beat them, including little girls, which is very true" [9]. I think that not much people would label that as "uncontroversial" :D To hellp you see how controversial the scene is, try to imagine the same scene with your own country's flag and your national police, and how people from your contry would react if it was done on an important public representation. In Spain, showing a Guardia Civil agent using a Spain's flag like that could bring you to court for "injuries to the flag", and the incident would be widely publicited by spanish nationalists radio hosts with wide national audience (aka, it would generate a lot of controversy). Btw, Asdfg, saying that something is "controversial" does not mean that it has to be false. You seem to believe that "controversial" is a biased label or something, when it's a neutral term on english ("controversial" can be anything that generates controversy, regardless of the reasons or details for the controversy). We shouldn't remove notable adjectives from articles just because we don't agree with them.

@ Olaf & Asdfg, I thought that the current wording on the lead already placed the "cult" label into the correct context of the abusive persecution from the chinese government by placing it in between the ban and the tortures, and by citing the "red-herring" and "propaganda" things? Do you think that it needs still more context?

@ Olaf, discussions of what to include on CCP's article lead should be held on Talk:Communist_Party_of_China.

Cheers --Enric Naval (talk) 16:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Enric, thanks for your note, and for engaging in this discussion rationally and calmly. It's refreshing. Okay, basically my problem boils down to one thing, and I am going to keep this response to the essence of the problem, since I think by adding a lot of other things the main thing hasn't been dealt with.

It's this: Falun Gong is a huge subject, involving myriad factors. For example, there is the way that Falun Gong is practised, who practices it, where they do so, how they stand in relation to each other, etc.--this might be like the social or objective aspect of the practice; then there are the teachings; then there is the body of scholarly literature on the practice, and on the persecution; then there is the persecution itself, which includes an enormous amount; there is also how Falun Gong has responded to the persecution; there is more than these. Each of these topics has produced a huge amount of secondary literature. One part of one part of these topics is the labelling of Falun Gong as a cult (i.e. Falun Gong -> persecution -> propaganda campaign -> cult label). This is certainly not the most notable thing about this whole topic. Please consider that this main Falun Gong page has 4 or 5 daughter articles, and that some of those have their own daughter articles. Where is the sense in elaborating on a particular aspect of the media campaign against Falun Gong in the lede of the whole topic? It is an important part of the persecution, I'll warrant that. I'd say it belongs on the persecution lede. This lede doesn't even have enough information about the topic as it is, let alone adding in these details which are not directly pertinent to the whole edifice.

Apart from this, there are a bunch of other points. for example, it's not okay to simply give the opinion of the CCP about Falun Gong without giving the other opinions, such as of scholars, and of Falun Gong. And where is the space in the lede to hash out these three views, even cursorily? The lede is supposed to briefly introduce the subject, and also point out its notable controversies. Well, the persecution does just so. Maybe a sentence could preface that paragraph, including the term "controversial" or "attention" or something of the like. The cult thing is part of the media campaign of the persecution. You have to drill down three layers. Things should be taken in proportion and the whole subject outlined instead of getting into this nitty gritty. This is basically my major objection. BTW I've removed the whole sentence since the scholar rejection got deleted. I don't know whose idea it was to delete that. I don't agree with the decision, in any case. I would be interested to understand if, or how, other editors see their way around this problem I have spelled out. --Asdfg12345 09:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

PCPP your example does not work. If you want to do a comparison, you can find 20 sources about the CCP's view against capitalists. That is easy. They had names much worse than "cult" for rich people. That doesn't mean I should open the Capitalist article and immediately see the party's view. Benjwong (talk) 03:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I see that the scholar view was removed with this edit summary "Removed personal interpretation by scholars. This goes in the body: the intro isn't there to pass judgement".

I think that the "cult" label is important, but simply adding the "cult" label is misleading because it makes it look like a legitimate reasonable claim. Either it's added with qualifiers explaining the context, or it shouldn't be included at all because of the misleading. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The context is that it was part of the propaganda campaign (according to reliable sources). Just trying to talk strictly from the viewpoint of a professional article on this subject, it's unwieldy to include this attack/rebuttal in the lede. It would take perhaps 30 words, and for one small piece of information that, while notable, is just one part of one piece of the Falun Gong puzzle, I can't say I really 'get it', if ya'll know what I mean. I provide a better, if longwinded, explanation of this same point above.--Asdfg12345 03:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I was going to suggest an alternative:

"In October 1999, four months after the ban, Chinese authorities branded Falun Gong and other organizations as a "heretical organization" (邪教 or "xiejiao"), ^{Amnesty International, footnote 1} which was translated to english with the misleading term "cult", or "evil cult". ^{[Amnesty International again]}^{chinese government}"

not sure if it really establishes the context of the propaganda campaign and it has 35+ words :P Maybe this paragraph should go into the persecution article on the relevant place?

I would need a source saying "the cult label is part of the propaganda campaign" in order to make the sentence short, nice, and on context. Suggerences? --Enric Naval (talk) 17:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Cult vs Evil Cult

The precise term the PRC referred to FLG is "xiejiao" ie "evil cult", so it should be noted in the lead. Others like Randi, Ross, the anti-cult movement etc has also referred to FLG as a "cult" but not "evil cult", and the two characterizations aren't exactly the same, which should be clarified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PCPP (talk • contribs) 15:25, 7 July 2008

What Randi says is a different matter from what the CCP says. Trying to insert an explanation on the lead in the middle of explaining the CCP actions towards Falun Gong could make for very akward wording.

Randi calls them "In short, folks, this is another mystical cult basing its philosophy on mythology and pseudoscience, a spiritual movement loosely based on Buddhism, Taoism, yoga-style exercises, and blatant fantasies." [10] That's not condemning them as a bad cult, and it's a comment on his semanal commentary. Not sure if this is important/notable enough for the lead. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

None of these will fly, and probably will be incesently blanked and hacked up by certain editors like what I see right now. Neither will "controversial" even thou it is factual and neutural, certain editors just don't like it as it seems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_25#Notable_Source_Declaring_Falun_Gong_.22Controversial.22

FYI for a little history. Bobby fletcher (talk) 22:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, my experience is that, if you can find enough sources for something, and if you can make a good case that it should be on the article, you can actually get it to stay. Ocassionally, people will find another way to express it, or it might get moved it to a different article. Sometimes this is correct and sometimes this is wrong and it has to be disputed. It helps if every once in a while you go to totally uncontroversial articles on topics you like to make uncontroversial edits.

Oh, btw, I found the court case: "An analysis of the evidence as to Falun Gong (...) [40] It is a controversial movement, which does not accept criticism." [11]. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The Qubec court website has some php problem and does not allow link. That's why search info and archive were provided. BTW, please note both links I submitted to ANI and was cleared by multiple admins is for the 4th time, removed. Bobby fletcher (talk) 16:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, you are right, it doesn't work. Well, it appears that the chinese government source is now accepted as source for the label existance. Current dispute is now about how to include it without giving it undue weight, or something. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Stefan Landsberger's page

Altought Stefan Landsberger's page is a personal page, he is a Professor of Contemporary Chinese Culture at the University of Amsterdam [12] and has made a book on Chinese propaganda posters [13], so he is sort of an expert on the field of chinese propaganda.

I also find all sort of indications that his work is considered serious by academics. See, his work is referred to in the Center for History and New Media of George Mason University [14]. He is also listed on the bibliography of a university course on chinese culture [15], and cited on articles hosted on university websites [16][17][18][19][20], and listed as an interesing Internet resource on a university report (back in 1998, before search engine became so popular, when links were still spread by word-of-mouth) [21]. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that nothing on his website mentioned anything on the use of the "cult" label, despite what the lead claimed. I think the current sources critical of the PRC eg Ownby are adequate enough without giving it too much undue weight.--PCPP (talk) 05:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The Stefan Landsberger source is sourcing the "propaganda technique" thing, not the "cult" thing --Enric Naval (talk) 01:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Redid intro

I redid the intro following the choices made by our competitors at Britannica. would you mind discussing before reverting, please? Got to go, yandman 06:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

A short explanation: as in Britannica (and Encyclopedia Universalis), I put controversial in the lead of the lead. The movement is controversial, and that's why people know about it. Next, the CCP's motives for labelling it a cult need to be discussed in the appropriate section, giving the interpretation of a scholar in the intro clearly makes the article take position in the controversy. Remember, someone who reads an encyclopedia article should not know where the sympathies of the author(s) lie. yandman 07:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You really need to attribute, who is seeing this practice controversial. Also this is first a spiritual practice, then in it's development it has been seen controversial only by the PRC. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 08:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

And the medical establishment. The overwhelming majority of secondary (and tertiary) sources see the practice as controversial: E.B., the New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist. A movement that is actively repressed by a major world power is obviously controversial. May I repeat that "controversial" is not a criticism. yandman 09:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The PRC branded Falun Gong as an evil cult, so of course that in mainland China they made it controversial. But it's controversial only there. For example, it's not controversial in my hometown and it's not controversial in the rest of the world. And as you just said here: [22] there is a controversy, but that does not mean that everything is controversial in Falun Gong.--HappyInGeneral (talk) 09:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with this in the strongest possible terms. I think it is wholly inappropriate to define Falun Gong as controversial in the first line. It can go somewhere else, and be attributed. Falun Gong should just be defined as a spiritual practice, and that's what it is. The persecution is a major part of its notability, but Falun Gong itself is merely a practice method, with spiritual books and slow-motion exercises. The controversy relates to the persecution, not to Falun Gong itself.--Asdfg12345 09:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone here actually read other encyclopedia articles about Falung Gong? Not one has an introduction that does not label it a "controverisal movement". Movement because this is an article about FG, not FG theory. I know it's a pain in the neck going to the library, but I'm starting to get the impression this is a deaf man's debate. If you can't be bothered, at least read the Britannica snippet that is linked to. yandman 09:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I saw the snippet brother (can't access the article though). I have read nearly all academic literature available on Falun Gong, I'm pretty knowledgeable about this subject. I don't see why we have to copy any other tertiary source; I'd say that would be setting our standards too low. The subject simply has to be able to be introduced on the most fundamental of terms. Falun Gong was a spiritual practice before the persecution, it has been during the persecution, and when the persecution ends it will continue to be one. Or a qigong practice, if you will, depending on your definitions. It's five exercises and a bunch of books. I think this is the most basic piece of information to present. Then the other views about x and y and what has happened surrounding.--Asdfg12345 10:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Asdfg12345 and HappyInGeneral are right, in my opinion. Falun Gong per se cannot be defined as "controversial". We don't define qigong as "controversial", even though it's very much controversial in the eyes of James Randi and others. Nor is ISKCON defined as "controversial" in the article's lead section, even though E. Burke Rochford, Jr.'s book Hare Krishna in America begins with the words "Few social issues have been more controversial over the past decade than the growth and expansion of the new religions in America." Defining a phenomenon as "controversial" is already implying a stance; it is not a neutral word, because anything can be seen controversial, including the theory of evolution, George W. Bush, or impressionist art. Shall we define GWB as "a controversial American president"? Or impressionism as "a controversial art movement"? Or heterosexual marriage as "a controversial social institution"? See Wikipedia:No weasel words. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 10:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE -- by the way, I removed the whole cult sentence since someone had deleted the references to the scholars disputing it. There is so much contention about this, and I can't understand that action in this context. I think it would be appropriate to simply remove the whole disputed sentence while forming a consensus. The issues to address re the cult thing haven't been fully hammered out, so it may be premature to reach a conclusion. I think the "controversial" remark is still... well, controversial, hehe. At the very least it should be directly attributed, if it is to go in the lede at all, which I still have misgivings about.--Asdfg12345 15:40, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

practice/movement

On the second paragraph of the lead, all the sources on that paragraph call it a movement, and some (if not all) specify that it teaches practices or mention "practices and teachings (of Falun Gong)" (searching for both "practice" and "movement" and see how each one is used).

Notice the ambiguity with Falun Gong followers being called "practitioners", probably because they all practice its teachings and practices. Altough Ownby uses the term "Falun Gong practitioners", that doesn't mean that he is saying that Falun Gong is a practice, since a few lines above he says "practitioner to the Falun Gong organization", so he is calling it an organization, and also says somewhere else "practitioners of qigong and Falun Gong", when he has specifically called qigong a movement. The only source that I couldn't verify was the book, but there was an online source from the same author on the first paragraph that I reused.

Ownby doesn't call it directly a movement, but it says that it's a school of qigong and that it emerged from it, with qigong being a movement, and that it teaches a certain practice. Also, the article speaks about the movement and not bout the practice that it teachs. I re-used the online source on the second paragraph. I assume that both the online source and the book say that same, since they are written by the same person.

Barend ter Haar also calls it a movement. It only mentions "practice" to refer to what Falun Gong teaches.

Benjamin Penny concurs, just like the lead says, because it calls it a movement on its source.

The ABC source also calls it a movement, and refers to practice on sentences like "practice and teachings of Falun Gong" and "(some people) practice Falun Gong".

Britannica also says that it's a movement.

So, seeing the above, I changed the lead to be in accord with the verifiability policy, see the diff for my change. (are you hearing, Asdfg? we are supossed to all what it is called on the sources, not what we personally think that it is!)

P.D.: This article itself is about the movement. The practice itself is covered on Falun_Gong#Theoretical_background and Qigong. By the way, the Qigong article deals exclusively with practice and says nothing about the movement (and should probably be expanded to explain better the movement and the spinoff schools Falun Gong and Zhong Gong). --Enric Naval (talk) 16:23, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Look, the primary issue here is that Falun Gong defines itself as a practice, and that should be the first definition given; Falun Gong is a set of exercises and books, and people practice them by reading them or doing those exercises. The analysis, critique, and interpretation comes firmly after that. You can find a dozen sources that call Falun Gong a movement? For everyone one of those, I'll bet there's another that calls it a practice. Ownby also uses practice, so does Penny. They also use movement sometimes. Do I need to dig around for examples of where they refer to Falun Gong as a practice? for example, from Ownby's latest book, "Falun Gong and the future of China", on the second page where he first refers to Falun Gong directly: "First, this book is not a defense of Falun Gong doctrine and practice." -- I could find many others where this term is used. I would suggest that "practice" is just as common as "movement" in the literature, and coupled with the even more important point that this is the way Falun Gong defines itself, the immediate definition should be the lowest common denominator, and elaborations remain elaborations. Check out MOS:IDENTITY. --Asdfg12345 01:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I read my comment again, and I want to clarify something. Firstly, I acknowledge that reliable, independent sources often characterise Falun Gong as a "movement". Secondly, I assert that they just as often characterise it as a "practice"--I am able to find more examples, if you please. (For example, Danny Schechter's book is entitled "Falun Gong's Challenge to China: Spiritual Practice or 'Evil Cult'?", also consider that overwhelmingly those who practice Falun Gong are referred to as Falun Gong practitioners--doesn't this already indicate that Falun Gong is something that you do, i.e., practice?) My point in illustrating these other, reliable independent instances of the use of practice to describe Falun Gong was to make clear that I am not just going on my personal view, but that this is even more supported by reliable sources than "movement"; I give examples to illustrate. Thirdly, Falun Gong defines itself as a "practice", and I regard this as perhaps the most important point. Wikipedia appears to defer to self-definition, and coupled with the strong support this finds in reliable sources, I believe it should be totally acceptable. No one is disputing that Falun Gong is actually a practice, including the sources which describe it as a "movement"; "practice" is the lowest common denominator, and a quite basic commonality between what Falun Gong says of itself, and what reliable sources say.--Asdfg12345 01:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

some more sources, from Adam Frank's book chapter called "Falun Gong and the Threat of History" in the book Gods, Guns, and globalization: "The emerging scholarly discourse on Falun Gong generally seeks a place for the practice in the wider discourse of Chinese history but without resorting to sensationalism..."

"In a lecture at Rice University, Ownby made a point of mentioning that he had learned the rudiments of the practice in the course of his fieldwork but neither shared the Falun Gong belief system nor considered himself an adherent"

Yuezhi Zhao's book chapter in "Contesting media power" :

"Li Hongzhi, a middle-aged clerk with a high school education, began to introduce Falun Gong in 1992 through public lectures. The practice spread quickly through word of mouth and the demonstrative effect of the spectacle of group exercises in public parks."

"Falun Gong literally means “Dharma Wheel Practice,” which refers to a series of five stretching and meditation exercises aimed at channeling and harmonizing the qi, or vital energy, that supposedly circulates through the body."

"The involvement of official publishing houses, like the participation of elites in the practice, ensured the initial legitimacy of Falun Gong."

And just another point, related to the above, a note on translation. In Chinese, what we are calling Falun Gong is either written like: 法輪功 or 法輪大法. The first is "Falun Gong", the latter is "Falun Dafa". Even the name indicates something. 功 is the same 功 of 氣功 qigong。 In this context it means "practice", "method", or something along those lines. the second, 大法, means "great law", or "great way". My point in illustrating this is that the name itself underscores this issue. The "gong" of "Falun Gong" itself means practice; the Falun Gong means "Falun practice", or "law wheel practice" or "dharma wheel practice". Fa = law, dharma; lun = wheel. In this sense it's not just a discrete, simple name, but it already defines what it actually is. I'm bringing these further notes up as a way of supplementing the demonstration that "practice" is just as, if not more used, in independent sources as "movement", and that apart from that source parity there are all these other considerations.--Asdfg12345 01:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Last thing to add to my already long comments, just considered while in the shower: there would be no sense insisting on practice if it was not supported so much by reliable sources, and I wouldn't do so, I'd have already conceded to this. Apart from the support it finds, and the other things I've said, the other reason for favouring it is because it is less loaded. "Movement" is a term with many connotations, and while it also expresses the views of some reliable sources, it also carries with it many other meanings--some of which may not have been intended by the source, some of which may have been, though that is not particularly important--whereas "practice" simply does not. It is a more basic term which does not attempt to define without contextualising; the view that Falun Gong is a "movement" is disputed and not universal, whereas no one disputes that it is a "practice."--Asdfg12345 02:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I saw the edit and I was going to complain on the grounds of verifiability, but I see that you did your research and found reliable sources for your change. I agree with your change, since I see a lot of ambiguity with the same name being given to the movement and to the practice, and checking again the Ownby source, I see that it also says "qigong practice", which I didn't notice the first time. Seeing that "gong" means "practice" in chinese, I'm happy with defining it as a practice on the first sentence on the lead, specially since the second paragraph already explains how several researchers view its other facets of movement, qigong practice, religion, phenomena, etc. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

lol, I have to figure out how to get my points across with less space and greater humour...--Asdfg12345 03:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Teachings section

Mainly to Mr Naval. Let me know that you have read through both of the parts on offer and that you firmly think the original is better. Clearly the most important part of Falun Gong is its beliefs and teachings, so I think it's appropriate that this section be longer than other sections on the page. As for the duplication, I personally don't think that's an issue. You will notice that every section on this front page duplicates content from its daughter article, and the same for their daughters (for example the tiananmen square self immolation introduction on the persecution page is the lede of that main article--know what I mean?) I'm unaware of a wikipedia policy advising against this. It seems like a rational way to do it. The content and the subject is going to be the same. I don't mind how it goes in the end, but I'd submit two key points for consideration:

The old teachings stuff on this page was a little unsophisticated and did not draw on any relevant literature on Falun Gong; it was simplistic and not well written. It failed to introduce the subject in an intelligent and intellectually coherent way. It didn't really give people a full idea of what Falun Gong teaches, or use quality sources to do so.
The other section did; I don't think there's a problem to c&p a lede and other stuff as appropriate. Basically I think the altered and expanded version was much better--I think the scrutiny should be on why we shouldn't go with it? Just a few thoughts. Let's deliberate. --Asdfg12345 09:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You can look at Wikipedia:Summary_style. The section should make a summary of the relevant points on main article. I guess that copy/pasting the whole lead is one way to doing it. I would rather improve the actual text, because using the lead fattens the section from 614 words to 1562 words, but I don't know enough about the topic to know which version treats Falun gong beliefs better. If you say that the longer version is really much better, then it must be so, so feel free to just undo my edit back to your version.

Also, please, try not to archive the whole talk page. Leave at least a pair of threads that have been edit recently, man. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Eric is right about leaving a pair of threads. Fixed that. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 07:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

hehe, sorry. Thanks for putting back the last few threads. It'd been ages since an archive. Well, it would still be good to hear your opinion about which version is better. Perhaps it could be shorter. I thought the lede of the main teachings page summed things up well, and add another few hundreds words it would give people a good picture (but I think I ended up adding another 1000; only one paragraph was originally written for this page). The majority of people that come to this page probably won't read the whole teachings page, I reckon, so I think it's important to give them a good idea of what the story is with Falun Gong beliefs and teachings on the main page. It could be rather shorter though, perhaps combining and synthesising the main points on the teachings page. Will do soonish.--Asdfg12345 12:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

RfC on Repeated Removal of Adminstrator Reviewed Edits

Edit A) in question:

The Chinese government considers Falun Gong to be a cult^[1] while other countries do not.

1) According to editor Enric Naval "chinese government source is now accepted as source for the label existance":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_28#Cult_vs_Evil_Cult

2) This edit was vetted by multiple Administrators as appropriate and should be in the lead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive442#Is_Chinese_government_website_notable_source.3F

However it has since been removed yet again. Some editors, in addition to this case, has demonstrated a pattern of "improving" this edit by blanking it. It is DE and POV Pushing.

I have personally appealed, on multiple occasions, that edit such as this be improved without remval, but such appeal has been consistently ignored.

I hereby request the community's attention and opinion.

Bobby fletcher (talk) 04:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I find it a little difficult to relate to your complaint. There was so much discussion about this, a week ago. Thousands of words were written, and basically it was decided that we weren't going to do this in the lede because there isn't enough space to contextualise it, because it was a minor detail (though notable) of just one part of one part of this whole topic, and much more. Please click on the latest archive above and read all the discussion, in case you missed it. You didn't seem to engage in the discussion. If you feel there are unresolved issues you might indicate which. The edit and these comments indicate that you have ignored, or perhaps were simply unaware of, that consensus, I think. Anyway, please read all the discussion.--Asdfg12345 05:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

If it shouldn't be in the lead, where in the body should it be? Not that I agree with you, as multiple editors have opined that it should be in the lead Bobby fletcher (talk) 05:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Also please see Administrator llywrch's reply addressing all your objections:

The only gain I can see here if these sources are excluded from this article is to suppress mentioning what the Chinese position is at all -- which does not help our users. Suppose a user wants to know what the Chinese POV is in order to debate & refute it: by not including a link to this source, we have made it more difficult for this person to prepare for this debate. I believe this responds to all of your objections, even the ones you do not want to repeat. -- llywrch (talk) 19:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Bobby fletcher (talk) 05:18, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit conflict] I think as one aspect of the media campaign, which is one aspect of the persecution, it rightly belongs on the persecution page. It has its own section on the persecution page, too. If it was thought particularly notable, we could just have a few sentences on this main page, in the persecution section, outlining what reliable sources say about the CCP's media campaign against Falun Gong, and include a sentence that the CCP labelled Falun Gong a cult during this, but that this is dismissed by academics etc.. About your final note--there was a huge amount of discussion about just this topic, can you indicate that you have clicked on the archive and read it?

further note: I understand and read all those remarks, though there was more discussion on this talk page. I think you really should actually read it. I'm trying not to repeat myself so I'll just finish my note here. Please read the extensive discussion about this that took place on this talk page. --Asdfg12345 05:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me quote some Wikipedia policies (from WP:NPOV), emphases mine:

Disagreements over whether something is approached neutrally can usually be avoided through the practice of good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little ground work can save a lot of time justifying a point later. [...]

We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. This applies not only to article text, but to images, external links, categories, and all other material as well.

Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.

While we all agree that the 'cult' label is an important part of how the Chinese government has tried to legitimize the persecution, it has hardly any significance outside of this context. It is not taken seriously by leading sinologists; serious research has not given it any kudos at all. On the other hand, the word 'propaganda' has been used in such research to characterise the CCP's media campaign. This is not about two competing views that could be juxtapositioned and given the air of equality. There is the mainstream academic view, and there is the fringe view that has been thoroughly analysed and debunked. That's why it belongs into its own section; we are not excluding these sources from the article, nor do we have any interest in doing so. The lead, whose length is limited to four relatively short paragraphs, should mention the propaganda campaign on a general level.

required reading for editors of these pages

Recent Far Eastern Economic Review article: "China’s Guerrilla War for the Web". Quite relevant, methinks.--Asdfg12345 11:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

How is that differnent from "validating the Fa"?[25]--PCPP (talk) 06:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd figured it was the opposite. btw, I don't dispute that there's relevant info in that article. --Asdfg12345 10:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

concerns on this page

I will start by saying I am no expert on the contents of this article, but attempting to read this from a neutral stand point, I think that this article is very bias against the Chinese government. Although I am by no means defending some of their decisions and actions, I am troubled that this article lacks the 'Controversy' section that many other controversial articles contain. As an immigrant from China, I know that the general opinion is one that is negative towards the Falun Gong, and I cannot see how this view can be without foundation. This article seems to view the religion as an image of innocence and attributes the banning of it to simply 'jealousy'. There are quite a few important events that have at the very least contributed to the Chinese government's view on the religion. For example, the attempted mass public suicide of practitioners in 1999 <http://atimes.com/china/CA27Ad01.html>, while credited in the references of this article, isn't mentioned anywhere within. While I won't list them all, I hope that my concerns will be considered in a future editting. While I can't say present facts, I have a friend who practiced falun gon who has died from refusing modern medicines, and I personally see the religion in negative light. While I always try to keep an open mind, I iterate again the concern I have for the lack of controversial points in this article, even though it is marked as such. Uforian (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uforian (talk • contribs) 01:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The article wasn't always like that, try browsing through the history. Frankly, the article has been used as a battleground between pro-FLG and anti-FLG activists, and resulted in an arbitration case where several editors were banned. Now the pro-FLG camp has basically made the FLG pages an extension of the Epoch Times, the article on "Criticism of Falun Gong" was changed to "Academic views on Falun Gong", the page on "Suppression of Falun Gong" became "Persecution of Falun Gong" ect. You're not the only user with a problem, see here User:Ohconfucius/rant_about_Falun_Gong_pages.--PCPP (talk) 06:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

But all such discussion has only ever been personal complaints about how such and such editor perceives the subject. Often it even includes the very propaganda used to persecute the group, according to reliable sources. No reference is made to the highest quality sources to back these views up. But that's what wikipedia requires: "Disagreements over whether something is approached neutrally can usually be avoided through the practice of good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. A little ground work can save a lot of time justifying a point later." A quick scan of this talk page reveals some cogent argumentation on this point. --Asdfg12345 08:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I still don't see how a lack of references can completely negate an entire point of view on the subject. My main concern is that there is absolutely nothing within the article that even hints at controversies of the Falun Gong. Furthermore, as per PCPP's suggestion, I went through the history of the page, and I see many controversial points that no longer exist in the page that WERE referenced. It's just absurd that pages on the wiki like Bigfoot have more points of controversy and neutrality than one as globally controversial as the Falun Gong. It's almost ironic the amount of propaganda this article possesses compared to that which the pro-falungong supporters frown upon. Seriously, read over the article, an entire country persecutes something simply out of 'personal jealousy'? give me a break, how can you think that a statement like that has more credibility than any of the points that were removed? Uforian (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a few points. "I still don't see how a lack of references can completely negate an entire point of view on the subject." -- please see WP:V; that's precisely what wikipedia is. And the other thing is that there's a long explanation of what reliable sources have said about the reasons for the persecution on the persecution page. To boil it down: your argument is essentially that the reasons for the persecution also have something to do with Falun Gong itself, i.e., it's somehow problematic, or more than a innocent spiritual practice. This simply isn't the view that's been adopted by the highest quality sources on the topic. To give an example, the foremost scholar on Falun Gong wrote a book recently called "Falun Gong and the Future of China", you can look it up. Of course, he raises critical commentary on Falun Gong from the perspective of an academic observer, but basically rejects this approach out of hand. For example, he says the cult label was a red-herring from the start, and the chapter about the persecution is called "David vs Goliath." This is basically the framework that western academia and media have under understood things within, as demonstrated by the hundreds of sources on the persecution page from top newspapers, journals, and reports from HR orgs. They basically argue that the CCP is a repressive regime which does not allow freedom of assembly, belief, etc., and that Falun Gong was competing for popularity among the people and undermining the totalitarian ideological control of CCP rule. I understand your wish to see a variety of views. Wikipedia elevates the views which are more prominent, in the mainstream and in top sources, and gives less space to, or for the unpublished, excludes, those which are non-mainstream. This is in the policies. Overall though, the "motivations" section on this main page could be another couple of hundred words longer.--Asdfg12345 23:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

You make valid points on the exclusion of content based on Wikipedia guidelines. and I'm not arguing with the western perception of FLG or the human rights issues of the CCP. However, narrowing it down to specifics, I still want to see mention of the self-immolation and the recent sicknesses of people who refuse modern-medicine in connection with FLG. While I understand that there is no concrete evidence (other than the victims admitting it themselves *cough*) to make the connection, it is a definitely a source of controversy, and I don't see how those arguments have less value than some scholar who says it's because of government suppression. Neither have solid evidence, both have references, yet somehow the article completely ignores negative controversies against the FLG. - off topic on a friendlier note, to help with the task of scanning through the guidelines, does wikipedia require english references? Like you said, the western academia and media have their own understanding of FLG, but I have some references from Chinese and French sources that are of decent-solid quality that emphasize my previous arguments in reference form, which may allow me to stroke my e-peen as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Uforian (talk • contribs) 01:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Umm, there's a page on the immolation, which goes over the arguments about whether they were really Falun Gong practitioners or a CCP cook-up. It should be obviously linked somewhere. I've honestly only seen the medicine stuff in the context of propaganda around 1999 in China. This has been taken up by some academics, like Noah Porter wrote of it in his thesis. It's a "controversy", I guess. I'd suggested a section called "Competing representations" a while ago where some notable, competing representations of Falun Gong in good sources could be hashed out. Or there is an "Academic page" where stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere has been put for a while. We lack editors though, so some cool ideas don't end up flying. About the French/Chinese thing: my understanding is that English wiki will prize English texts, French wiki French ones, etc.. But the French I guess we could use if they are top quality, like from academics. I don't know the exact rules, to be honest. I haven't ran into this before. For Chinese, I think it's clear that anything post 1999 from mainland China is worthless as independent commentary on this subject. The CCP controls all the universities. The PSB put up a notice in universities about how they were to write about Falun Gong; it had the core points of Xinhua propaganda, and asked them to fill in the rest with their own expertise. --Asdfg12345 02:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Whether "cult" should be in the lede or not

Asdfg calls this section "controversial" and removed it from the lede:

"The Chinese government considers Falun Gong to be a cult, and has compared Li to various infamous cult leaders.

I dont see anything controversial. It states the view of a major world nation, one quite relevant to the subject, in a brief and NPOV way. -Zahd (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This issue has been extensively discussed. Please comment on the pending arguments instead of starting all over. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 19:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

No, you please deal with the subject at hand. Its one sentence. -Zahd (talk) 22:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, let's not be uncivil. There's a tag up top which says: "This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed.Before making any potentially controversial changes to the article, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue to see if the issue has been raised before, and ensure that your edit meets all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Please also ensure you use an accurate and concise edit summary." Here are some links from the previous archive which I suggest reading. If there is a continued line of argumentation about anything there, responding to any loose ends or whatever, then we should take it up again. This particular issue has been hashed out recently. links: Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_28#Discussing_the_lede, then Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_28#Lead right down to the end. There's a lot of stuff written.--Asdfg12345 22:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks like you and Olaf have made a point of removing the term "cult" from the lede, regardless of the argument. Your arguments don't seem to hold water, as the statement merely reflects a characterisation by the PRC, not a fact in and of itself. Its entirely possible that both things are true: 1) the PRC has engineered the term "cult" as a pejorative and 2) FG is a cult. -Zahd (talk) 23:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you please indicate whether you've read all that writing on the topic? It's more complex than that. I hope you understand that I'm reluctant to go through another giant discussion if you're not familiar with what's already been said. I understand your point; I believe it is addressed in that discussion, I think even in the first link I pasted above.--Asdfg12345 23:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that everyone must read twenty pages of old conversation, some of which may be relevant, some not, as a prerequisite for dealing with issues in this article? Ive read enough to know you lament not being able to label the CCP (in article) as an "evil cult." -Zahd (talk) 23:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)`

There's a tag at the top of this page, which I quoted, which says this. It's only from last month, and everything I linked is relevant. Just let me check again. Yeah, basically it's all relevant and very recent. There's no point going over it again straight away. That's also an inaccurate characterisation of my views and what I was saying.--Asdfg12345 23:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC) Or I'd just c&p what's already written, cause they're identical issues.--Asdfg12345 23:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, again the same discussion.... A quick summary: the CCP has labelled Falun Gong as a cult, but western scholars disagree on the label having any basis on reality. This means that the label is reduced to being one more exaggerated false argument of CCP's demonization of Falun Gong inside the context of the persecution of Falun Gong. Now, the persecution is already covered on the lead and it covers stuff like cases of torture reported by several human rights associations. After much edit-warring and a few proposed versions, it was finally agreed that the lead was already too long and the label too unimportant to justify inclusion on the lead, and the sentence was moved to the body of the article under the relevant section. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:07, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

"The Encyclopedia Britannica characterises Falun Gong as "controversial,"" because of its status in China as a banned practice. -Zahd (talk) 00:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

PS:One thing is clear. This article, as well as the one on Li Hongzhi have been cleared of certain controversial bits by various editors. Its apparent that certain editors here are Falun Gong students and are editing from a rather biased point of view - one which Li and all of Falun Gong are whitewashed of any criticism, and where such exists, instead representing it as "persecution", just as controversies are now "academic views" -Zahd (talk) 00:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Asdfg on the one hand commented on the relevance of China to Falun Gong, asking if China is relevant simply because its the country of origin, or (sarcastically) because FG "is persecuted there." Asdfg doesnt mind however this statement "Ownby also lists its "Chineseness" as a major part of the practice's appeal" being in the lede of the academics views article. -Zahd (talk) 01:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I admit that I haven't read all of the discussion's history, however after reading the summaries mentioned here there is something I’d like to point out. In addition to the PRC, Falun Gong is also considered a cult by other respectable and knowledgeable individuals, including western scholars, and especially by the prominent Israeli cult-fighting group, Yad L'Achim. I refer you to a recent article on israelnn.com titled "Yad L’Achim Advises Chinese on Cult-Fighting"

Here is the link: [26]Gakerman (talk) 16:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

TIME: Have you seen human beings levitate off the ground? Li: I have known too many.

TIME: Can you describe any that you have known? Li: David Copperfield. He can levitate and he did it during performances.

Actually, I didn't put that on the academic page. I'm not sure I understand the issue you raise. One thing's for sure though, I'm editing in good faith, and I'm not here trying to cram some status quo down your neck. I disagree with many things on the pages at the moment but haven't got around to fixing them. It would actually be awesome if I were the boss around here. Wiki is a work in progress, things get discussed. I've been trying to focus on research and adding content, when time permits. Overall if editors can communicate in a friendly way, exchange ideas and approaches, refer to wikipedia policies and high quality sources in their arguments, and generally communicate in a way that creates an atmosphere of 'we're working on the pages together', this will help to build better articles. btw: I think at a certain point it was between 'criticism and praise' to 'third party views' to 'academic views.' --Asdfg12345 01:53, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Thats all fine and good. But, one question stands out at the moment: why are Li's comments about aliens and levitation not in his article or in this one? They are well sourced, and provide an important insight into the character of FG's leadership. -Zahd (talk) 03:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you able to explain further what you mean?--Asdfg12345 11:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This should make it clear enough for you: Li_Hongzhi#Comments_to_TIME -Zahd (talk) 16:37, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware of his comments to Time, but could you elaborate on how you understand their relevance or relationship to these articles? Having a section called "Li Hongzhi's comments to Time" is a kind of original research. Why not a section called "Li Hongzhi's comments in New York", "Li Hongzhi's comments to New Tang Dynasty Television", "Li Hongzhi's comments in Sydney, at a restaurant" etc.? I thought it would make sense to address Li Hongzhi's teachings in the context of the teachings; there is a page on this which includes commentary on these subjects... Not sure if I misunderstand something. --Asdfg12345 12:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Li Hongzhi's comments about aliens, flying and homosexuality are far more interesting and far-fetched than "Li Hongzhi's comments at a restaurant". Since this is the guy who founded Falun Gong, his personal beliefs are highly relevant if they are controversal. If Jesus believed in aliens and freezing people, you can be sure it would have been mentioned in "Christianity" because it provides a important insight into the mind of the man who founded the religion. If I wrote a book as a prominent Neo-Nazi, and you wrote a article on my book, you would mention that I was a Neo-Nazi. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 21:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it the case that it doesn't really matter what we, as editors, find interesting, far-fetched, or controversial? Apart from the relevant point being what independent, reliable sources say about it, these are aspects of Falun Gong teachings, right? They were actually covered on the Teachings of Falun Gong page in their appropriate context, where they should be, but some of that material was removed, and I couldn't be bothered reinstating it. That's where this discussion is pertinent to, since these are elements of the teachings of Falun Gong. There were a couple of a paragraphs which got into this stuff, including commentary from people who thought it was daft etc., along with a practitioner's response.--Asdfg12345 07:58, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

It is, as a whole considered supernatural and controversial to most people who read it. I think that the aspects of Falun Gong that are most important should be on the page. The article should have a rundown summary about the bulk of the teachings and include the most mportant portions of it. This includes aliens, flying and their...other less mainstream views, like their views on homosexuality. An example would be the article on The Lord of the Flies, a very good book. The fact that it said "a pack of painted niggers" in the book sparked this mention of it:"In Chapter 11 of the original Lord of the Flies, Piggy calls Jack's tribe "a pack of painted niggers."[6] This was changed to "savages" in some editions and "Indians" in the mass media publication." The article gave a rundown on most of the book and gave this statement special mention because it is controversial. This is the reason why these beliefs should be included in this article and especially the Teachings of Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi one. Strangely enough, the relation of Falun Gong and these less common beliefs do not appear on any of the wiki articles that mention Falun Gong. --99.224.175.127 (talk) 15:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, they are part of the teachings, and most belong on the teachings page. In the context of wikipedia, they aren't key aspects of Falun Gong's notability, or even key elements of the teachings; they're details about its beliefs and should be addressed in their overall context, right? I understand what you are saying, and of course agree that they should not be excluded. I'm saying they ought to be presented in context. Tomorrow I will restore the material that was on the teachings page which covers precisely what you are mentioning here.--Asdfg12345 09:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I also realised I didn't respond to one point. They aren't controversial because you say they're controversial, and other things are a certain way because I say they are a certain way. I've seen no source which argues that these are key elements of Falun Gong's notability. On the other hand, I've seen a bunch, including the best ones like David Ownby's recent text, which see them as details, and approach these elements in their overall context. That strikes me as obviously the most mature and non-sensational way of doing it. We aren't a tabloid, and we aren't digging up things that we think are controversial to make a splash. The articles are supposed to be encyclopedic and informative, right? Doesn't being intelligent, encyclopedic, and informative, require presenting things in context? It's not our personal views on what is controversial and what isn't--wikipedia isn't based on that. This is my understanding. Tomorrow I intend to dredge up the formulation that was on the teachings page which covered this.--Asdfg12345 09:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok fine. It should be put on the Teachings page and the Li Hongzhi page I think...but putting it on the Falun Gong page should be postponed until someone finds a source that says that ÈsomeguyÈ thinks that Falun Gong is bad because of aliens and flying or something like that. PS: The È is what happens when I try to put a quote. --Ilivetocomment (talk) 21:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Organ Harvest Investigation

Hello regarding this edit: [27].

I don't think that this is correct: "In 2006, two high-profile Canadian lawyers published an investigative report concluding that since 1999, the Chinese authorities have systematically executed Falun Gong" is "giving too much weight to one unconfirmed issue". Because the fact is that they said so, and one of them is an ex-secretary of state.

Also "shortening as much as possible" a few characters actually it's not a good idea because this is something very relevant, since the issue they raised is something new in world history as far as organized genocide go. Thx. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 18:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

But the report has not been confirmed by other investigations.... --Enric Naval (talk) 11:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It's been confirmed by two other independent reports. Have('nt) you read the organ harvesting page? A Yale PhD thesis and a report by the Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Amnesty, US State, Congressional Research Service have not confirmed it, though nor have they refuted it. They raise further questions and withhold judgement, according to my understanding. This is a similar position that many world governments have taken. K/M raise further questions too. K/M are basically saying 'based on what we can see now, we conclude this is happening', but they also seek more info. The CCP is just so tight-fisted though; they don't even have a central donation system, so they simply have no way to account for these massive transplants. They say "executed prisoners," but what's this code for?--Asdfg12345 11:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have read the article, but all the conclusions rely on circumstancial evidence.....

Also, the reason I shortened the sentence is because it makes an appeal to authority by name-dropping the names of the authors in a place where you don't need to mention them..... When a fact is backed by several sources then you don't need to make particular attribution to one of the sources. You just plain state the fact and then put the necessary references right after it. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:49, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

There is another aspect to this.. Kilgour and Matas are not "two high profile lawyers" - For instance, David Kilgour, PC , BA , JD , D.D. is a prominent human rights activist and an ex-canadian secretary of state - it is not acurate to label him a "high profile lawyer". Its much better to mention the names so that the reader may objectively judge for himself - we donot have to make any extrapolations here - its just a simple matter of mentioning the names of the authors and leaving it at that. Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:41, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

outdated britannica source on lead for "controversial"

Regarding using the Britannica statement, without context, in the intro - all additional reference the brit article mentions are dated before 2000 - infact 1999 or befre. "Controversial" is hardly the stance taken by the academic or human rights community now - including analysis by david ownby, zhao, latest version of worldbook encyclopaedia, human rights reports etc. So the statement being crammed into the intro seems to serve little purpose than push a pov, especially considering the fact that the particular persepective on this topic, on which each day there is additional information unfolding, is very much anachronistic. Note that this a topic on which there was insufficient information for the academics or journalists to form a clear picture on back in 1999. Further I would like to point out that mainstream academics and the human rights community now considers articles such as by jishi ( which the britannica article refers to) to be pure chinese government propaganda. For these reasons, I am removing the particluar line, which seems to serve little purpose than push a pov, from the intro. Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:47, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Dilip, just a short comment: I disagree with your edit. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 17:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

And may I please know why?

Dilip rajeev (talk) 20:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Because I consider it counterproductive and unprofessional. By Wikipedia standards, Encyclopaedia Britannica is a valid source. The same policies and guidelines must apply to everyone. Your reasoning could be used against any material "our" party tries to introduce, and then it will only lead to endless edit warring (you should know) and anomie. Furthermore, the article will not appear credible to any third-party observers if everything "critical" is deliberately removed. We don't need to be partisan in our edits, because the facts are on Falun Gong's side to begin with. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 23:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

From where did you get this idea? I have specifically outlined the reasons for my edit above. Have you read the wikipedia policies when using sources such as encyclopaedias? Olaf, its not about personal perspectives or retaining or removing something to make the article "appear" in such and such a way, at all - its about accurately reflecting what the main stream academic community tells us and presenting things in proper context. And am sure you would agree that the article is outdated - there was hardly any information available back then. The later articles, including encyclopaedias , you would know, carry a very different perspective. For instance the 2002 world book encyclopaedia describes the contents of Zhuan Falun as examining "evolution, the meaning of space and time, and the mysteries of the universe." - just to point out how much the perspective had changed within the academic community in the few years after 1999 when the only source was Chinese government propaganda.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:34, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I wouldn't say that the mainstream academic community has explicitly defined Falun Gong as "uncontroversial". It would be wrong to state that Falun Gong is inherently something (in a sentence such as "Falun Gong is a controversial spiritual practice from China") in a Wikipedia article, as that would be a weasel word. But attributing this statement to Encyclopedia Britannica is not a problem. See what WP:Undue weight says about this: "* If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article."

If we assume that nearly every subject has a "majority view" and a "significant minority view", and that they're two different things, what would you call the "significant minority view" on Falun Gong and how should we include it in the articles?

It's an entirely different thing to quote CCP propaganda (such as "Falun Gong practitioners engage in necrophilia") than report that Falun Gong has been called controversial by a certain reputable source. Of course, we should not give it undue weight, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give it weight at all. You've never fundamentally changed your editing style, Dilip, and I'm worried about that. Even if you feel something shouldn't be in the lead, you should not entirely remove it but perhaps replace it in another section, as long as it's reliably sourced and verifiable. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 08:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

This edit had three sources, and it was removed after it was to start of the lead [28] and then it was reduced to the most prestigious one [29]. I knew that I should have insisted that all three sources stayed. The sources were:

Britannica: "controversial Chinese spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992;" [30]
about .com: "Falun Dafa, controversial Chinese sect." .com/cs/falungong/
Halifax Daily News (hosted in organinvestigation.net): "Practitioners of Falun Gong, a controversial Chinese religion, will (...)" [31]

to which I add several media reports

LA Times, 2008, "Ties to Falun Gong add controversy to the Chinese New Year Spectacular (...) Some of these dramas depict the persecution of Falun Gong members in China (...) Policemen come in and drag the practitioners off and beat them, including little girls, which is very true" [32]
Television New Zealand, 2007, "Controversial Falun Gong banned from Santa Parade" (notice the controversial word is on the browser title but not on the article title) [33]
abc.net, 2007, "Politicians urged not to attend controversial Chinese stage show (...) In one scene a Falun Gong dancer is killed by dancing Chinese police, who strangle her with a red flag" [34]
reuters, 2001, "Li Hongzhi, founder of the controversial Falun Gong spiritual movement" [35]
cbs5.com, 2007, "Controversial Falun Gong Lunar New Year Show In SF" [36]
listed on a book from 2005 called "Controversial New Religions" [37] "In most ways, Falun Gong was like other schools of gigong, and thus was not particularly controversial at the outset" [38]
gotham gazzete (New York newspaper) "New Year's Show Sparks Controversy"[39]

David Ownby does call Falun Gong controversial. "Neither Li Hongzhi nor Falun Gong was controversial in the beginning. Instead, Li became an instant ..." (this quote is from the preview of a google search) [40]. Also from the Controversial New Religions book "Falun Gong is without doubt controversial." (pag 195) [41], "In the final analysis, Falun Gong came to be controversial because of the extraordinary growth of qigong, and because of the eventual negative reaction of the Chinese state. Otherwise, Falun Gong is largely consistent with certain traditional popular religious practices well known in pre-communist China." remember this book is from 2005.

So, stop deleting the "controversial" thing from the lead. This need a section on the body of the article saying how it makes controversial acts, how it wasn't controversial on the beggining, and explaining why and how it became controversial.

Also, "controversial" is a neutral term on english ("controversial" can be anything that generates controversy, regardless of the reasons or details for the controversy). We shouldn't remove notable adjectives from articles just because we don't agree with them.

All of this was already discussed at Talk:Falun_Gong/Archive_28#Lead --Enric Naval (talk) 11:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with just saying that Britannica or whatever regards Falun Gong as controversial, and somehow elaborating on Falun Gong's various representations in different fora elsewhere? I was thinking of a section called "Falun Gong in the media" where this could go. We need to be careful of original research in this case, but it should be fine to say that so and so have regarded Falun Gong as controversial and why, and also the other media analysis related to Falun Gong published by Schechter, Adam Frank, and other writers, newspapermen and academics. This would be good.--Asdfg12345 12:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The term "controversial" carries different connotations - controversial in what sense? We cannot present things without making the context clear and britannica clearly is a rather anachronistic report on the topic. But the thing to note here is that we cant put things in this almost childish manner " Brtannica says its "controversial"". What is that sentence meant to convey? I really dont understand. What about also including the world book says ".... " Thats not how we approach things - we present the issues - without drawing conclusions - in the intro. Further, are we talking about some of the "controversies" surrounding the facts of persecution ? Are we talking about things being "controversial" within the chinese regime ? What does "controversial" connote there? We must present things with proper context - arent we presenting the facts of the persecution , the international response etc? Shouldn't the reader be left to understand these aspects on his own? David Ownby is saying Falun Gong was not controversial with the chinese government's politcal agenda - if my interpretation of his words is correct. Another instance, he says the controversial aspect was the extraordinary rate of growth. What is controversial supposed to mean here in the lead?

Here is what worldbook says:

Falun Gong is a spiritual way of living that emerged in China during the early 1990's. Falun Gong teaches techniques of meditation through exercises as a means of gaining improved physical health and fitness and moral and spiritual purity. The name Falun Gong means turn the wheel of law in Chinese. Falun Gong is also called Falun Dafa (the great law). Falun Gong claims millions of followers in dozens of countries... Falun Gong followers state that the movement aims to promote truth, tolerance, and compassion--universal virtues that cross cultural, national, and racial boundaries. Those who practice Falun Gong seek to guide people to higher dimensions and spiritual enlightenment...In 1992, Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong to a group of followers. It soon grew into a movement that became popular throughout China. Li completed the system's main book of teachings, Zhuan Falun, in 1994. In addition to describing the principles of Falun Gong, the book examines evolution, the meaning of space and time, and the mysteries of the universe...Followers of Falun Gong perform open-air exercises designed to promote good health by harnessing and controlling a spiritual energy called qi (chee). They follow the teachings of Li Hongzhi as published in Zhuan Falun and other books, as well as on video and audio tapes and Internet sites on the World Wide Web....In 1996, Li left China to conduct classes in Falun Gong in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Now if we are to keep that sentence in the intro, perhaps we ought also to say world book says Falun Gong is a "spritual way of living" and teaches "techniques of meditation through exercises as a means of gaining improved physical health and fitness and moral and spiritual purity." Shouldnt we? Why give an older brit article more weightage to a newer, more up to date, world book one? The point am trying to get across is that we cant just randomly cite things in the intro - especially without providing proper context. Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:09, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

We make a section called "controversy" where we explain the context, and then we can put "controversial" on the lead. Controversial means that is causes controversy, that's pretty much a direct statement. That the group is controversial is part of the context of the group, that's why it should be there, the context of the controversial word itself goes on the body of the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Kind of agree. Though the section should be called "Falun Gong in the media", and should not single out one aspect of Falun Gong's representations in the media, (i.e., as apparently controversial), but engage with the wider discourse on Falun Gong's different media representations. There are sources for this, including a book chapter by a China scholar Adam Frank specifically on how Falun Gong has been represented in different fora. (I say this to avoid the circumstance where we have a section called "praise for Falun Gong" or "positive comments on Falun Gong"--that's not what we want) A different point is, it seems a slightly goofy phrase to say that Falun Gong is controversial. Everything is controversial. I'm not really sure what it provides the reader. For the lede, I have two ideas: remove the paragraph about the scholars saying it's a religion or whatever, this is all quite wordy and waffling. move the persecution para up. Have another para on how Falun Gong is practiced, and its spread in the world, and on the topic of Falun Gong apart from 1. it's beliefs and 2. the persecution. So something like Falun Gong is practiced here and there with no structure and currently these people hold protests out the front of embassies and hand out fliers, something like that. Instead of the controversial sentnece, maybe a sentence which simply says "Falun Gong became the subject of media attention after its immense growth within China and subsequent persecution." -- this kind of opens the door for a section about Falun Gong in the media. These are just some suggestions. These two points of immense growth and persecution are important anyway, for giving context to the "controversial" remark, also. my 2 pence.--Asdfg12345 15:43, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

"Outlandish" Claims of Falun Gong

I have been reading the Beliefs and Teachings article. In that article, some of the more outlandish beliefs of Li that are espoused by Falun Gong, according to that article, include:

Related to these ideas are Li's remarks about various topis that have caught the eye of journalists, such as the "Falun"—"an intelligent, spinning body of high-energy substances"; the meaning of sexuality and race—that homosexuality, transsexuality, and sexual relations outside heterosexual marriage are all immoral and a result of declining moral standards in the "Dharma-ending period"; extraterrestrials—who, according to Li, exist in other dimensions and invented modern science for the "manipulation and eventual replacement of humankind"; physical phenomena such as gravity, where "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies"; prehistoric culture—"that there were 81 civilisations before us, that there is a two-billion year old nuclear reactor in Africa", and other "idiosyncratic notions" such as the existence of "separate-but-equal heavens for people of different races."

Why isn't any of this information included in the main article? I read the main articles sections on beliefs and practices, and read about Chinese breathing techniques. Then I read about accusations of China suppressing and torturing followers of breathing techniques, and can't understand how even mega-crazy China would care about people practicing breathing exercises.

As I understand it, Falun Gong also teaches that its practitioners can gain "supernormal" powers (a la Dungeons & Dragons) of levitation and clairvoyance. Yet, in the main article on the subject, I read only about breathing techniques.

Now, while I might not want to throw people in jail for espousing absurd and moronic beliefs such as that there are 2 billion year-old nuclear reactors in Africa, I can at least get some sense of what the Chinese government might have against these people.

These claims and beliefs are relevant to this article. Why aren't they in it anywhere? Is the Teachings and Beliefs article being vandalized? Are these not teachings of Falun Gong? A lot of the sources are credible.

I'm not trying to pass judgment on these beliefs if they are what the followers hold. Ok... well... yes I am, but I'm not suggesting that the article passes judgment on them. I'm just suggesting that it would make more sense to readers if it weren't simply the reasonable beliefs of the sect that were presented in the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.77.144.5 (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I've just done a quick googling of some of the above details about FG, and they seem to be correct. These details seem quite notable and worthy of inclusion in the article. Fuzzypeg ★ 05:50, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The second paragraph of the lead of Persecution of Falun Gong explains perfectly why the group is persecuted, and it has nothing to do with aliens. Saying that those parts of their books are notable is original research, as the secondary sources that are currently on the article give them no relevane at all. Same for saying that it has anything to do with China's persecution, as no secondary source says that. Until some good sources are provided, this is all pushing of original research by this IP in order to smear this group, and the explanations about the articles only talking of breathing techniques are false, and are just mirrors and smoke. Stop pushing the damned thing with no secondary sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. One notable problem is that the Chinese scientific community in the 1980s and 90s actually talked about things that seem really far-out to most Westerners. Supernaturality was debated to an extent never seen in Western countries, "so much so that a veritable corpus of literature on qigong resulted [...] [wherein] controversy centers on the question of whether and how qigong can induce “supranormal abilities” (teyi gongneng)." (Xu Jian, Journal of Asian Studies, nr. 58) And it wasn't some mr. Hocus Pocus from the backwoods of Xinjiang who babbled about feudalistic superstition--more like Tsinghua University and Qian Xuesen eulogizing an emerging scientific revolution. David Ownby is completely right in saying that Falun Gong was not particularly controversial in the beginning, even though Li Hongzhi's ideas were put forth already in the very first published texts and lectures. Besides, he was the one who sought to undermine the claims made by other qigong masters about practicing qigong in order to acquire supernormal powers. These things did not cause the persecution. You can find some infomation about these anomalies from completely unrelated sources. Needless to say, they have not been taken seriously in the West by most people. (Which might not prove anything in itself.)

By the way, Falun Gong makes use of no breathing techniques at all. I don't know where people keep getting this impression. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 12:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Anon ip is positing a connection between these beliefs and the motivation for persecuting Falun Gong. Any sources for that? Sounds like original research.--Asdfg12345 06:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

OK Olaf, Asdfg and Enric, you've given me a few points to answer. The first is the general tone of your dismissal, saying "of course this isn't relevant to the article"; well, that editor's comment was deleted without explanation. When that kind of thing happens you can be sure there will be some explaining to do afterwards. I only look in at this article from time to time, but when I see behaviour like that I start to take more interest. Not that any of you did the deleting.

Now, you're getting carried away with the concept of WP:OR. It is not OR to post a suggestion on a talk page. Also he says that he is judging FG himself, but that he doesn't expect the article to follow his judgement. He's also been gracious enough to ask for alternative explanations ("Are these not teachings of Falun Gong?") rather than just jumping in and editing himself. He's also made it clear that he believes the article should remain neutral but that he thinks it would be useful to the readers to hear about some of the more bizarre beliefs of FG. I agree with him; and remember, not everyone who comes here is reading the article because they're interested in Chinese repression. Some just want to find out about Falun Gong. Make sense?

Regarding these beliefs not being present in secondary sources: well, they're mentioned in Time magazine (Monday, Jun. 25, 2001 "Spiritual society or evil cult?"), the New York Times (April 30, 2000 "Rooting Out Falun Gong; China Makes War on Mysticism") and a wide variety of other sources, but more importantly they appear in Li Hongzhi's Zhuan Falun, which makes them clearly relevant to the article. Yes, yes, I know that's a primary source, but it's probably the most reliable source for information about Falun Gong teachings, which is of primary concern to this article. Do the editors at the Christianity article avoid quoting the Bible because it's a primary source? Noooooo.

You guys are tying yourselves in knots trying to argue for the exclusion of information that is neutral, verifiable, is not original research, and is highly relevant to the article. I think perhaps you need to take a step backwards and try to see the forest rather than the trees. I know there's a lot of controversy in this article about the Chinese persecution, but trying to exclude relevant factual information because you think it will weaken your position in that argument is a real problem. This is precisely the reason why editors with a conflict of interest are discouraged from editing. Truthfulness is not achieved by obscuring the facts. Fuzzypeg ★ 22:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

See Olaf's comment. Those things are irrelevant to Falun Gong's notability, expansion or controversy. Notice that, since the last time you edited, there have been anonymous editors trying to push smears into the article using these writings [42][43], that was two days ago, and it also happened on July [44][45][46][47] (it's 4 inserts of the same info).

This would be similar to saying that Christianity is a bad religion because the Bible says that the Sun stopped on the sky, which is astronomically imposible. The Bible also says stuff about inmortal beings called angels that live on heaven, which is only marginally more believable than aliens and levitation, but the christianity article only mentions them on a caption of a drawing. That sort of detail, without a good published analysis of their importance inside the religion, are just trivia and OR. Those articles you mentioned don't explain why or how those details are important, the Time one is a tease piece for a poll [48], the NYT is using Mr. Zhou's beliefs to fill space[49], and, of course, we have Ownby explaining what is the actual relevance of those details. See page 204 of Controversial New Religions. If you look at the section above I propose making a "controversy" section where the real relevance of that stuff can be explained. Simply dropping "The founder says that aliens exist" just makes the article look bad, and it's just our personal pick of what is important on the beliefs. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, so these details "are irrelevant to Falun Gong's notability, expansion or controversy". I'm happy to agree that they're not directly relevant to those things. But I can tell you straight off they aren't irrelevant to Falun Gong in general. The "smears" you mention above are examples of how this information shouldn't be presented, since it's not in context, and is clearly just trying to choose the most bizarre beliefs and list them one after the other. Also some of those edits go out of their way to cast judgement, which is in direct contravention of WP:NPOV policy.

The Christianity article mentions a number of rather odd beliefs, such as resurrection, miracles, virgin birth and so on, but doesn't say "Christianity is a bad religion" as a result. I don't see why the Falun Gong article shouldn't mention some of the important beliefs of FG, particularly those around perceptions of race, sexuality and science/physics. They seem fairly important elements of FG philosophy.

In my experience, too, a good way to shut up people who persistently add poor quality info to an article is to add that info yourself, and get it right. Once the FG article actually becomes more informative in this regard, there will be fewer critical edits.

Rather than simply dropping in "the founder believes that aliens exist" (which is hardly a controversial statement, given the number of stars out there!), I would work some of these key elements into their appropriate places in the "Beliefs and teachings" and "Theoretical background" sections. If neutrally worded, they shouldn't come across as a criticism, and readers can draw their own conclusions.

And please don't invent your own reasons why notable, highly credible sources should be discounted in the same breath as telling me what is and isn't OR. Fuzzypeg ★ 06:00, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your comment, this needs to be worked into the article. Notice that "beliefes and teachings" on this article is a summary of the main article Teachings of Falun Gong, so it would need to have an extended version there of these topics, and a shorter version here.

About the sources, notice that we two different types of sources talking about the same topic. One type is newspaper articles that mention it but don't go deep into the question, and other are books or scholar sources that go into it. Now, for every topic, I try to make myself a scale of quality of sources, in order to decide which sources should be used (everyone needs its own personal scale of values in order to work). In this case: opinion columns < newspaper articles < investigation articles and documentaries < books < scholar papers on journals, human rights organization reports, government reports (except chinese, because we have so many reports from many other sources saying they are incorrect) < peer-reviewed paper on high-quality history journal. In this scale these newspapers sources would fall lower than Davind Ownby's work, that's why I objected to using them. However, your comment is very wise, so I'm sure that you can use them right :) --Enric Naval (talk) 10:55, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your ranking for quality/reliability. I only cited the newspaper/magazine sources to demonstrate that there are indeed credible secondary sources, as anyone can find using google, but I don't know the literature so I can't point people to peer-reviewed analyses of FG beliefs. It's ideal if someone knowledgable writes this kind of thing up rather than waiting for a less knowledgable person like me. That way you can achieve a really solid, balanced and informative summary right from the outset, rather than it being an evolutionary process filled with editorial debate. Fuzzypeg ★ 21:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Zhuan Falun Source Material for 66.77.144.5's claims

Regarding Fuzzypeg's comment, why do we need reliable secondary sources regarding beliefs of Falun Gong when primary sources are readily available? The official English translations of Li Hongzhi's books can be downloaded at falundafa.org. These are the same books that Li Hongzhi sells to his followers in print form and are the definitive word what Falun Gong is. Most, if not all, of the "outlandish" claims brought up by 66.77.144.5 at the start of this discussion can be verified from Zhuan Falun or subsequent official transcripts of Li Hongzhi's lectures. Note, that like many PDF documents, the PDF page numbers in Zhuan Falun don't match the numbers on each page of the document.

Prehistoric nuclear reactor - Zhuan Falun, pg 10 (pdf pg 15)
The 81 cycles of civilization- Zhuan Falun, pg 11 (pdf pg 16)
Spinning Law Wheel in the lower abdomen, Zhuan Falun, pg 21 (pdf pg 26)
The Third (Celestial) Eye - Zhuan Falun, pg 24 (pdf pg 29)
Degradation of human society and recent development of homosexuality - Zhuan Falun, pg 181 (pdf pg 186)
The "Dharma-ending period" and loss of morals - Teachings of Li Hongzhi at the Zhuan Falun Publication Ceremony, Beijing, January 4, 1995, pg 2.

To reiterate, these are from the authorized English translations FG's fundamental literature. Some, particularly the "Law Wheel" and Third Eye appear to be very important to the FG belief system. This is certainly not a comprehensive list, as these and other "outlandish claims" are reiterated in other publications of Mr. Li. By the way, the ancient "reactor" in Gabon is quite real and has been dated by isotopic composition to approximately 2 billion years ago as Mr. Li claims. The "outlandish claim" is that it is man made, while modern science indicates that it resulted from the natural concentration of uranium oxide with a ground water moderator.

I agree with 66.77.144.5 that the "outlandish claims" should be presented in the main article. I think that most readers would consider inconsistency with mainstream western science to be an important aspect of FG, and thus worthy of inclusion in the article. Obviously, many would consider this inconsistency to reflect negatively on FG, which is why FG promotional materials highlight less controversial aspects such as the exercises. Having read both the translation of Zhuan Falun and some FG promotional materials, my opinion is that that the current article follows the promotional materials too closely approaching something of propaganda piece. I would strongly recommend including some of issues 66.77.144.5 brings up, with citations as I have mentioned above or find your own "outlandish claims" on falundafa.org. Bdentremont (talk) 19:15, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Dilip's answer to anonymous IP

I am assuming its just some misunderstanding that leads the anonymous ip here to make these wild statements. Just to clarify to him: These things are apparently from some journalists - things like the the claim made by the journalist above- "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies" - have absolutely nothing to do with the Teaching of Falun Gong. Neither do they represent the teachings of Falun Gong. For instance, gravity is explained as follows in one of the lectures - its explained in in passing because the Teachings of Falun Gong are on spiritual cultivation practice - not today's scientific theories. The lecture apparently states that, "all matter, including air and water, that are on Earth and within the Three Realms—all things that exist in the Three Realms—are composed of particles of all the different levels in the Three Realms, and different particles of different levels are interconnected. This interconnection can, when there’s a pulling force, extend or move within the Three Realms. In other words, when you pull it, it can extend like a rubber band, and when you release it, it will go back. That is, there’s a basic, stable form of existence among particles. This is why any object in this Earth’s environment will come back to the ground after you move it. Of course, I’m not talking about moving a piece of rock to some different location, in which case it wouldn’t return to where it was. That’s not the idea. The surface of Earth is the boundary of one level. Within this level things can move horizontally since they are all at the same level. But when something moves towards a level beyond its level, it will be pulled back..." The teachings apparently explains that as one moves farther away from a celestial body, the higher dimensional interconnections between particles are broken and density of connections are sparser at the periphery, and thus strength of this pulling force decreases.[50] To summarize my very limited understanding of whats said in the lecture - space here is composed of many material dimensions; an object we see as in existence in this dimension alone has, in fact, its forms of existence in other dimensions; The interaction between higher dimensional matter causes the phenomenon of gravity; the surface of the earth forms a level of the same potential so you may move it on that equipotential surface without working against these connections. But to take it to a higher "potential" takes work/ requires force. Again it strikes me that if the density of these interconnecting particles varied inversely with distance from earth - it would mean the inverse square law! Indeed, this has no relation with the claim made by the journalist.

Rotation velocity curve of a typical spiral galaxy: predicted using our theory of gravitation (A) and observed (B).

Speaking of this something else comes to mind ( I know I am going off tangentially from the topic here :P .. and my edit may be removed after this discussion is over .. but i'll just point this out :).. ) - the galaxies that we see with our telescopes - they seem to rotate almost like a solid disc. If our theory of gravitation were right - how should they rotate? Well.. put some saw dust into a cup of coffee and swirl it around - the particles inside will rotate faster, while those on the outside much slower. The rotation pattern for galaxies ought to be the exact same way. But rather eerily what we observe is in stark conflict with what our best theories predict. Now what do our scientists do? They are faced with two choices - 1. Admit that current theory of universal gravitation could very likely be completely and grossly wrong. 2. Come up with some "explanations" that wouldn't require the "precious" model to be abandoned

Ofcourse, they chose #2. And came up with an awfully far-fetched explanation - and thats exactly from where the whole concept of "dark matter" comes from. The only way to save the model was to assume that 95%-99% of matter in the universe is invisible ( does not interact with light/ electromagnetic radiation) but produces gravity. ( Infact over 99.6% if we ignore intergalactic gas - according to some models. ) Well the model for gravitation was "saved" but now nobody knows what this "dark matter" thing could be - and by the way are still "searching" in completely futility for this "dark matter". If this cosmological model were true our earth must be passing through trillions of particles of such matter each second. Our best observations fail to detect any. My point being that its very likely that our model/ theory of gravitation itself may be flawed. What Falun Gong's Founder, Li Hongzhi, has said is that "things don’t work as the theory of 'universal gravitation' states" [ please read the lecture here ] and he continues to outline a very scientific explanation for this phenomenon involving the existence of physical, higher dimensional matter.

Regarding cycles of civilization - Falun Gong's teachings mention there were cycles of civilization. In fact even Buddhism does and many oriental and indian traditions do - here in india our traditions talk abut 4 "yugas" or something... smaller cycles within those - something of that sort. First when I heard about cycles of civilization in Falun Gong lectures - i did a lot of online research on this - coz back then i had almost a blind level of belief in mainstream science's theories. In fact, there are many truly intriguing finds that have been made around the world. :

This NBC documentary, the "mysterious origins of man" is indeed worth watching:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4848668803639628771&ei=kC6gSOifJoq0wgOduZg3&q=+mysterious+origins+of+man

I had compiled a short presentation on the topic - hoping you'll find it interesting... http://cid-c170094d7e9be7ec.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/World/Prehistoric-Civilizations.ppt .

(sorry about going completely tangential from the topic - the post may please be removed later) Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:47, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I find this interesting, Dilip. Others might also like to read it. Maybe it could be moved to a sub page under your name rather than deleted?--Asdfg12345 13:35, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Dilip says gravity has nothing to do with the teachings of Falun Gong, and then proceeds to prove himself wrong by citing Li's rather elaborate explanation of gravity in one of the Lectures (and further fleshing it out himself). Asdfg finds this "interesting", and if it's so interesting then why is he arguing against any of these ideas being mentioned in the article? Wouldn't other readers find it interesting too? Fuzzypeg ★ 23:13, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to that quote from the journalist( picked by the anon Ip above : "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies.") and stating that its a gross mis-representation of what is said in the teachings. I meant to refer specifically to the journalist quote when i used the phrase "things like 'gravity and deities' hav nothing to do with the teachings". I did not mean at all to imply that the teachings do not touch upon gravity and dieties/Gods as two separate topics. Otherwise - my whole post would be self-contradictory. I assumed the context was obvious since i was replying to the post by the anonymous ip. I have edited my previous post to clear up the issue.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure, they may do. It's all original research from Dilip though. I just thought it was personally interesting. I bet you could write me an essay about ten pet topics of yours and theories you've got nestled away and I'll say they're interesting. I'll even thank you for sharing them with me. In the Falun Gong teachings there are around 2000 pages of what may be termed similar material (to the remarks on gravity, as above, for example). Who's going to pick and choose which parts we highlight? There are some lectures on creating fine art, classical music, all sorts of topics. It seems to make sense to: Firstly, take as a basis the main book, Zhuan Falun, which Li Hongzhi repeatedly says is the main book and everything else supplementary, and which practitioners read every day, and according to David Ownby, the other scriptures "rarely, if ever" (that quote's wrong, just from memory, something like that). Secondly, to present things in a coherent way given their context, since we are making an encyclopedia, not a scrapbook of Dilip's or anyone else's personal theories. Thirdly, quantity and prominence should probably be a factor, I suppose. Since the topics of creating fine art and music each have their own lectures, while gravity doesn't, wouldn't we elaborate on these subjects first?--Asdfg12345 00:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Ownby's perspective was that the Zhuan Falun is "studied by practitioners to the virtual exclusion of.. other writings".. not sure if this is the quote you refer to...

Dilip rajeev (talk) 06:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

lol, and I had to laugh when I read the start of Dilip's note again. Of course gravity and deities have to do with the teachings of Falun Gong! I'm not sure what he meant to say, maybe that aberrant interpretations of these subjects have nothing to do with the teachings? hehe--Asdfg12345 00:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This statement by a journalist [ picked by the anon ip mentioned above: "Li postulates that gravity may be controlled by deities that practitioners can visualize at work in their own bodies." ] is not a correct representation of what is taught in Falun Gong.That is what I was saying in my post. Its completely mis-representing what Falun Gong lectures have said on the topic. Thats what I meant by "things like 'gravity and dieties' have nothing to do with the Teaching of Falun Gong." - sorry if that created some confusion - i thought it was obvious what i was taking about. I was referring specifically to the quote from the journalist when i said "things like 'gravity and deities' " - it obviously was not meant to be a reference to gravity and deities/Gods as two separate topics. I have edited the post to get rid of the ambiguity. I hope that makes things clear.I had replied immediately under the post from the anon ip, so I assumed the context was completely clear. The post was moved down to this separate section by another editor.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Requesting Kind Attention From The Arbitration Committee

A user has been adding in material from a clearly propagandistic video made by the CCP and aired in CCP as well as in hong kong based pheonix television. The contents of the program are clearly propagandistic and further, they violate WP:Reliable_Sources and WP:NPOV, . I most humbly request the Administrators to kindly look into the matter and take appropriate action. The page has been subject to a lot of vandalism, removal of sourced content and propaganda pushing form the CCP before. Till a few weeks back a user "bobby fletcher" had been vandalising it - western standard published an article noting that the very person, who had admitted on wikipedia that his real name is "charles liu", is most likely a person hired by the CCP with possible ties to high-level CCP officials. The same user had been spreading mis-information on this talk page also. With the olympics going on and the increased media attention to CCP's crimes, I believe it is no coincidence, such things are being pushed on talk pages pertinent to CCP's Human Rights violation issues and from there, completely violating Wikipedia policies, into articles.

Kindly See:

"Sowing Confusion." This Western Standard article is about the above user, who has been pushing CCP propaganda on wikipedia, and calls himself "bobby fletcher". The last paragraph of the article is particularly interesting.

Sowing confusion: embarrassed by reports of live organ harvesting, China's sympathizers launch a high-tech disinformation campaign.

Now, once again CCP propaganda, things that completely fail WP:N, WP:NPOV, WP:RS and WP:V are being pushed viciously into the article. Kindly see the material added under the section "pheonix tv": http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_in_China&diff=232109812&oldid=232092584

David Kilgour and Matas point out that "what they[the CCP] are engaged in is propaganda and disinformation, rather than real debate."

Kindly look into to RSF's 2005 report "Xinhua: The World’s Biggest Propaganda Agency" for an analysis on the extent to which the Chinese Communist Party is engaged in disinformation.

Requesting you, most humbly, to kindly look into the matter and take action as you consider appropriate.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I doubt the arbitration committee monitors this talk pages; and they wouldn't open another case on the Falun Gong articles because of a post here. You have to start a request, and I'm sure they wouldn't even look at it. The things you are saying about Liu being an agent are also unable to be substantiated in this forum. The pages are on probation. Anyone who edits them disruptively can get blocked. That includes you and antilived if you edit war on the organ harvesting page.--Asdfg12345 15:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Please note that it is not me who is saying anything about Liu - I am merely bringing to other editors' and the arbitration committee's attention what The Western Standard has reported on him; what Kilgour and Matas, themselves ( please see last paragraph of the article), have said about it.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

One more thing I wanted to clarify is that am not at all implying the editor who did the recent edit to the article, introducing material from the so called 'pheonix tv' movie to the article, is an agent or anything - I think it is only that he himself was not aware of the material [added by an anonymous IP to the talk page of the article] as being CCP propaganda - causing him to insist on pushing the material into the article. I sincerely apologize if the above post of mine came across as suggesting anything to that effect.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 18:20, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

This article is hopeless

Everytime someone makes an edit in the hopes of providing balance it is almost immediately destroyed. There is no attempt at finding a balance between the claims of abuse that have merit and those that are obviously manufactured. There are nuetral parties interested in the article, but there are far more non-nuetral editors and many of them are clearly biased on behalf of Falun Gong. I've been looking at this article from time to time for the last year and it has gone from bad to worse to worst and back to just bad. Any attempt at nuetrality is shot down and multiple arguments are made for removing anything that casts Falun in any kind of concievably negative light.

I'm washing my hands of this. Just call me Pontius. Beerman5000 (talk) 00:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's really sad. Rumour has it that a journalist at a FG-controlled newspaper has made it part of his everyday work to monitor and whitewash this entry. It's somewhat useful if a reader wants to learn about FG's self-image and propaganda practices, but completely useless as a neutral encyclopedia entry. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 06:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

If that is true, can't we just take it to the Wikipedia "authorities"? I am unconvinced we can't do anything about this... (for a lack of better terminology), utter bullshit. Colipon+(T) 05:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Now that the olympics are over, the spotlight is off Falun Gong and China, and perhaps this article won't be such a madhouse of trigger-happy editing. I've just read through most of the article as it currently stands, and yes, it does spend a lot of time describing FG philosophy in a non-critical manner, but that's exactly what one would expect from an article about a spiritual movement. There are a few items that have gone missing, such as the Canadian Judge's critical findings, and information about some of the more outlandish beliefs. These should not dominate the article, but they should be present; especially well-sourced critiques from reliable and dispassionate 3rd-party sources. None of this needs overstating, but it does need stating. Fuzzypeg ★ 23:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds very good to me. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 09:09, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Move Out Info On Persecution From This Article?

In my opinion, the persecution of FG is not the most important aspect of the organisation, and not the kind of information a Wikipedia user is likely to seek in any great detail when she looks up FG here. There is a separate page about the persecution of FG. Would it be a problem if I edited down the info on the persecution in this article and referred to the specialised article instead? Martin Rundkvist (talk) 20:49, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Strong Disagree: The vast majority of people outside of China would never even have heard of Falun Gong were it not for China's communist government oppressing them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.114.141.234 (talk) 22:37, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree. The persecution is obviously central to Falun Gong's notability.--Asdfg12345 01:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Come on now, that's patently disingenuous. We all know that you guys wouldn't want FG to be invisible in Wikipedia if there were no persecution. You're using this as a propaganda platform. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 14:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

dude, there'd probably be a stub or something. If there really was never a persecution (or media attack campaign), Chinese newspapers would have kept singing its praises, and western journalists may have only started to take slight notice, granting only cleverly written, short reports in passing, along the lines of "those wacky Chinese and their mystical disciplines, look at the zillion people meditating every morning--why?", before getting back to their usual grind of economic news and the latest communist press conference; apart from nerdy western scholars writing in depth about obscure historical comparisons, I doubt there would be much else. For now, the persecution is obviously highly relevant to the notability of the subject, and that is without a doubt. You will be hard pressed to find a media report that does not mention the persecution or take the persecution as the main focus of reportage, and in fact, the majority of reports which mention Falun Gong only make reference to the persecution, and don't even make an attempt to engage with a discussion of the practice itself (except perhaps as a means to explain why it might be persecuted--yes, mainstream media is largely hopeless when it comes to certain themes). Suggested reading (see the second page of the first link, at the very least): [51][52][53][54][55]--Asdfg12345 16:27, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Asdfg12345 is absolutely right. In my view, the persecution characterises the Western discourses on Falun Gong to such an extent that there's no way we could cut down on that information.

During the recent years, the arbitration committee has expunged certain people who have tried to use Wikipedia as a platform for ideological struggle. Many of them have tried to remove such information, because they despise Falun Gong but realise that the persecution creates strong sympathy towards practitioners in normal, healthy-minded people. I can only feel sad for those guys.

While I agree that the articles are not perfect, they make extensive use of high-quality sources and esteemed third-party research and, even in their present state, surely qualify among the top 10% of Wikipedia. We can only strive to make them even better and more transparent. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 18:20, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

"Penny regards Falun Gong as one of the most important phenomena"

As I've pointed out before, "Penny regards Falun Gong as one of the most important phenomena..." is not very informative. To my mind it's fluff. I suggest we strike this sentence from the intro. Opinions? Martin Rundkvist (talk) 10:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

'It informs us of the opinion of one of the leading scholars of Falun Gong. I certainly don't think it's fluff. It's been there for nearly a year now, why the fuss? --Asdfg12345 16:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

What does "important phenomenon" really mean in concrete terms? That FG has a lot of notability. And nobody's disputing that. But that is self-evident since the article hasn't been deleted from Wikipedia. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 09:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the important point in this quote is that he says "in recent Chinese history." Any large spiritual group that gets persecuted and generates a bunch of media is notable, though the context in which that happens is important. His quote immediately and in very simple terms makes it clear that the phenomenon of Falun Gong is a big deal in recent Chinese history. Just having an article on the topic doesn't make that clear. There are articles on all the different versions of Zelda's sword, and those haven't been deleted. Actually, the extent of the ludicrousness of what qualifies for a wikipedia article is laughable. There are articles which are lists of the abstruse powers of comic book heroes. I've seen something like that. So an article isn't enough, but this is a sinologist that gives the reader immediate orientation to the import of Falun Gong. The point you raise is that it may be a little non-specific. While it is a useful quote, it could still do with minor substantiation. Then there is one more thing we should add to the lede: say why. Yuezhi Zhao gets into this, and it would be possible to find a one sentence note which sums this up. I'll add it now, even. --Asdfg12345 12:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

But a reader who has never heard of FG is highly unlikely to be impressed by the mention of sinologist Penny. It adds no useful information. We can't have a bit in the article's intro to the effect that "even though other articles are about unimportant things, this article is about an important phenomenon, because Penny says so". Martin Rundkvist (talk) 18:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a good argument in favour of keeping the "most important phenomena" comment in. I will delete it soon unless somebody makes a brief convincing argument for its retention. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 11:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Do not delete it. I gave you a reason. It establishes context and makes clear that Falun Gong is one of the most important phenomena to emerge from China in recent years. This is precisely what articles are supposed to do. Establish context, orient and familiarise the reader with the subject. Quotes from Zhao, and the actual content of the articles make it clear as to why, but Penny immediately lets us know that it is an important subject worth paying attention to. The existence of the article itself doesn't achieve this, as explained above. You already raised this several months ago and no one agreed to it then, I think just drop it, dude.--Asdfg12345 14:35, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Asdf, we all know that you are a one-trick FG pony on Wikipedia. I'd like to hear from somebody who doesn't spend all his time monitoring this article. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Great. Personal attacks. And you seem to have sought out people who love Falun Gong to come and comment. That is rather interesting. It's a strong comment from a leading sinologist in this area. It establishes immediate context, and completely conforms to WP:LEAD which requires that the scope of the subject be briefly presented. It's impeccably sourced, highly relevant. Your argument to delete it is based on your opinion that you think it is "fluff," and your response to my argument from policy is ad-hominem and a search for co-conspirators. I don't know what to say.--Asdfg12345 15:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Please stop putting that silly emphasis on the first words, both of you. I know Asdfg12345 is just parodying Mr Rundkvist, but I believe it simply doesn't belong to proper Wiki etiquette.

There are plenty of reasons to include that specific quote in the introduction. I don't know any serious sinologist that would not consider Falun Gong as one of the most important phenomena to recently emerge from China. David Ownby has named his latest book "Falun Gong and the Future of China", implying that we're dealing with questions of considerable historical weight. On the other hand, we know that the pro-CCP (and/or blatantly anti-FLG) parties have tried to downplay the importance of Falun Gong, from belittling the actual number of Mainland practitioners to doing all kinds of venomous lobbying behind the scenes. Wikipedia articles should be based on high-quality research, not wishy-washy opinions or patent falsehoods. Inclusion of that comment is all the more necessary as a scholarly rebuttal of the anti-scholarly discourse that downgrades the subject out of purely ideological motives. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 18:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

As Olaf says, the scholar sources indicate that it's an important phenomen in China. There should be no problem on adding that quote on the lead. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:23, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Just went through the current version of the lead - seemed quite comprehensive to me. A minor issue with it that struck me was the britannica statement in the lead - the one going " Britannica 'characterizes' Falun Gong as 'controversial'. Such phrasing, I think, could be very misleading to someone new to the topic. Mainly because - the statement does not, in anyway, make clear what is implied by term "controversial" there and, further, because of the various connotations the term carries, it could very likely create a deviated understanding in the reader's mind - one not implied by the term in the context in which it was used in the original article.

I feel it serves little purpose to put something like this in without providing the appropriate background/context. Just to make my point clear - a newer britannica article on a related topic -in particular, the 2008 Britannica article Li Hongzhi, states "...cities as Chicago, Toronto, and Houston, Texas, had honoured him by proclaiming “Master Li Hongzhi” days in recognition of the positive contributions of Falun Dafa." Now, how helpful would it be, if an editor picks on the statement and writes into the lead that "Britannica "characterizes" Falun Dafa as having positive contributions ...recognized through proclamations by cities such as Tonoronto, Chicago,..." My point being that the "britannica characterizes" statement currently in the intro, can, for the uninformed reader, be quite misleading and, further, it serves little purpose there other than, perhaps, push a paticular POV or create a misunderstanding in the reader's mind through name-dropping. The purpose of having something in the lead must not be to drag the reader's impression on the subject in a particular direction - but to provide an, objective, informative and scholarly perspective on the topic - and, to this end, I think, the statement contributes very little . For the reasons I adumbrate above, I am, for now, removing it - I'll reinstate it if other editors see issues with the edit. Also, another strong concern with it I had was (I think I mentioned this in an earlier post) the date that Britannica article was authored - the references used there don't go beyond 1999!

Dilip rajeev (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I've read the Britanica article, and to be fair, they perhaps had something in mind when they said that Falun Gong is controversial, however they did not say in what way do they think that the practice is controversial. So I don't see how can, this source, be used to highlight in the lead that Falun Gong is controversial. Since controversial, when just this one word is used, can mean a million things. Best --HappyInGeneral (talk) 17:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

There used to be a segment of the article explaining what the controversy is, but it was blanked repeatedly by the same group of wikipedians who remove the word itself. Come to think of it, the word "spiritual" is rather versatile as well, however that adjective is allowed to stand. PerEdman (talk) 19:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I can hardly follow, see Spirituality and you might want to elaborate. But be aware this is not a place to push strong POV's. This is an encyclopedia. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 00:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That Falun Gong is controversial is not a strong point of view, it is an observation that there is a conflict between other people's strong points of view. If you have any strong points of view about an article subject, you would do better not to write anything in that article as it becomes increasingly more difficult to separate objectivity and the personal opinion the stronger your opinion is. Wouldn't you agree? PerEdman (talk) 11:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

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