Talk:History of Falun Gong

RfC: Is it acceptable to override a move-protection by creating a separate article?

The page History of Falun Gong was recently move-protected due to a naming dispute. The opposing side has resorted to creating a separate article with their favored title. Is this acceptable? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 20:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Simonm223 (talk) 20:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

For any new editor that is reviewing, please see previous discussion at #Move. My summary is that to create a new article History of Falun Gong, there is no need to move the page from the notable topic of Persecution of Falun Gong, it is enough simply to create a new one. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 22:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The only thing I would see fit to mention is that both of these pages fall within the scope of the arbitration regarding Falun Gong, and that disruptive edits are grounds for some sort of action. One, basically sole, editor, who is a self-described practitioner of Falun Gong, has said the move was unnecessary. From previous RfC discussions, including some input from uninvolved administrators, there was a fairly clear, if not unanimous agreement that the page should in fact be moved. Therefore, I think there may be a reasonable question as to whether this action might qualify as disruptive, as it seems to go against the fairly clear consensus of editors who do not have a self-admitted allegiance to Falun Gong that the page should be moved. John Carter (talk) 23:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Regarding consensus, I don't know why you say that there is a consensus on removing/renaming/diluting a notable topic from Wikipedia. If you look here and here, I would say that there is no such consensus, now is there? Also you might note that I'm not alone opposing this move.
• Regarding self-admitted allegiance, you can call me honest there. Still you are right that no one else declared any allegiance, but judging on their edits allegiance can be determined. Self-admitted allegiance is not an issue on Wikipedia, since everybody has at-least some interest in some topic, and I think I did show that I am available to discuss things rationally per source and with Wikipedia's best interest in mind, as far as I'm concerned, that is all that matters. If you object to that please show me which one of my actions don't follow Wikipedia's best interest. BTW, please consider that these pages are for discussing article content not editor behavior. For discussing editor behavior, I welcome you to do that on my talk page. I can assure you I will listen to you. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
• Just to show case this a little further our last 2 comments where 320 words, that is 70 seconds of silent reading, wasted, because they are irrelevant for this RfC. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

• TY for enlightening us...Edward130603 (talk) 00:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC) PS, that just wasted 1 second of silent reading

It is slightly less unacceptable as it wasn't HappyInGeneral who re-created the article. However, I very much suspect that he was merely beaten to it by someone else, whose good faith I do not question. Had it been Happy's action, I would have definitely put it into the disruptive category. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussing content: cleaning up the primary sources

HappyInGeneral, are you okay with stripping out primary source material and/or replacing such material with third-party-sourced material in this article and Persecution of Falun Gong? --JN466 15:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• I don't see why not Jayen466. Could you please give concrete examples of "stripping out primary source material" which needs to be removed or replaced? I'm not saying that there are not any, but it's good to have a starting point in our discussion. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 15:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I thought we could go through the references one by one and identify primary sources. Looking at the part of the article backed up by that primary source, we would then either –
    • re-source that content to a 3rd-party source saying the same,
    • add a citation to a 3rd-party source explicitly referencing that specific primary source (so it would be okay to cite a specific Xinhua report referenced in other newspapers, or a Falun Gong source referenced in academic books)
    • find a 3rd-party source that says something similar, and revise article content to what that source says, or
    • if no 3rd-party source can be found that references that primary source or makes the same or a similar statement, then take the article content cited to the primary source out.
  • In my experience, editors are much more likely to consider an article on a prominent, contentious topic NPOV-compliant if, looking at the references, they do not see a large number of self-published sources. (That is not to say that we can't make occasional exceptions where all editors are agreed that some primary-sourced information is uncontentious and adds value.)
  • At the moment, primary sources (meaning here sources not published by a 3rd party) among the 118 refs present overall appear to include references 1, 2 (I think), 10, 11, 15?, 24, 29, 34, 39, 40, 42, 50, 51, 53, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 75, 77, 80, 81, 84, 93, 94, 95, 99, 112?, 114, 115, 116, 117. If I have missed or misidentified any, please point that out; otherwise I suggest we deal with those in the sequence in which they occur.
  • Note that ref 15 only says "p. 66" and refs 35, 52 and 100 begins with "ibid."; it's not clear what this "ibid" relates to. The book title of ref 82 is wrong (see Talk:Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident#Square_closed_off.3F). --JN466 16:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• Sounds excellent, I agree 100%! As I see it, it will take some time, but I will definitely start working on it. First step, we should probably tag the text in the article in comments < ! -- -- >, do you have a proposal on what standard template, or other method to use? Plus, at every step I'm planning to update the /sources page to keep a list of all sources in a very readable format. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 16:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

• For now I've placed the {{Underconstruction}} tag on the pages. Should we start working on it or should we wait until the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Persecution of Falun Gong put up by Simonm223 goes away? At this point however, I would like to thank you for the sources, and I think I'll start to add them to /sources. At least that is productive and uncontested. I would really like to bring the persecution of Falun Gong to WP:FA status. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Ref 1

• A Chronicle of Major Historic Events during the Introduction of Falun Dafa to the Public
  • I could offer this to replace the primary source. It is less precise, but more reliably published. Does anyone have anything better? --JN466 20:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
    • How about this one? Quote: "Unlike many other qigong practices around at the time, Li Hongzhi was not secretive in sharing Falun Gong; he held mass lectures with low fees. He founded the Falun Xiulian Dafa Research Society (Falun gong yanjiuhui) in 1993, along with Li Chang, Wang Zhiwen, and Yu Changxin (Tong 2002a: 640), “which would coordinate the organizational infrastructure of Falun gong and translate his works into different languages” (Bruseker 2000: 60). The Falun Xiulian Dafa Research Society was accredited and established as direct branch affiliate (zhishu gongpai) of the Chinese Qigong Research Society that same year with the title of Falun Gong Research Branch Society (Falun gong yanjiu fenhui) (Bruseker 2000: 61; Tong 2002a: 640)." It gives more context on Falun Gong. And it is a PDF not flash. Still I don't object to keep both. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
      • Looks to me like the two complement each other. Porter's dissertation is also published in book form: [1] I propose we should rather cite the book than the dissertation. The book's publisher is only one step up from self-publishing, but I think it will do. Ownby and others reference Porter, and Porter has published at least one article on Falun Gong in Nova Religio, a peer-reviewed journal. Propose we rewrite the present material in line with these two sources. Any objections? --JN466 18:04, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
        • I agree with using the book and you do give a good reason for it, because this way it has a publisher. However if it's free alternative is available, I would rather quote that. Plus PDF and web pages make it easy to search, copy/paste quotes, and also for people with vision problems, who tend to use screen readers. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
          • Not a problem; we can include an extra link to the pdf after the book ref. --JN466 02:46, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done --JN466 21:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Ref 2

• A Short Biography of Mr. Li Hongzhi
  • This looks like it is a movement publication. Is there any evidence that it is referenced by third-party sources? --JN466 18:08, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the version published by Zhuan Falun before 1999. These account are critically analyzed in works of Ownby and Benjamin Penny. Colipon+(Talk) 18:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Is the article content we have cited to this also citable to Ownby et al.? --JN466 18:17, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know for sure. Ownby merely tries to analyze Falun Gong's description of their founder and compares this biography to that given by the Chinese gov't, and other competing accounts. But I think it's generally acceptable to just cite Zhuan Falun, 1996. Colipon+(Talk) 18:19, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, to my eyes this source is an example of hagiography. Here is what is currently sourced to it:

• Li claimed numerous supernatural feats, including invisibility, levitation, and weather modification, and purportedly offered "salvation to all sentient beings".
• In his spiritual biography in early versions of Zhuan Falun, Li Hongzhi claims that he was taught ways of "cultivation practice" (xiulian) by several masters of the Dao and Buddhist schools of thought, including Quan Jue, the 10th Heir to the Great Law of the Buddha School, a Taoist master from age eight to twelve, and a master of the Great Way School with the Taoist alias of True Taoist from the Changbai Mountains. Li also claimed numerous supernatural feats, including invisibility, levitation, and weather modification.
• the system was tested extensively before its introduction, between 1989 and 1992, according to early versions of Zhuan Falun.

Among these are some remarkable claims; I would expect they have been commented upon by citable third-party sources. --JN466 19:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Of course. There are two books I've read which have commented on this version of Li's biography. Ownby's "Falun Gong and the Future of China" and Benjamin Penny's "A Biography of Li Hongzhi". Colipon+(Talk) 19:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ownby comments on and quotes from the biography several times. I propose we rewrite our passages according to the points Ownby highlights. Incidentally, Ownby (page 82) says Li's training with Quan Jue, according to the official biography, took place from ages 4 to 12, not 8 to 12. More on the biography on pp. 117–118, for example. We can retain the biography as a secondary citation for the material though; readers may be interested. --JN466 19:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite understand your concern, exactly. Do you mean that we need to cite a reliable, secondary source to verify the information? It is fine for Wikipedia to take from primary sources, such as Zhuan Falun, as long as there is no original research involved. Colipon+(Talk) 19:29, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't cite from primary sources, unless these primary sources have been discussed in third-party sources. WP:DUE weight of primary sources is established by their appearance in secondary sources. In this case, there is no problem, as the biography is discussed in third-party sources. But we should take our lead from Ownby (and any other sources commenting upon this material) in terms of how to present it. For example, Ownby makes the point that such hagiographies are typical in Qigong, and that the accuracy of the account is contested by Chinese state sources (p. 83), who say they undertook research, interviewing his childhood friends etc. and found many discrepancies. That too should be in the article, and at present there is no sign of it. --JN466 19:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

• I see what you mean. That's a good idea. Colipon+(Talk) 19:41, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
• Since we are on this subject, a question: once we report in Wikipedia based on the secondary source, do you think as a general principle it is still a good practice to quote, as an additional source, the primary source? I think that would add an additional layer beneficial for WP:Verifiability. Once accepted this should be valid for PRC related and Falun Gong related primary sources. What do you think? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, like I said above, if the primary source is online, it makes sense to add a second cite to the primary source itself. Also, if a primary source is referred to in a secondary source, it may sometimes be permissible to extract further content directly from that primary source. Cf. WP:WELLKNOWN. --JN466 20:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

• • How accurately he was quoted doesn't really matter, IMHO, because it's often unintelligible or utterly fantastic that that was also subject to much commentary. In addition, that suggestion seems to be a way which will be used in future to sidestep the requirement to remove all primary sourced material, as you suggested. I'll remind you that is how we got here today. Of course, all those fantastic claims are a cinch to source in secondary material, whether mass media or academic. The biography was the source of much ridicule for Li Hongzhi in the mainstream press that I suspect it contributed to Li removing it from Zhuan Falun. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:17, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
    • I have some concerns about including much material from the now-retracted biograpnh. But if such material is to be included, I think it might be relevant to say that at least one leading scholar, Ownby, ascribes much of the content of that source to accepted exaggeration, similar to that of the various stories in the infancy gospels of Jesus, and that the Chinese government has specifically stated that they have no records of these teachers having ever existed. John Carter (talk) 17:29, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
      • I think we are all agreed that we shouldn't go into more detail than Ownby with this hagiography, just give a brief summary of Ownby's points. --JN466 18:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Just to clarify, Ownby and the primary source agreed about Li's studies having begun at age 4: our article was at variance with both Ownby and the hagiography. Now fixed. --JN466 21:57, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I've replaced what was Ref. 10 with Ownby and Chang, who cover this ground. --JN466 23:37, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Reference 21

Right now all it says is "p. 66". What is this reference? Colipon+(Talk) 00:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Zhouhuo rumo

Thanks to Colipon for finding the correct translation. I had been racking my brains for that and eventually used the Google translator, which got it wrong! Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:37, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I was actually initially unsure about whether or not that was what you were trying to get at, but I guess it all worked out. Colipon+(Talk) 11:03, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The source only had the pinyin without the accent and no chinese, but you were spot on. I don't think there are any ambiguities. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

move protection

I think the move protection on this article can be lifted. I feel it unlikely anyone would want to engage in a move-war, as the dispute was really because someone wanted to keep this article as 'persecution of Falun Gong'. Now, that article has risen from the ashes like a phoenix. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:03, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

This is really something... I have an idea. Why not just make the page about Falun Gong in mainland China before the persecution? Then it could go into more depth on the issues this article mostly covers. It would be a logical delineation. At the moment it's obvious that much of the information about Tianjin, the development of Falun Gong etc. is pulled from only a few sources, whereas there are is a far greater range of sources and differing narratives--obviously violates NPOV. The level of selective use of sources is the highest I've seen on these pages since the reign of Samuel and Tomananda. I understand that the point of this page originally was so the persecution page could be deleted. Since that's not going to happen, it may be easier just to somehow have a page that can be dedicated to Falun Gong in China before the persecution. An idea. At the moment there is overlap between this and the main page, and also between this and the persecution page (kinda, but it's not clear, like, half this stuff should be on the persecution page, essentially). Anyway, just some thoughts for now. I'll keep reading. --Asdfg12345 23:04, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, there's a more diverse sourcing here than there ever has been, although it doesn't mean it can't be even more diverse. This article is a spinoff, and is back in the growth phase. I think our only concern here needs be that the stuff is conforms to the basic policies of WP:A, WP:V and WP:RS for the time being. The trouble when adding sources, one at a time, is that you need to milk a source for all you've got before moving onto the next. If we accept that it may swing from one WP:UNDUE to another, without being in overt breach of WP:NPOV, we can keep adding stuff to prune it away into a coherent picture later. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The narrative that has been cobbled together, and which dominates this page and is obvious on the main page, appears to be mostly from Ostergaard and Palmer. Then other sources are interspersed, giving the impression that they favor that discourse. That's problematic in itself. There are many other writers on this than just those two. The full range of discussion on Falun Gong in the early days needs to be included. I would suggest that Ownby makes an important contribution to the discussion; Yuezhi Zhao does, too, and there is some stuff in Schechter (but of the same standard). Ostergaard draws his stuff mainly from CCP sources. The "four points" he cites as part of Falun Gong's demands are what really makes me wonder about the guy. I have no clue where he got them; they're false. It throws into question his knowledge of the subject altogether. But anyway, the very least that needs to be done is make clear that there are different narratives. And the persecution stuff can be moved back to the persecution page. About your comment, I'm not sure what you mean--but we do need to add more sources. We're not trying to come up with a totalising narrative of "the truth" of Falun Gong here, either inside or outside China. The point is to show what the sources on offer say. By the way, can you please provide the full quote your using for that Ostergaard sentence, I can't seem to access it. You know, the propaganda and pawns one. And please any references he attributes that to. His commentary is close to seven years old now, too, which is something to keep in mind. And it seems to be the fellow's only input into the topic. I suggest that Ownby's analysis in Falun Gong and the future of China play more of a guiding role in how things are framed, given his prominence, and the recentness and thoroughness of the research. That is the most mainstream narrative. Schechter comes in on a slightly Falun Gong friendly fringe, whereas Palmer, and particularly Ostergaard, take a directly hostile approach--all should be included, but these more boundary interpretations shouldn't get pride of place. The differing narratives should also be included. The enthusiasm with which Palmer has been used isn't lost on me, either...--Asdfg12345 01:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

• Piecing together the whole significant history about the FLG is detective work. There's no one source which is comprehensive. Palmer and Ostergaard were two of the more comprehensive sources which I dug up just be searching 'Falun Gong' in Googlebooks. The subject hasn't changed so much in the seven years since Ostergaard wrote his piece. Anyhow, these academics go around citing each other in rather circuitous fashion anyhow - I often see references to works 2000 and earlier, so I don't quite see how age would invalidate Ostergaard. I just love the way you find excuses to exclude stuff which is patently not favourable to FLG. The fact is that it is a published work and undoubtedly peer reviewed, which makes it good enough for citing. Yes, Ownby is an authority, but not the only one. I also like the way you praise Ownby's work as being "well researched" - use in the way above can only have one implication. There's really no reason to privilege Zhao over Palmer, Kavan, Ostergaard or Chiang, or any others, as all are accredited and upright academics whose works are peer reviewed, and they all have their role to play in helping us fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Schechter... well, been there, done that! I've read all I could read which was on preview in Googlebooks, and was not the least bit impressed. I had misgivings before with the snippets and selective quotes, but his book is a wheeze. Totally over the top on the rhetoric, emotionally highly-charged and thin on facts. I doubt there's much which can be used here. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

sorry I didn't respond to this. My main issue with Ostergaard is the false information he has included, overreliance on CCP sources, and the extreme, shall we say unique, interpretation he presents of the whole phenomenon. My other point was that this appears to be his only input into the topic, and someone like Ownby is far more reliable. By "well researched" I mean having got to grips with the breadth of information and discourse available on Falun Gong, and fieldwork. Ostergaard seems to mostly regurgitate CCP propaganda. Anyway, I'm not making any wider points. I agree that there is no reason to exclude it from the page. Similarly, I fail to understand the reason for excluding Schechter either. He's biased. Like Ostergaard.--Asdfg12345 14:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree, particularly as Chiang received numerous favorable reviews at the time of publication and Ownby, in his own book, as I recall literally praised Palmer's book. I don't have it with me now, but I can try to find the quotations later. John Carter (talk) 15:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! That will help. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 17:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hoping that this will save John the trouble of copying the passages out, and enable other editors to verify for themselves how Ownby views Palmer, here are a couple of pages where Ownby comments on Palmer's "Qigong Fever": [2][3][4] There are lots more references to Palmer in the book, which you can search for in google books, but these three speak most directly to Ownby's evaluation and indeed use of Palmer. --JN466 19:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much, I'll take a look. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 23:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Jayen. Palmer is "brilliant" and "the most substantial", while Schechter is "partisan rather than strictly objective". Confirms what I have been thinking all along. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

In my view, Schechter is not worth citing, and I think most Falun Gong academics would agree with me. Just read his book. Falun Gong seems to like borrowing legitimacy from him though. On a different note, it's a bit unexpected that Human Rights Watch provides a much more objective narrative to the Falun Gong story than many academic sources out there. The entire report basically criticized the Chinese government, but it was great in that it maintained the tone of "The Chinese government is wrong, but that doesn't make Falun Gong right". As expected, asdfg has removed the material from Human Rights Watch that is not favourable towards Falun Gong over at the main article. Colipon+(Talk) 18:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Didn't see the chat here. Schechter gives a pro-Falun Gong perspective; that doesn't mean we can't use him. There's some really horrible anti-Falun Gong stuff you guys have dredged up here, I'm not calling for that to be avoided unless it doesn't meet reliability. Schechter ticks all the boxes of a reliable source, it's just that he decided on the apologetics approach for his book. Not a huge deal. HRW is an expert on the HR abuses, not on the teachings. There's no need to interpret everything through a prism of either attacking of praising Falun Gong, which is a troubling tendency I'm finding. --Asdfg12345 13:28, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• No, sorry. That's a typical cherry-picking argumentation, which I don't subscribe to in th slightest. I stated my objection to Schechter above as a source that is so full of pro-FLG rhetoric and emotional language and light on fact, and that's when you know what it is. When you don't, it's easy to conflate. Most of the time, the propensity to fact is well below the radar. Ownby doesn't place any great reliance on him, and I don't see why we should either. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:36, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by the part "that's when you know it is. When you don't, it's easy to conflate." I'm don't understand what grounds there are for excluding a source based on the fact that it uses pro-X language or emotional language? Many journalists use emotional sort of language. And some of the other sources use strongly pro-X language. Unless I misunderstand, the stated reason for wanting to exclude Schechter is because of the point of view he is making? This isn't part WP:V, as far as I understand. Could you point out something to me in the policy, explicitly, like, give me the excerpts and an explanation, of why Schechter should be excluded? I ask because I could grab several sources you have used and change the word "pro" to "anti" in your statement above, and say the exact same thing. Thanks.--Asdfg12345 13:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• As mentioned above, I'm interested in fact, and it's often difficult to distinguish fact from opinion in Schechter's piece. I'm not arguing WP:V as such. Opinions are OK too only when presented with due weight. In essence, what I'm saying is that since most experts, including Ownby, place limited reliance on him, we should do likewise. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how Schechter presents any more opinion than other authors. Ostergaard for example, that's chock full of opinion. Same with Ownby. I think there are two aspects: the facts (or version of facts, or "narrative") they bring to the table, then the opinions they dish out. For someone like Schechter, I don't think it's significant that he makes some positive remarks here or there--we needn't quote him on that. But he presents a different narrative of certain other things--for example the lead up to the persecution. Schechter's portrayal of this is good to contrast with other researchers. Ultimately I think we should be reasonable, intelligent, and selective, in any sources. This doesn't come under a particular policy, it comes under WP:IAR. In this context, there's stuff from Schechter that I wouldn't consider suitable and wouldn't try to include (like I'm not sure, some chummy remarks about Li Hongzhi, or something). Anyway, the guy is established as a political commentator and author. If you or others still think we shouldn't use him, then let's take it to the RS board and see what others think. I think that would be the most efficient way of dealing with these disputes--it's what Vassyanna (can never spell that guy's name right) recommended to us at the start, if I recall correctly). Anyone, one thing I'm going to do soon is fix up the persecution page. It's been gutted because it was originally being shipped over here piecemeal. The page had an enormous amount of research on it. I haven't read through the recent version, but I will tomorrow. I'll read through the current version, then an older version, then write down my thoughts as I go (then paste them on the talk), then finally make some changes. That should take a couple of hours. Wiki's hard work, right?!--Asdfg12345 14:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Purpose of this article?

I'm interested in what the purpose of this article is, and what's unique about it; at the moment it duplicates much of the information on other pages, while some of the it is irrelevant to the subject. Actually, looking at it again now, it basically seems like a counter-narrative. It has all the elements of what a normal article on Falun Gong would have, except it goes into a lot of detail on negative interpretations, and includes some, what might be termed, tangential or irrelevant information (like "Qigong and health??") Before talking about any specifics, it would be good to understand how where this article fits into the wider scheme of presenting Falun Gong on wikipedia, and how it wouldn't either duplicate information from the pages where all the information is drawn from (i.e., main page, persecution page), or if it didn't duplicate that information, just present completely different information on the same issues that were covered there, which would also limit its usefulness for the reader. That's my first question. The corollary question is: why not just name this page "Falun Gong in Mainland China" or something similar, maybe "History of Falun Gong, 1992-1999," and then shift the other information to where it belongs. Some of the thinking here would be helpful. I know a lot of work has gone into this, and I don't mean to discount that. Trying to get an understanding of how this doesn't do the same job that other pages do?--Asdfg12345 13:41, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Since the article's demerger from Persecution, I have added quite a lot of material from a number of scholarly sources to bulk up the article. What I would like to see is some sort of proper timeline. There is (or ought to be) minimal duplication with 'Persecution' because the content was simply split by copy and paste. Like for most other subjects, the main FLG article should always be just a summary of all the details coming from the subsidiary articles. That summarisation work remains to be done, and I did not want to do it until this article was complete. As for it being a counter-narrative, perhaps you are correct in how this has evolved. I believe it is more a reflection of the shortcomings of the main FLG article than a deliberate forking of content, because full use had not been made of scholarly sources, for whatever reason. I am OK with renaming this article 'Falun Gong in Mainland China', which is largely where this content falls, but that was not the intention when this page was created. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:19, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

My vision was that "persecution" would fall under this article but since some editors decided to spin that out again I would suggest that persecution be given summary treatment here, pending more detailed coverage in its own article. I am opposed to changing the title to "Falun Gong in mainland China". The events described in this article are supposed to serve as a chronology for how Falun Gong came to be, what has happened since its founding, and how it's emerged to become what it is today. There is no better title for that than "history". Colipon+(Talk) 02:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I can understand these explanations a bit. Colipon, I'm not sure I get something, though: the "history" of Falun Gong is about the whole thing. The history includes its origins, the persecution, its growth outside mainland China, and so forth. But there is already a page on the persecution, and there's already a page on outside mainland China. It's unclear how a separate page would be able to include all the content from three other pages without getting too repetitive. I can buy the idea that it's supposed to summarise other content (though it's not quite doing that now with the persecution section, for example), but I don't know how what you are envisaging is different from the main article. Basically, the main article should do all the things you say, and then spin off into all the different ones. We shouldn't have two articles that spin into different ones, as far as I understand it. If we made this "Falun Gong in mainland China," there would be a neat break up between all the things covered. It would also mean there was a chance to present a full narrative of each thing. At the moment we have this page which is trying to be all things to all people, neither fish nor fowl. I think if we called it mainland China, it would free us up a bit to get some clarity as to what's going on. I'm a little scared to start editing this one at the moment given its ambiguous status. But it's not quite adding up. How can we resolve this? --Asdfg12345 14:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Another thing is, to be frank, we have a hard enough time agreeing on things now. If we are talking about splitting an explanation of the lead-up to the persecution and the persecution across three pages, that's three places that things either need to be debated, or updated. Right now I'd like to move what we have on this here to the persecution page (only part of the lead-up need be there, basically, that some stuff went down and then it all began) so we can work on it in one place. Don't really want to cut anybody's lunch though, so I'd like to hold back on that until we figure it out together. But yeah, I think it will streamline our efforts if we can have this about inside mainland China.--Asdfg12345 14:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, in their earnest to keep the new 'persecution' article, nobody bought that argument when we were trying to discuss the renaming/AfD. So I guess we're in a limbo, as they say... Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Or, in their earnestness to delete the persecution article? Whatever the case, if we can agree now then it's done. We'll see what Colipon says. He may simply agree and we can move ahead. Or he may have a convincing argument. Or we can take it to a wider forum. At the moment yeah, its' very limbo-like, so hopefully we can resolve that ASAP. --Asdfg12345 11:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

By the way, my edit wasn't supposed to be "destructive." Apologies for any broken links. I'll look next time. To mean we're not working on two chunks of identical text, can I move the persecution stuff from this page onto the persecution page tomorrow?--Asdfg12345 11:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Final thing: I see you restored the cult label here. It's on the main page as well, though. I don't understand why we want fairly identical text in two places? By the way, there's something else I want to do. It's to muster the sources that talk about the cult label, and find out which ones talk about it in the context of the propaganda campaign/persecution, and those that talk about it outside that context. What I believe we'll find is that the majority of sources talk about it in the context of the media campaign. In my understanding, this means that when we treat it in wikipedia, it should also be placed in the context of the media campaign--since that is reflecting the reliable sources on the topic. The first point is to actually establish that this is the case, however. Since there aren't that many sources on it anyway though, it shouldn't be too hard to find this out one way or another. Please advise if you disagree with that in principle.--Asdfg12345 11:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, the Palmer addendum to the cult part is a kind of original research. Does he talk about the word cult or how Falun Gong is or isn't a cult? As far as I know, in that context he doesn't. He doesn't relate those words to that discourse, does he? If he doesn't, then it's a kind of synthesis to put it there, since it posits that the terms he uses to describe Falun Gong are related to the cult theory. Also, it's kinda surprising too—it should be clear by now that this term is only meaningful in describing the organisation of a group, not in describing its teachings. Anyway, since I don't think what I'm saying is controversial I'm just going to delete that.

uypdate: I thought I had pressed enter there. Anyway, I saw it was expanded. I think the same applies: if they do not connect these descriptions to the cult label, then it's not relevant here. Excuse my saying this, but the section is not a chance to drag out whatever odd and negative descriptions we can dig up for Falun Gong. It's specifically about how the cult term was used. Anyway, the other thing was the persecution section. I don't know why we are pretending like this word doesn't exist or trying to change it to something else. We already agree that, just like with anything, it's possible to use other terms in prose to prevent things from getting monotonous. But to sanitise the articles of the term? Do we need to continually bicker on this point? There's a page called "The Persecution of Falun Gong." If the wikipedia community thinks that this term is wrong, it needs to be resolved through other channels. For us, for now, I think we should just treat it like any other word, and not avoid it, and not overuse it. Please let me know if what I'm saying isn't reasonable or whatever.--Asdfg12345 14:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

About the sections and organisation

[sorry, not sure if I should just keep writing in paragraphs above or start a new section to discuss this] I moved the material about health onto the Qigong page, where I believe it belongs. There was nothing in the text itself linking it to either Falun Gong or the protests. If there is one source that does this (like Palmer, but I read those parts and didn't really see this argument being advanced), that's still not much, because we are talking about the way the whole thing is framed. In particular, having a section called Qigong effect on health, then the Tianjin and other stuff in there seems to make even less sense. I mentioned this earlier--wondering what was up with that. Anyway, it is fairly confusing. So the point is because there is nothing linking these things, I don't see how it belongs here. If there was (like, what is the point here? That qigong makes people go crazy and then they protest?! lol) then it would need to be explicit, sourced, and also in conformance with WP:DUE. Whatever the case, it's good info, just needs to be placed properly. and I changed that section name to reflect the actual content of it and the role it plays within the page. Having this whole narrative of Falun Gong in China and the lead up to the persecution is good. It's extremely biased at the moment, however, an extremely anti-Falun Gong text, but anyway, that can be fixed. It's good to see this work being put in at least, and an attempt to present a cohesive narrative. So I hope for my efforts to advance that. Please point out any errors.--Asdfg12345 14:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Tantamount to Vandalism

These drive-by mass reverts that have been happening to FLG articles recently, disrupting the work of many editors, is nothing more than vandalism and will be treated as such. Simonm223 (talk) 20:37, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

By which standard/policy/common sense? Reverting chunks of texts without any explanation on how that improves this Encyclopedia can be easily considered destructive editing. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Consider it as you will but what ASDFG has been doing is vandalism, plain and simple. Vandalism need not be random and his systematic deletion of edits he doesn't like, regardless of the source is not appropirate. I am through wasting time arguing with him on talk pages. He's a vandal and reverting vandalism is what the revert function is for. Simonm223 (talk) 21:19, 4 January 2010 (UTC)