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	History of Falun Gong was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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Falun Gong as a Homeopathic practice

One of the main reasons that the CCP banned the Falun Gong movement was due to its homeopathic nature and the reckless endangerment of life caused by such, not, as the page suggests, for political reasons. Just like homeopathic medicines, Falun Gong, is childish superstition and a belief in the supernatural that takes advantage of the fear of dying, further to this, Falun Gong teachings manipulate and effectively brainwash its practitioners in a manner which can only be attributed as psychological abuse, especially in the case of children (who under instruction from their parents unwittingly participate in self mutilation and self immolation). To this end, Falun Gong can only be seen as a gross misconduct of Human Rights and its leader Li HongZi should be brought to justice as the criminal and con-man that he is. I am highly dissapointed at the lack of neutrality within this article, remember, science is absolute, science is objective, science is truely neutral and Falun Gong is an unscientific practice which discourages the use of medicines, even in life threatening situations. There is no reason beyond utter ignorance and greed that Falun Gong should be allowed to exist. Anon259999 (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Quoting to the National Review: "Matters were even worse in China, where it was credibly charged that prisoners — perhaps practitioners of Falun Gong — were executed and their organs sold. ". Now tell me do you honestly believe that the CCP with it's "moral' backbone wanted to protect it's people? If you ask me all that you say here is a pure reflection of the propaganda made up by it to somehow justify it's genocide. But then again this is Misplaced Pages, so read on about WP:TRUTH. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

do you believe everything the Falun Dafa says? The CCP is a reflection of it's people, if that were the case, why would the CCP target one minority group in a country consisting of thousands of minorities? The entire chinese race is made up of thousands of ethnic groups, I myself have Urghyr and Muslim family, Han and Man bloodlines... the CCP may be inefficient and wasteful, it may lack common sense, and it may be out of touch with it's people, but the truth of the matter still remains that Falun Gong practitioners condone and perform self-mutilation, their photos and others have been appropriated by the Falun Dafa corporation to con gullible westerners such as yourself. Please learn more about a culture before you attempt to slander it. Anon259999 (talk) 01:20, 24 January 2010 (UTC) Furthermore, it's not genocide. They are neither a race, nor a religion. They are a cult. Just like the church scientology, just like the "God hates fags" WBC. Anon259999 (talk) 01:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Whoa... I never thought the day would come that I'd be on HiG's side. Anon, dude, you're extremely close to crossing some serious civility-borders here. Knock it off with your accusations of "slander" and this yadayada about "science is absolute". (First informal warning) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 01:39, 24 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 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 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[REDACTED] 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

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)

Simon, you're expected to engaged in the arguments I've raised for the edits I've made. It's not that any deletion of any material is automatically vandalism. If the material was misplaced, and you can muster an argument, then you can delete it, right? It's the same principle. And I have advanced arguments for all the edits I've made. I make sure I do this. You are expected to engage with those arguments, rather than just revert the edits and call me a vandal. I'm going to restore the changes I made with the expectation that you actually engage in a debate. This is what[REDACTED] requires of us. And this time, I'll let you take the initiative. I'm not going to rehash all the stuff I already wrote about the changes. It's up to you to respond to what I've already said, in edit summaries and on this page (above, I believe). Please let me know if there's something mistaken in this approach. --Asdfg12345 01:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• You never explained why you thought it was "misplaced". These are citations about Falun Gong's belief set and how it is viewed by the outside world respected academics. They certainly go some way to show that the "cult" accusations, however flimsy, have some foundation in a apocalyptic and moralistic philosophy so common among recognised cults. Ohconfucius 01:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
• As a side, what you're doing is not "discussing" - it is commenting on a "fait accompli" while you create it. That's similar to writing the legal opinion for a death sentence while at the same time pulling the trigger... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 02:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, you are admitting to an original synthesis. I'm asking you to justify those terms of description as related to the cult label in the words of those academics. It doesn't work for you to make that bridge yourself. Those are comments about the teachings; you are relating them to the cult label. Unless those people did so when they made those comments, they don't belong in that section. Seb: I'm not sure what you mean. People are supposed to engage in discussion. but we don't have to wait until we've had a long discussion to make changes to the article. We can discuss, change, discuss, etc. It's a dynamic process. Confucius, can you please present evidence that Ownby and Palmer wrote the remarks about their views of the teachings in the context of describing Falun Gong as a cult, or as you said, adding some putative foundation to the cult label. And let's be clear: the question of "cult or not" is not a question of beliefs, it's a question or organisation and structure, and concrete actions. Christian teachings have apocalyptic and moralistic elements--is christianity a cult? Anyway, the material needs to be justified. I won't delete it for now. Waiting for a response to my concerns.--Asdfg12345 08:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the rebuttal to your last point is easy: Misplaced Pages has a long article Criticism of Christianity and I'm sure there's more in other places. Since you (and others) where so opposed to a similar article with regards to Falun Gong, any criticism will have to be in one of the existing articles. If you don't like that idea, I'm sure the regular contributors will interestedly re-open the discussion on an article called "Criticism of Falun Gong". Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 08:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm finding it quite confusing that you are not responding to what I'm saying at all... I asked very specifically for information in the sources in question about how what they remark about Falun Gong's allegedly apocalyptic and moralistic beliefs is related to the cult issue. It's a very simple requirement. If the sources do not make this explicit connection, we cannot include it here as an original synthesis. Please show evidence of the connection or I will remove it again. This has nothing to do with an article about "Criticism of Falun Gong." --Asdfg12345 12:03, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

• Well, they are bona fide quotes about the philosophy, so maybe they belong in the 'Teachings' section instead. Ohconfucius 12:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying.--Asdfg12345 23:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Please respond to the concerns raised

This is kinda frustrating, to be honest. I wrote a bunch of reasons for why the "qigong and health" section doesn't make sense to be here, yet none of them were addressed, and instead I'm accused of being a partisan editor and the material is reinstated. How is this working together? This is really hard for me to understand. It's not fair to behave that way. You have to answer the concerns that I raise, rather than just play bully with the revert button. Please address the concerns I raise about the material. I've already written the dispute so I'm not going to write it again. Please respond above. If something is not clear, I'm happy to explain it.--Asdfg12345 08:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

• I did not reinstate all the material you deleted as not all of it was relevant. I'm not assuming bad faith on your part, but just that perhaps you and I interpret the scope of the article differently. FLG holds He Zuoxiu as an agent provocateur when in fact his scepticism (and writings) was long-standing although his views were sidelined under the 'Three Noes' policy. Practitioners' demonstrations against his 'slanders' were misguided shows of strength which incurred the wrath of the supreme rulers. I believe the section is important because there were indeed concerns over health even in light of Falun Gong's denials, and that they were not just contrived, as FLG appear to constantly allege. Ohconfucius 08:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The section appears to be a coatrack. Most of the information there is not related to Falun Gong. The sentence about health benefits is. Then the final sentence is. Most of that information is about qigong in general. General information has been wedged between information about Falun Gong, giving a misleading impression to the reader. And there's no reason this should be a section where the subsection is the Tianjin protest--what impression is being given by that? Do we have a series of reliable sources attesting to a connection between concerns over the health impacts of qigong and the Tianjin protest? I'm not sure I understand this. And please, let's just address the issues at hand and stop with the sniping.--Asdfg12345 12:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I'm too close to the article. I will look at it again in the cold light of day, perhaps in a day or two as I only put some of the stuff there today. I thought the connection was pretty obvious and direct, without any synthesis being involved. He Zuoxiu's article was about the reasons he does not endorse Falun Gong - one of the prime reasons he alleged was that one of his students suffered qigong deviation as a result of Falun Gong. FLG practitioners then protested 'slander', and FLG denied they were practitioners. Ohconfucius 12:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

What you say is correct, but how is that related to all the info about Zouhuorumo etc.? Not related. That stuff is just in there, looking like it's related to Falun Gong. He Zuoxiu is a classic crusader against any qigong or stuff like that. He also supports the persecution.--Asdfg12345 23:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

• Here you are arguing that the subjects are not related, yet you happily use the argumentation from the other direction to justify keeping the relationship between Zuoxiu and Luo Gan. Falun Gong claimed to be the largest qigong practice–the figure 100 million (if it is to be believed) is in effect 10 percent of the Chinese population, yet is miraculously totally immune from any effects of (and the debate surrounding) Zouhuorumo is really pushing the boat out, IMHO. Ohconfucius 01:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The disputes are actually quite different, because one has a source and the other doesn't. What you are suggesting is your own synthesis--an original synthesis. What I'm saying is just a note from an actual source we have already--Ethan Gutmann. Noah Porter makes the same point, and so does Zhao Yuezhi. But you don't have a source for what you are saying, which makes it a synthesis. There are actual two issues: the first is no source about the health stuff directly related to Falun Gong, and the second is relating this to the protests. There are two original syntheses you are making. At the risk of sounding patronising, please carefully read the policy about original research. It talks about this clearly. It's really not a hard concept to grasp. If you had a source for your claim, I would only suggest it be placed in accordance with WP:DUE. But you don't have a source for either of those points, which makes the whole thing a coatrack and synthesis. You're right that you're too close to the page. This is turning into an anti-Falun Gong crusade.--Asdfg12345 02:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you please respond to this? I've been away four days. For the Palmer/Ownby thing, you left it there. And for this, no response. --Asdfg12345 23:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Assessment of the page, suggestions

I will put aside subtlety in the hopes of making an impression. This page is ridiculous in parts. The lead boldly states that it is a fact that the individuals were Falun Gong practitioners, turning the whole idea of NPOV into a farce. It's also unclear why material about the persecution should be forked over two pages. It splits it up and means if people want a full treatment they have to read two pages rather than one. history and persecution are obviously different. This is a relic of the attempt to outright delete the persecution page. I will write some more issues with this page here as I get the time. For now my suggestions are (and I will keep this as a running list)

1. Clean up the propaganda in the lead;
2. Move most of the persecution material to the page that is actually about that topic;
3. Make the general format conform to other "history of..." articles like or maybe;
4. Clean up the clear nonsense, like Ostergaard's ridiculous claims about Falun Gong's "three points" raised at Zhongnanhai. who knows what his source is, but other sources give a different treatment. A seemingly non-partisan contributor over at the main page has already pointed out one factual inaccuracy in Ostergaard. So he's clearly a questionable source.
5. Get rid of the original research on "Qigong and health," which is quite similar to the propagandistic "Falun Gong and self-immolation" (all in good faith, I would add) on the immolation page. This is not related to Falun Gong; Ohconfucius's arguments above and failure to engage with my points should make that clear. anything here needs to have an explicit link to the subject, not a synthetic one.
6. suggest breaking things up by years; maybe 1992-1994, 1994-1996, 1996-1999. Then the persecution. Or use a combination. It would just present a bit of a clearer narrative for the reader, so they could see the different things that happened at different times. there could be subheadings in those sections to deal with the issues. After 1999, I'm not sure. It could be 1999-2005, maybe. Then 2005-present? In 2005 things like tuidang started to happen, so that may be a good juncture. Until then Falun Gong practitioners weren't calling for the downfall of the CCP, now they actively encourage people to renounce it. so that is a significant juncture. Just not sure where to find some sources on that.

Okay, those are my basic suggestions. I have not looked at the article closely, but I think some problems are: repetition, one-sidedness, reliance on non-mainstream or primary sources to make tendentious claims, several original syntheses, selective use of secondary source, and some others. Most of the list of refs, for example, is a clear set of sources who take decidedly negative interpretations of Falun Gong (except the final two, Ownby and Schechter). this isn't wrong as such, but there needs to be a balance. This page is a clear example of why several points of view are needed for an article. It's anti-Falun Gong spin par excellence, and undermines any claims editors like Ohconfucius, Colipon et al had to being neutral on the subject, or that they can someone approach it divorced from their own biases. Anyway, this is just some of my own commentary and rhetoric. I hope anyone engaging with this will ignore the emotion and look at the facts, and examine the article carefully on the basis of the sources in it, the sources available, and[REDACTED] policies. These are just some ideas. Take them, change them, do what's necessary. I hope someone does something, though. I am able to help with research or clarification on anything that is unclear, I have access to all the sources, so I can either send them to whoever wants them, or paste some relevant passages. Finally, these notes are deliberately written in a non-neutral way. It's supposed to generate action, not be an academic appraisal. --Asdfg12345 03:29, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

• Not a remark on the value of the other comments above, but the lead does not state that the immolators were Falungong practitioners; read it again. I'd like to assist with this article later. Working on Yan'an Rectification Movement now. Homunculus (strange tales) 15:22, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I have looked at the article in more depth, and also at the background of your editing, Asdfg12345. I find that you have been banned from editing these articles for advocating a Falungong perspective. So I was a bit wary of your claims above. I agree with some of them, while others seem exaggerated or unfounded. I am going to ask another editor who wrote some lengthy analyses of certain items on the main Falungong page. He/she may be able to take a look at this and clean some things up.
Separately, I have just a few questions/concerns:

• Some information seems to be irrelevant or not directly relevant, like the section about health.
• There seems to be a lot of detail given over to minor issues, like all the times Li Hongzhi was or wasn't in the airport etc. Maybe this could be simplified; an outsider's eyes glaze over.
• The source for Ostergaard's four points from Zhongnanhai is unclear; I had previously only ever read about three. I don't have access to the source, so someone else will need to check that. I noticed this writer was wrong on a previous issue (as documented on Falungong talk page), so maybe he is wrong again.

Regarding issues of structure and layout, I also wonder of the merits of the current format. I don't know why the page is named the way it is when this "History" is only related to Falungong's rise and fall inside China. One solution may be to rename it accordingly; another may be to keep going with the history to include more recent developments.

On another level, the article seems to duplicate much of the information on the main page. I don't know what is proposed to remedy that, or whether the redundancy is acceptable or even desirable.

Apart from those minor issues, I don't see what the big problem is. I am probably not as well read on the topic as others, but I have read my fair share. The article appears thoroughly researched and neutrally written. In that sense, the accusations you make against the other two editors seem unfounded. Obviously a lot of research has gone into this, and that should be recognised.

From what I can see, it just needs some attention from an expert to take a close look at those particular issues. Improvements might include a wider range of perspectives on certain issues, and verifying the accuracy/relevance of a few specific points (including the relative weight they are given). That's beside the question of information duplication between this and the main article, and this and the article on the persecution. I would be happy to participate in a discussion which attempted to resolve that. Homunculus (strange tales) 14:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Homunculus, I concur with the points you make. I will attempt to answer some of your questions. The Qigong and Health section is relevant, but needs to be scaled down. The reason it's relevant, in my view, is that without a good understanding of the Qigong movement (the backdrop on which Falun Gong rose to prominence) it is impossible to understand Falun Gong itself. I would ask you to be bold to just delete the parts that you think is irrelevant, and any objections can be raised on the talk page. The fact that this page duplicates a lot of the information on the main page is a problem of the main page, not vice versa. The main page should be written in summary style.

I have not read Oostergaard's piece thoroughly, although I do know that it is part of the book Governance in China by Jude Howell, which is used as an authoritative text on the study of Chinese politics in recent years. While Oostergaard does write the chapter from the view of academic argumentation, in my view he describes the events with great academic rigour and scrutiny. I.e. he is a reliable source.

I support the inclusion of more recent developments, but there was too much drama going on over at the "Persecution of Falun Gong" article and I just got too tired in participating in that discussion. But in my view that article should simply be a part of this article.

Asdfg, along with three other users, are Falun Gong practitioners. They have an obvious conflict-of-interest in these articles, which has made editing these articles difficult to impossible. Luckily all of them are now either banned or restricted. Colipon+(Talk) 14:56, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I would submit that my input is not completely worthless just because I practice Falun Gong. I've read everything you have. Homunculus, I appreciate the staid assessment. The rationale for the ban is more complex than you suppose. Some changes had already been made from a previous version of the page I remember, so I apologise for accusing Colipon and ohconfucius of bad faith editing. They have engaged in their share of point-pushing, however. Colipon, regarding the health issues, there is far more than what is just listed here. It would certainly be fine and well to have a section about Falun Gong and health--there's even a study in a peer-reviewed journal article on it. But what's currently in the article has no connection at all with Falun Gong. Furthermore, why would it be a section with the Tianjin protest inside it? Makes no sense. Some explicit link between the info in the article on health, and Falun Gong, needs to be made or it's just WP:COATRACK. Finally, it's silly to say that Ostergaard "describes the events with great academic rigour and scrutiny" when he has made several errors of fact, his piece is an anti-Falun Gong screed, and no other scholars of Falun Gong have even cited him. I think you just like his chapter because it's so negative, so you say it's highly neutral. At least I admit that Schechter is biased. I would be interested in anecdotal or documentary evidence that Governance in China has been used "as an authoritative text on the study of Chinese politics in recent years". Finally, it may be worth noting that Colipon would prefer to have the persecution page deleted and have no more than what's on this page about Falun Gong practitioners' treatment in wiki. But the persecution page exists, it's not going away, and I hope in time it will provide a full account of the subject. In that sense there's no point splitting the content across two pages. And Homunculus makes a basic point of logic: either this page has to keep going into contemporary times, explaining things in more depth at each step, or it needs to be renamed to make clear it's just about the early days in China. (sorry for the argumentative tone of my message, in future I will actively try to write more gently. But I think I should point out the hypocrisy now and then.) --Asdfg12345 22:45, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I made a series of changes that I believe respond to some of the concerns and issues raised above. Homunculus alerted me to the discussion. I will link my change and provide an explanation. I'll use bullet points as I did with changes on the Falun Gong page, but won't be as exacting as before because this covers some of the same ground.

• Removed health information: Only the first and last part of this was explicitly related to Falun Gong. The rest is unrelated. A combination of information explicitly about Falun Gong's health effects, mixed with information not about Falun Gong but about negative health effects of qigong, may be misleading to the reader, who may believe that the information in the middle is also about Falun Gong. I don't understand that particular configuration of information. The point Colipon makes is well taken, but proper scholarship demands a higher standard of sourcing.
• Reconfigured sections: this should be clear. The notes about registration issues don't appear to belong in the section about protests.
• Removed information on critics or alleged critics: This had some of the same problems exhibited on the main Falun Gong page. The first two sentences here appeared there and were found lacking. For a full explanation of what is wrong with this particular use of the Rahn source, see my remarks there. The next few lines are not related to Falun Gong. Then comes Sima Nan, whose criticism of Falun Gong was discussed at some length on the main Falun Gong page. The same mistaken citation (to Ownby and to a Taoism wiki) is given here. Finally, a claim that would appear to violate wp:blp is presented. In a similar fashion to the health information, some of this is related to the subject, much of it isn't, some of it is poorly or wrongly sourced, and the significance of it all is unclear. For all those reasons I simply deleted it. There are good sources which give a contextualised and intelligent narrative of Falun Gong's vicissitudes in China, and I think these should first be consulted for a framework.
• Reducing long explanation of Li's airport times; removing the "four demands": I changed the lengthy analysis of the putative airport stay times of the Falun Gong founder and made it one sentence. It seems quite unnecessary to delve into that level of detail. Such detail is interesting on an investigative level, but in terms of giving useful information to the reader I think it's enough to re-present the contested claims rather than re-narrate all details involved. Secondly, I removed the four points from Ostergaard. What that writer actually proposes is slightly different to this. He says there were five "interests or ideas" articulated before April 25, but the only references he provides for this is to Li's own writings. This interpetation is therefore the opinion of only Ostergaard, and for reasons explained on the main talk page I would be wary about deferring to him on matters of such broad interpretation. There are far stronger sources which can be relied on for this, if necessary. In the current case I think it's quite enough to provide the three demands that FLG made at Zhongnanhai. This is, after all, all within the context of the Zhongnanhai incident. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 01:53, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not have time to look through everything now, but I am unsure as to why there is such an insistence to remove Sima Nan. He is cited to Ownby's "Falun Gong and the Future of China" page 166, which is exactly where it appeared. Although Sima's criticism was initially directed towards qigong and not Falun Gong in particular, Sima made a turn against Falun Gong in the late 1990s. Ownby explains Sima and other criticisms in context of how it affected Falun Gong. A crucial piece of history would be missing if we removed all of the qigong context and simply discussed Falun Gong as though it is a standalone thing. It is not. Understanding of Falun Gong is contingent on understanding qigong itself. Colipon+(Talk) 02:17, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank goodness someone is challenging the anti-Falun Gong orthodoxy around here. Sima Nan's input appears in one sentence in that page of Ownby's book. If Sima Nan made a turn against Falun Gong in the late 1990s, then that's the context in which it should be discussed--I totally agree on that point. And it is now, even sycophantically, on the main page. The thing about Master Li installing a Falun and having it rotate "the wrong way" is patent nonsense. Another issue I'll raise is something that has been avoided in these pages so far: the behaviour of practitioners at Zhongnanhai. This is noted in a number of sources, how they picked up the cigarette butts of the cops, didn't eat or drink so they wouldn't use the bathrooms in the surrounding area, and stood to the side of the sidewalk to allow passersby passage. Ownby spends some number of sentences on this--certainly more than he spends on Sima Nan--and singles it out as an important consideration. I think this should be mentioned. I will find a number of sources on it and present them later. --Asdfg12345 06:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I reread the pages in question and Colipon's point makes sense. To the extent that Sima Nan and other debunkers' efforts shaped Falun Gong's public representations, they are relevant here. To that end I've reinserted some text, actually from the next page in Ownby's book, which elucidates this point. Colipon is correct that Falun Gong did not emerge in a vacuum, and these dynamics warrant mention.

Asdfg12345, maybe if you established notability for what you are saying it could be considered for inclusion - with some degree of circumspection, one should add. By the way, I'm not trying to 'challenge' any 'orthodoxy.' The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, TheSound. I still feel as though there is a 'piece of the puzzle' missing from the picture. Why was Falun Gong being distanced with other qigong movements? What criticism did qigong receive from scholars and Buddhists? What was the Chinese public's perception on qigong? Indeed, every one of the serious academic treatements of Falun Gong I've read so far have explained the qigong movement in detail to give sufficient background to Falun Gong. I don't think this article should be different. Right now it reads as though Falun Gong just popped out of nowhere when Li Hongzhi "brought it public". Obviously the previous 'qigong and health' section did not deal with this in an adequate fashion, but leaving out the qigong context entirely is unreasonable. I could also fix this issue myself in the future. Anyway, good work. Colipon+(Talk) 04:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Good job here, TheSoundAndTheFury; glad I asked for you to look at it. Later on I would like to remedy the double-up of information between this and the main Falun Gong page. Homunculus (duihua) 13:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that I recently took away a lot of detailed information from the main page. I need more time to figure out what is already here, and to integrate what's missing and not replicate information over here. So I will add a lot to this page soon I expect. Or if someone else wants to do it so much the better. The diffs are all there on the main page. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Consolidating

I'm going to stub the information about the persecution here and move it over there. This was discussed above, and it seems sensible. If there's a problem with this, please advise - though I don't think it will be contentious. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Just to preempt any complaints from the Falun Gong crowd: I deleted Li's response to the official propaganda, in which he defended his practice system and practitioners. This is because what's at issue here is mainly the persecution itself - the state's actions - not about how virtuous Falun Gong practitioners are. I'm not convinced it should be structured like tit-for-tat. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

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