Talk:Falun Gong

who's the falun gong lawyer?

[1] who is the lawyer? can you provide the exact original language in whichever source is being referred to? the state dept says "Falun Gong sources estimate that tens of millions continue to practice privately." what lawyer? Happy monsoon day 18:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

In this source: [2] STSC (talk) 04:01, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

ok - so where does it say that he's a falun gong lawyer? in any case, this level of granularity isn't necessary for an introductory paragraph. Happy monsoon day 18:20, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

updated along these lines. it seems there are several independent sources giving this as the estimate so i just made it simpler for the introduction. however this might be worth exploring elsewhere in the article, since there may be sources that diverge from the consensus of 'tens of millions' (sounds quite high to me), and the actual article text would have scope to explore the complexities of coming up with an accurate estimate of a highly repressed and marginalized population.Happy monsoon day 22:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

The source you added was already there. Anyway, you're right that nothing in the Telegraph article indicates that this is a "Falun Gong source" or a "Falun Gong lawyer," as STSC's edits would have us believe. A more detailed discussion of the numbers question can be found in this China Quarterly article[3]. It notes estimates from a few different sources over the last several years, including Falun Gong estimates, third parties, and internal government documents (e.g. one official in Shandong province saying that there are over 300000 known adherents just in that province) The triangulation method does support a large number, but tens of millions may still be difficult to conclude definitely. Would it be better if we just said "millions"? This is still reflective of the sources we have, and probably more easily defensible.TheBlueCanoe 13:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

The U.S. State Dept attributes the claim of "tens of millions" to Falun Gong sources. And the lawyer representing the FG clients was the FG lawyer who also made the "tens of millions" claim. STSC (talk) 16:49, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Number of FG practitioners

Just because practitioners in China are being persecuted in China does not mean that the numbers have gone down. A friend of mine who was in China wanted to find out the truth about Falun Gong after the persecution began in 1999 and became a practitioner herself. Later her daughter also became a practitioner. When whole families are practicing FG so its likely that the children will also take up the practice.

To me the statement that tens of millions are practicing is conservative but acceptable. But millions implies above 1 million to 10 million which implies something like a 20 fold decrease in numbers if 100 million was the figure before the persecution started. There is no evidence of a large decrease in practitioners. So I think tens of millions should be reinstated. Aaabbb11 (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales' words

"Although Wikipedia is accessible in China, certain pages are filtered. Nobel peace prize recipient Liu Xiaobo and dissident artist Ai Weiwei's pages were blocked by Chinese authorities. Events like the Tiananmen Square riots or religious cults like Falun Gong cannot be openly discussed online in China." https://www.vice.com/read/wikipedia-founders-uncompromising-stance-on-censorship-and-users-privacy Here Jimmy was criticizing the Chinese communist government. The word cult has quite different meanings and has no negative implications in Jimmy's line. if someone wants to refer Jimmy"s words, it has to reflect the line, and should not be only one word. Marvin 2009 (talk) 00:44, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

How do you know the word "Religious cults" has no negative meaning? I described the fact, I did not say anything about whether "Religious cults" has any negative or positive meaning.--Raintwoto 12:06, 18 June 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raintwoto (talk • contribs)

Jimmy was criticizing the Chinese communist government, which was the context when he mentioned FG. But User:Raintwoto added the word "however" in his editing. It added a negative implication to the page. Marvin 2009 (talk) 14:43, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

OK, I will delete the word "however". I will let the reader decide what does it mean. --Raintwoto 17:23, 18 June 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raintwoto (talk • contribs)

On what basis have you decided that an incidental mention from a non-expert on this topic should be included in the lead section of the article?TheBlueCanoe 05:07, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Because he is the co-founder of Wikipedia?--Raintwoto 21:07, 20 June 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raintwoto (talk • contribs)

That is irrelevant for our purposes.TheBlueCanoe 01:34, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

I would like to make it very clear that my thoughts, words, and opinions on this matter are of no relevance for this article. I am not an expert on Falun Gong nor cults, nor are my opinions of such things (expert or not) generally encyclopedic, i.e. I am not an anti-cult activist or anything of the sort which would give my words particular interest to Wikipedia editors in this context.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:24, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Well said. Thanks for clarifying.TheBlueCanoe 15:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually, it's not well said. Wikipedia has no policy to allow for the speakers of outside quotations to come here and tell Wikipedians whether their comment is suitable or not as a reliable source for what they were quoted as saying! If we had that policy, then Green Party candidate, Alan Saldanha, who resigned after making a rape comment on Facebook, could just tell us that his Facebook comments are not relevant in Controversies in the Canadian federal election, 2011. Or Matt Selman could contact us and say that his comments about East St. Louis are not relevant in They Saved Lisa's Brain. Stop paying so much deference to Jimmy Wales, that his word is Gospel, just because he helped Larry Sanger set up Wikipedia! - 208.54.90.142 (talk) 13:49, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Sources

TheBlueCanoe Last time I was asked for secondary sources instead of primary. I provided them. Is another problem being manufactured?Rajmaan (talk) 04:38, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't recall that. See my comments here. The issue was not limited to an over-reliance on primary sources (you cited TIME Magazine on both occasions, unless I'm mistaken). Instead it was one of figuring out how to accord the right amount of weight to these issues in relation to other aspects of the doctrine, and how to contextualize them, etc. We actually did use your edits as impetus to come up with a solution, and the page includes a discussion of supernatural abilities. It seems you were MIA for that part of the discussion.TheBlueCanoe 04:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

i think they (ie secondary sourceS) may actually be, rajmaan, given the policy on WP:PRIMARY. the idea is that we cannot use primary sources to make a point we want to make. for example that falun gong religious beliefs are funny or silly because there are aliens and stuff. i might agree, but actually we would need to find a chinese religious scholar who can explain what role these thoughts have in the flg doctrinal system. we can't just pick something and stick it in because it sounds ridiculous. that's my understanding of the policy anyway. others can correct me if i'm wrong. i just took a look at david ownby's book on google books and it only seems to mention aliens twice, in passing.Happy monsoon day 04:31, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

There is no discussion of aliens and views towards technology and science on the page. And what constitutes tendentious edits are using Falun Gong run media and representing them as third party RS by failing to mention their provenance in the article.Rajmaan (talk) 05:19, 30 June 2016 (UTC)