Talk:Expo 2010

More info

Not suprisingly, I think the Chinese version of this article has a lot more info. I'm not a good chinese speaker/reader but the article has a lot of good info that can be translated to here. Just saying. Jasonxu98 (talk) 01:34, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

2010 has come and gone

This page could use an update. --96.247.1.233 (talk) 05:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Pics of Pavillions

Someone would like to add nice pictures of the national pavillions? Some are simply spectabular like the UK, Netherlands, Denmark...so many that are so spectacular.

Indeed. If any Wikipedian is going to see the Expo, would it be excessive to ask you to take your digital camera and take a snap of each pavillion? ;) Aridd (talk) 09:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Need picture on every pavillion please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.176.144.158 (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

How much will it cost?

I don't believe the estimates by China or by its opponents. Is there a credible source of the expo's actual budget? Thanks. 67.243.7.245 (talk) 19:10, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

If you don't believe anyone, then of all the people that will answer your question, who will you believe? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Ask the US military, they have spies all the world and I am certain you will trust them! 142.176.144.158 (talk) 18:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Business?

The article doesn't discuss whether any serious business is being done at this event - is it a fancy theme park for tourists, or are companies showing off their products and finding new customers? See e.g. [1] vs. [2] . I don't pretend to know the truth here, as some fast talking may have been done to justify the expensive national pavilions. Wnt (talk) 16:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Africa Pavilion?

The article says that the joint Africa pavilion is second in size only to China's, and yet there's NO other information about it in this article. It would seem a major addition is necessary. 65.93.150.2 (talk) 16:48, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

There is not really that much information about the China pavilion so looks like size it not the most important thing :-) The Africa pavilion is a cubic building containing many countries. Inside is a stage with a mountain. The mountain has a big face. Kinamand (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

A funny thing is that the description of the United States pavilion is so long because it only shows three movies. There are no decoration just a few pictures on the walls and no items on display and all rooms are ordinary rooms. The two first movies are boring and here on wikipedia described at pre-show movies but they are each 8 minutes long as the third movie. The third movies is okay. Even though the pavilion not has much to show it is the pavilion with the longest description here on wikipedia. Kinamand (talk) 06:44, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Detailed information regarding each pavillion

See also: Expo 2010 pavilions

There is a 8,000 word, very detailed description of the Expo as written by a volunteer worker at the Expo circulating throughout Chinese cyberspace, with detailed information regarding each pavillion. ChinaSMACK.com has an English translation. Placing links here in case people need them:

• http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/2010-world-expo-expo-3-day-walkthrough-introduction.html
• http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/2010-world-expo-expo-3-day-walk-through-first-day.html
• http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/2010-world-expo-expo-3-day-walk-through-second-day.html
• http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/stories/2010-world-expo-expo-3-day-walk-through-third-day.html

Regards, -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:30, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Great! This is a lot of detailed info, so I just created a separate article: Expo 2010 pavilions to keep this main article a reasonable size. Heroeswithmetaphors (talk) 16:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Mascot(Haibao) resembles Gumby

hi, there. can we add this pictures or better to delete from the article? cheers.

"Some say that Haibao resembles Gumby, but The expo's secretariat said that it is an original design and they had never heard of Gumby."

• Mascot(Haibao)
  Mascot(Haibao)
• Gumby
  Gumby

--マークレアスト (talk) 02:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that including an image of Haibao to the side (and not within the central article body) is perfectly fine, as it is relevant to the Expo itself, but inclusion of an image of Gumby as well is quite unnecessary; Gumby is relatively irrelevant to the Expo itself, which is what the article is about, and it clutters the page. There is an easy-to-see See also link to Haibao for those who would like to know more about the Haibao/Gumby controversy, and so the image can be in that article without any problems in my opinion; however placing it in the main Expo article is a bit of an overkill. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree and have undit it. Gumby has nothing to do with expo and clutters section. If possible we need more pavillion pictures up!! Also there are no information on corporate pavillions.This page is severly lacking in deetails!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.65.20.55 (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

hi, mr.li-san. okey, let's delate a pic, but don't you think it's better to keep

"Some say that Haibao resembles Gumby[1], but The expo's secretariat said that it is an original design and they had never heard of Gumby[2]."

? if so, more easy-to-see See also link to Haibao. —Preceding unsigned comment added by マークレアスト (talk • contribs) 03:05, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Opening time

Hi, does anybody know at what time: a) the Expo opens its doors to visitors b) the pavilions open c) the pavilions close doors and d) the Expo closes?

I don't find this information niether her, nor in the official page. Thanks. Leonprimer (talk) 05:53, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

---

Hi,

a) the Expo opens its doors to general public: 5:00 P.M. b) the pavilions open: TBA. c) the pavilions close doors: 10:30 P.M. d) the Expo closes: 12:00 P.M.

116.228.7.94 (talk) 01:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Many of the small pavilions far away from the entrance close already 9 pm depending on how many people visit them. So it is rather confusing in the evening to find out where things are open. Kinamand (talk) 04:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Participanting nations

Does anybody was in the Expo and personally saw the pavilions of Paraguay and Iraq? They are included in the officia list of the BIE, but they don't appear in the official page of the Expo, here. Thanks again. Leonprimer (talk) 05:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

---

I might, I'll check back here later.

P.S. the horizontal line means I'll probably come back and edit below it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.228.7.94 (talk) 01:30, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Iraq is on the paper map you get when enter the Expo. It is in a small building together with Laos and Myanmar next to Japan. But it is not on the map you find on posters at the expo and the building looks like it is closed. Kinamand (talk) 04:44, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes both Paraguay and Iraq have a presence. Paraquay in zone C in the Joint Pavilion of Central and South American Countries. Iraq as Kinamand indicates near to Lao + Myanmar - unlike when Kinamand visited it was open when I was there (early October) Icarusgeek (talk) 18:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Egypt's Pavilion?

Doesn't Egypt have a pavilion that hosts Pharaonic relics —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.205.192.125 (talk) 05:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does Icarusgeek (talk) 17:03, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Czech Pavilion

Why isn't there even a mention about Czech pavilion anywhere in the article? This is official page of it. Dendre (talk) 16:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to Shanghai

As the host of EXPO 2010, welcome everyone to Shanghai China~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.70.129.3 (talk) 14:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Das ist ein Forum nicht. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:32, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Attendance

Can we list the highest attedance and lowest attendance days of the expo overall (so far at least with an update being noted when/if needed) and the attendance totals for each particualr pavilion as noted on the offical site.--Cooly123 14:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cooly123 (talk • contribs)

On August 1st, the Red Cross and Red Cresant pavillion had welcomed its 500,000 vister. I can't find an area in the countries/coorporat section for this.

"Today on 16/10/10 the highest record breached 1 million visitors." Why has been added to the article. Figures as shown by http://en.expo2010.cn/ state that it is 841,000 no doubt it will reach 1 million later today but this is jumping the gun plus it gives hints that this article is propagandist in nature.

Anonymous 16 Oct 2010 at 7:53 am (GMT) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.17.61 (talk)

Have added a tiny section International orgs that links through to the red cross entry on the expo 2010 pavilion page

Cm256 (talk) 17:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Seventy million visitors?

Seventy million people is a lot of people. Since we are not told how many of those were foreign visitors, let us assume all of them were domestic. This means one in every twenty Chinese people went. Most Chinese are farmers, who are not able to simply leave their land and travel for days on end to Shanghai. Besides the only possible source of these numbers is the National Bureau of Statistics, which is notorious for falsifying numerous reports. If there were 35 million foreign visitors, one in every forty Chinese must have gone - with China's underdeveloped transport system, it is absurd that such a number of people went. TYelliot | Talk | Contribs 08:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

You really are assuming bad faith on behalf of everyone here. How is a 70 million figure impossible, may I ask? You dispute the figure, but have you actually bothered to look up the tally for yourself? On October 16 there were over 1 million visitors alone. (Shanghai World Expo Sees 1+ Million Visitors In A Single Day) Your statement beginning with "Besides the only possible source of these numbers is the National Bureau of Statistics" is nothing more than a bad faith accusation. Also, I hate to appear rude, but your line "China's underdeveloped transport system" makes me want to vomit, eat it back up again, and vomit again. Then, there's "let us assume all of them were domestic" - why? What is the logic for that? Fox News logic? "Most Chinese are farmers" - again, a load of rubbish, I suggest you step outside of your room. I see nothing but bigotry and argument from ignorance here. Additionally, 70 million is not so big if you consider that the 1970 Expo in Osaka, Japan also had a sizable visitor count of 64,218,770. Japan is a mouse compared to China, and under your logic (which is full of logical fallacies by the way), it's a figure two thirds of the 1970 population of Japan. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:32, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I am inclined to believe that the 70 million target was hit. Chinese government data states that under 6% were foreigners, and the remaining 94.2% were Chinese. (Most Chinese are rural, by the way; stating as much does not amount to bigotry). What is of interest to me is how the 70 million people got there. According to reports in the New York Times (and Foreign Policy, I think, but now I can't find the latter), state-owned companies forced their workers to go to the Expo, and threatened them with loss of wages if they refused. "According to tourism experts, state employees and government bureaucrats from virtually every part of the nation were ordered to pile onto buses, trains and planes and head to the Expo 2010 in Shanghai." (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/world/asia/03shanghai.html?pagewanted=all) Homunculus (duihua) 19:27, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Most Chinese are rural, eh? Under what statistical z-value? z=0.000000001? Since when was a near 50% value defined as "most"? Can I say that "most Americans are men", because the 51.09% of females out there are clearly a negligible figure? (I mean, 51.09%, that's really tiny lol </sarcasm>) -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:07, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

See urban-rural ratio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China The gap is closing, yes, and projections are that the urban population will exceed the rural population by 2015. But for the time being, my friend, China remains mostly rural, at least on paper. In any case, the issue is not germane to a discussion of the Shanghai Expo. Homunculus (duihua) 01:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

>Implying that I didn't post a link to that page before you as a part of my own argument

>Implying that a near-50% figure can be defined with the English word "most" or "mostly"

For starters, I don't think that your definition of the word "most" matches with mine. inb4 "off-topic", I'm leaving the topic now. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 07:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't the original goal to have 100+ million vistors? (it was stated on here for some time) Something about this should be noted in the article.--Cooly123 00:13, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Overall

This article is good, but we need some photos in here (particulary ones of each pavillion). Also if the musical arrangements can be incorporated too.

We are trying to incorporate the photos on here at a minimum, over the last month or so since the expo has ended many countries have at least one photo.--Cooly123 17:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Controversies

I had not checked this page in some time, but when I returned I noticed that someone (or perhaps several people) appear to have engaged in an effort to remove any information on the controversies surrounding the event, and otherwise scrub the page of "negative" content. For instance, the section on attendance once contained a very short paragraph detailing how, in order to meet participation quotas, authorities engaged in mildly coercive behavior, forcing workers of state-owned companies to pile onto buses and make their way to Shanghai. This was the topic of a fairly lengthy NYTimes article, but was deleted from the main page and relocated to the controversies page (I have restored it). The controversies section of this page now contains no real information at all — not even about the tens of thousands of people whose homes were demolished to make way for new construction projects, or about the religious believers who were tortured in connection with the expo. Pretty notable stuff, one would think. Is there a good explanation for this? If not, I will restore that information as well. Homunculus (duihua) 04:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I see an editor has again removed this information, saying only that it exists on another page. Seriously? This is certainly pertinent information that should be included on the main page. It takes up all of two sentences. Please engage in discussion, as I simply do not understand the rationale behind relegating any less-then-glowing information to a daughter page.Homunculus (duihua) 01:58, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

How about you stop spreading misinformation and undue weight. You phrased the sentence to make it as if all Chinese are coerced to visit the Expo, when the article clearly stated that the Expo was genuinely popular to the degree that ticket scalping was occurring en masse. --PCPP (talk) 02:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think two short sentences summarizing a full-length NYTimes article is undue weight. Nor do I agree that my summary insinuated that "all Chinese are coerced to visit the Expo." I think it was pretty straight-forward, but if you disagree, then I recommend trying to improve it, rather than just deleting things you don't like. Homunculus (duihua) 03:37, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, inclusion is quite WP:UNDUE. The controversies of the Expo haven't been "censored", as they can be freely found in the concerns and controversies article which is clearly linked from the main article (one would be pretty clumsy to miss it). If people are after information about the controversies, nothing is stopping them from finding out the details. The controversies themselves only make up a tiny portion of the entire Expo topic compared to other subtopics such as biddings, preparations, pavillion details, et cetera - the main article lists very little information on the pavilions themselves, which are more significant to the Expo than a handful of controversies - so why is it that a few controversies are being overly weighed against the many positive aspects of the Expo? Isn't this being a bit unfair? I also would be opposed to adding WP:UNDUE detail to the controversies section. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:39, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Currently this is how I interpret the importance of each subtopic:

• Selection process 5%
• Preparation 20%
• Expo details, pavilions 40%
• Ceremonies 20%
• Legacy 5%
• Controversies 10%

The above is subject to opinion, but I hope it's as accurate as I can make it. Now, why is it that we should have the negative aspects, the controversies, outweighing everything else within this article? Now, I'm not talking about the n+1 daughter articles created due to the splitting of the 70,000+ byte ultra-long main article we had mid-2010, but the main article itself. The pavilions section gives very little detail at all, and only lists the names of pavilions, which is almost meaningless to any reader without following the link to the subarticle. If the pavilions and expo details are the most important, yet they contain scant amount of detail, and recommend that the reader follow a link to a subarticle, why is it that the controversies section is allowed to have a more significant weight of information? It would be as if one is advocating for an unfair treatment of the topic, so that the reader is inclined to think, "oh dear this Expo thing is a terrible, horrible thing". If very little information on the good is given, why do you want to make WP:UNDUE expansions on the bad? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

You ask above "why is it that a few controversies are being overly weighed against the many positive aspects of the Expo?" I can only assume you are being facetious. Have you read this article? Not a single controversy is described. Tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes, people were tortured, and countless others were apparently coerced into attending the events. There is no mention of this in the article. The 'controversies' sub-section is the shortest in the article. The section on attendance needs to be expanded, but when someone tries to expand it with sourced content, the contribution is deleted and labeled "misinformation." Your objection apparently stems from this being "negative" information, which is apparently unwelcome on the main page. Is that correct? You also seem to be arguing that the neither the controversy nor the attendance sections should be expanded before other sections are expanded. Such is my interpretation of what you're trying to communicate. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Homunculus (duihua) 03:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

And how relevant are these controversies in relation to everything else that is also scantily included? Not to argue that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, but many people died building the Sydney Harbour Bridge, so why don't we have a 4,000 byte rollcall of all the people who have died or been injured as a result of being crushed or inhaling metal dust? Slaves were used to build the White House, so why don't we have a massive section on the human rights of the origins of the White House? Because such things would be undue in relation to the rest of the topic. "Have you read this article? Not a single controversy is described" - and not a single pavilion is detailed either. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:01, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Nowhere did I propose a "massive section" on these controversies. What I am proposing amounts to maybe four sentences of average length. If you want more information on the pavilions, then add it. I have yet to see a good reason why the article should not contain any information on the coercion, torture, or forced displacement that went into the event.Homunculus (duihua) 05:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Several days ago I added the following to the attendance section, and it was again reverted on the basis of "undue weight and already covered in the controversies article": "Shortly after the Expo concluded, the New York Times reported that state employees (including workers of state-owned companies) were "ordered to pile onto buses, trains and planes and head to the Expo 2010 in Shanghai" in order to fulfill the target of 70 million visitors. Employees of some state-owned companies were allegedly threatened with loss of their wages if they did not attend.[3]"

Again, the reasoning behind this reversion strikes me as extremely weak. There is no WP policy or guideline forbidding redundancies from one article to another. Even if there were, one could argue that this information should belong on the main page, and not the controversy page, because this is not a controversy. Controversy is defined by the existence of sustained public debate over an issue. There is no such debate here. Only facts. As to undue weight, that rationale has simply not been explained at all. Two short sentences summarizing a NYTimes article seems more germane that much of the content that is currently on the page.

I would also propose reviving mention in the 'concerns and controversies' section of the tens of thousands of people who were forcibly displaced from their homes, and the hundreds who were incarcerated and tortured for their religious faith in connection with the Expo. Another editor has argued similarly that this would be undue weight, and compared these human tragedies to the suffering associated with the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I suggest we compare apples to apples: look at the 2010 Winter Olympics. The controversies with that event pale in comparison to those I just mentioned, and yet a very significant part of the article is devoted to explaining them. In addition, there is also a separate article devoted entirely to Concerns and controversies over the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Can anyone provide a coherent, well reasoned objection to including a few sentences of sourced content into this article? If not, I am going to add it back in.Homunculus (duihua) 16:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Benlisquare already summed up why the passage don't belong. It provides undue weight, especially considering that the section details a general overview of attendence levels, not some cherry picked conspiracy about government coercion. The exact material already exist in the separate controversies article, so stop beating a dead horse.--PCPP (talk) 14:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

You evidently failed to read my comments. I responded to precisely the objections you raised just now. Please read them, and then respond with something new.Homunculus (duihua) 14:36, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of attendance controversy, home displacements, torture

There are a number of notable controversies and points of contention related to the 2010 Expo in Shanghai, but the current page does not detail any of them. I have attempted in the past to include a few short sentenced describing these, but the content has been deleted repeatedly and/or relegated to a separate page.

In the 'Attendance' section, I have attempted to add the following, from the NYTimes:

Shortly after the Expo concluded, the New York Times reported that state employees (including workers of state-owned companies) were "ordered to pile onto buses, trains and planes and head to the Expo 2010 in Shanghai" in order to fulfill the target of 70 million visitors. Employees of some state-owned companies were allegedly threatened with loss of their wages if they did not attend.[4]

In the 'Controversies' section, I propose the following (more details could be included as well):

Among the criticisms against the Expo was that is lead to the wrongful or forced displacement of 18,000 families from their homes in and around Shanghai to make way for Expo-related land development.

Human Rights groups claimed that Expo served as pretext for the suppression of dissidents and religious believers. The Congressional Executive Commission on China reported that Chinese authorities seized upon the Expo as an opportunity to imprisoned over 100 Shanghai Falun Gong practitioners. The Commission also noted that some who refused to disavow Falun Gong were subjected to torture and sent to reeducation through labor facilities.''

Some other editors have contended that this information is either undue weight, or argue that because similar information exists on another page, it does not belong on the main page. I would respond that undue weight is a highly subjective judgement, and that in my estimation, the use of coercion, forced displacement of families, and torture in direct connection to the event are notable enough to warrant a few sentences. As a reference on weight assigned to controversies in similar articles, I suggest looking at the articles 2010 Winter Olympics and Concerns and controversies over the 2010 Winter Olympics. Homunculus (duihua) 15:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

---

This seems an odd situation. Given that neither page is overly long, why not simply integrate the other article into a section here?

It's not like every single controversy, however trivial, needs to be mentioned. Readers just don't need to know that "Two days after the closing of the Expo, the body of a young man was hanging from a tree at the Bund waterfront," or that "Taiwan fantasy literature writer Lucifer Chu, who gained fame for translating the Lord of the Rings, was detained by expo security for wearing a shirt with the message "Revolt by the geeks.""

Such trivialities don't seem appropriate for an encyclopedia (with all due respect to the young man). Regarding due weight and undue weight, it seems rather more undue to have a whole extra page dedicated to this. I suggest explaining the serious concerns over this event here, leaving out the trivial ones, and providing a more concise overview rather than a series of fractious subheadings. Then everyone should be happy. Half of the current "controversies" are just far too trivial. The real concerns should be mentioned in this page in my view, however.

And if there really are enough legitimate concerns to fill a page, by all means take the approach over at Winter Olympics, where a reasonable section is giving to them on the main page before breaking them out. It should be noted, however, that the controversies over that event were not as grave as forced relocation and torture—so that should also be taken into consideration. I.e., these controversies are far more serious and noteworthy. Bstephens393 (talk) 11:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The 2010 Winter Olympics article is not a model for due and undue weight: there's a mix of self-published material cited there on obscure First Nation issues and sensationalist media reports ("Canadian women hockey players seen drinking and smoking"). As for the Expo, for the attendance, it's fine to report the busing of state workers, but selecting to highlight "alleged threats" (only one person was actually quoted in the article) severely unbalances the short and otherwise strictly fact-based attendance section. Similarly, detailing the displacement of families is a due and mainstream criticism, while the misadventures of Falun Gong seem to be a fringe concern, meriting a brief mention on the dedicated controversies article if at all. Quigley (talk) 20:51, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

On what basis do you assert that the displacement of families is mainstream, but the torture of religious believers is fringe? The CECC's 2010 Annual Report detailed the Falun Gong issue as it pertained to the Expo at some length, and Amnesty International issued an urgent action on behalf of one of the individuals who was "disappeared" amidst the crackdown. The U.S. Congressional China Commission and Amnesty are not fringe groups, but they are clearly concerned. Hence, it is not a "fringe concern." As to the attendance issue, are you insinuating that the New York Times report is not "strictly fact-based", but the unattributed sentence about long lines currently in the article is?Homunculus (duihua) 22:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The displacement of local residents is a recurring and widely-reported concern with all big development projects, Expos and Olympics included. I would rather not be diverted into a discussion about your pet topic Falun Gong, but it is well known that that group's status as a religion is contested, and many of its claims (including about torture) are dubious. CECC does an inexorable job of documenting the allegations of anti-regime groups, but that's its raison d'être; same but less so for Amnesty. Back to more reputable journals, the New York Times did report, in its own voice, the government's efforts to promote attendance, with the state-run tourist agencies handing out vouchers for example. However, you seem to want to emphasize and extrapolate from the allegation of one factory worker, whose quoted claim of wage-cutting was not investigated or even mentioned again in the Times story. It's an abuse of the anecdotal newspaper source to imply a broader conclusion (that government abduction, coercion, and torture explains the high attendance at the Expo) that itself is not attested to in mainstream analytical reliable sources. Quigley (talk) 22:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

A brief comment. The CECC's reports rely largely on Chinese official literature. They are not simply repeating allegations from "anti-regime groups". At issue here is a report by the CECC, a reliable and well-respected source in itself, saying that Falun Gong adherents were imprisoned ahead of the World Expo on the basis of their religious beliefs, and that some were tortured when they refused to recant those beliefs. Are you saying that the CECC is wrong? Can you provide a single piece of reliable research that says Falun Gong followers are not tortured and were not tortured in connection with the 2010 Expo? In my view, your objection here appears to stem from an inexplicable bias against Falun Gong, rather than from any consistently applied criteria for inclusion. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 00:01, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

To Quigley: I have never implied that "government abduction, coercion, and torture explains the high attendance at the Expo." The abduction and torture of dissidents has no relation to the attendance, and I did not suggest including it in the attendance section. The alleged (and I did say alleged) threat of wage reduction, however, is connected with attendance. But as a compromise, we could change the wording I proposed to clarify that the allegation was made by one worker. How does that sound? Homunculus (duihua) 00:07, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the very definition of undue weight: giving the lone conspiracy theory of a factory worker equal or more prominence against the basic facts of attendance. As a compromise, we could mention the just slightly unsavoury—but not as exciting as kidnapping or torture—fact of state-owned tourist agencies increasing attendance numbers by handing out free vouchers to the Expo. How does that sound? Quigley (talk) 00:18, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Falun Gong's claims about torture are established facts, and simply mentioning the pre-Expo crackdown in the article is hardly giving it undue weight. We're not talking about creating a section just to document the persecution of dissidents. On the other hand, I have no opinion on the notability of the alleged threat of wage reduction. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 22:18, 4 July 2011 (UTC)