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I see this article underwent some pretty big changes, and I can't say I agree with all of them. Let me go down the list here and explain myself:
I think we have similar concerns, you and I. :) While you don't want wording that "[has] the effect of trivializing and ridiculing the belief system", I also don't want wording that that trivializes or ridicules the campaign against the group. For example, the title "dangerous meditation" is a sarcastic oxymoron which misrepresents the source of the government's concern, which is the group's political-revolutionary activities and not its calisthenics.
For readability, I've divided my responses into sections.
Broad issues
Falun Gong was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk who is said to have achieved enlightenment.Oleson (AP),
Falun Gong attracted millions of followers in the 1990s with its program of traditional Chinese calisthenics and philosophy drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the often-unorthodox teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now living in hiding overseas.You can see how I compressed Oleson's description to "syncretic", and how both our journalistic sources use "government grain clerk", so it's by no mean an idiosyncratic choice.
Wording issues
the authorities from the Qinghe District Emergency Centre [who] told his family that Yu Zhou had died from either diabetes or from a hunger strikefrom AI. The police probably also presented this explanation, but the hospital's word is first and most authoritative.
Dude, look below and you'll see that the consensus here is against Shrigley/Quigley. He was filibustering with no evidence to support him. Not a single one of the sources cited in the article described Falun Gong either as a new religious movement or as syncretic. It's a weird, uncommon description with accuracy and neutrality problems. TheBlueCanoe 02:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm going to list the parts of the article where there is disagreement. It probably looks like a lot, but most of the issues actually aren't super significant.
1. There is a disagreement over whether the article should contain the following paragraph:
I am not super attached to this content, but I think it has value, and I don’t see the problem with including it. These details are some of the only ones in the article that paint a picture of Yu Zhou’s personality, lifestyle, and disposition, and I think that’s useful to have in a biography.
2. There is disagreement over how to label Falun Gong. I suggest simply referring to it as a “ qigong” practice. This is a neutral, widely accepted, accurate, and fairly precise way of categorizing Falun Gong. There are dozens of academic books and journal articles where Falun Gong is described as a form of qigong. That description is also found in a few of the sources cited in this article.
Shrigley prefers to label Falun Gong as “a syncretic new religious movement”--a term that does not appear in any of the sources cited for this article, and which is not a common or widely accepted description of Falun Gong. The term “syncretic” is very rarely found in books or articles on Falun Gong, and is not used in any of the sources cited. Some experts have described it as a new religious movement, though probably because the more accurate Chinese classification systems (“qigong” or “inner cultivation”) don’t mean anything in the West. None of the sources cited in the article use “new religious movement” to refer to Falun Gong. I would also contend that it may not be entirely accurate or neutral (some definitions of NRMs describe them as “fringe”.)
So, my description is neutral, accurate, and widely used. Shrigley's description is not.
3. There is further disagreement when it comes to characterizing Falun Gong. Shrigley wants the description to read “Falun Gong is a syncretic new religious movement based on the teachings of Li Hongzhi, an "enlightened" government grain clerk.” This is clearly not neutral, and the tone and presentation has the effect of needlessly trivializing and ridiculing a belief system.
I would be open to expanding a bit on the explanation of Falun Gong. For instance, I would be fine with something like this: “Falun Gong is a spiritual practice founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. It combines qigong techniques and meditation with a moral philosophy drawing on Buddhist and Daoist traditions.” I think a description like that is neutral, factual, and supported by the sources.
4. We can’t seem to agree on how to explain the Chinese government’s persecution of Falun Gong. In the interest of compromise, I am prepared to accept this version, even though it frankly falls far short of capturing the severity and intensity of the suppression:
Shrigley wants this version:
My problem with the second version is that it fails to mention that the Communist Party launched a major campaign to suppress Falun Gong. The suppression has been described by historians as an “unprecedented” political campaign, whose stated aim is nothing short of the eradication of Falun Gong through a “massive propaganda campaign” and state-sanctioned “torture and high-pressure indoctrination.” It is not simple matter of calling Falun Gong names and imprisoning some people.
Several of the sources cited in this article make this very clear. Here’s the New York Times article on Yu Zhou: “In the decade since the Chinese government began repressing Falun Gong, a crusade that human rights groups say has led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands of practitioners and claimed at least 2,000 lives, the world’s attention has shifted elsewhere...According to former detainees and human rights organizations, Falun Gong detainees are frequently subjected to harrowing abuse, particularly those who refuse to swear off their faith.” The article quotes Chinese law expert Jerome Cohen on the “excess and the savagery” of the Chinese government’s actions toward Falun Gong, and it refers to the government’s “propaganda juggernaut” against the group. The State Department report notes that “Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in RTL (reeducation through labor) camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher.”
I don’t think we’re doing readers any favors by omitting the context about the larger persecution campaign, as it relates directly to what happened to Yu Zhou and his wife.
5. Shrigley wants to include this sentence immediately after the background to the persecution: “[Falun Gong] has responded by moving its campaign to end Party rule outside of China.” This sentence falsely implies that, prior to the persecution, Falun Gong was engaged in a campaign to end Party rule inside China. This is not supported by any source. Shrigley previously tried to insert the claim that Falun Gong tried “overthrow” the Chinese government. That’s also not true and not supported in the sources. On the talk page above, he wrote that Falun Gong was banned because of its “political-revolutionary” activities. This is directly contradicted by reliable sources. Even when Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated at Zhongnanhai in 1999, their aim was to ask for the government to redress their greivances and grant them a legal recognition, not to protest against or to overthrow it. Dr. David Ownby summarizes it well: “There is in my mind little doubt that Li and Falun Gong had little or no political ambition at the outset, but that the movement has become very politicized since 1999, that is, since the beginning of the campaign of suppression. How could it be otherwise, given the posture of the Chinese state?”
Many Falun Gong practitioners around the world have become very vocal opponent of Communist Party rule in China, but that development came well after the persecution against it began, and the sources are clear on this. In any event, I don’t see how any of this is relevant to understanding Yu Zhou’s case.
6. Shrigley has repeatedly deleted this sentence about the Chinese government’s campaign against Falun Gong before the Olympics:
He described statement from Amnesty International as advocacy, and questioned the reliability of the information. I see no advocacy. Instead, I think Amnesty International is a reliable source on human rights issues, and that this background is directly related to Yu Zhou’s case.
7. Shrigley has repeatedly deleted this sentence:
One of the reasons he indicated for not liking this sentence is that Yu Qun is quoted “selectively,” and that the last part of the quote was cut off. I am perfectly happy to have the full quote, which is “I don’t understand why this happened to them because they didn’t do anything to break the law and they weren't promoting the group.”
8. Shrigley repeatedly deleted this sentence:
I think this is a neutral, factual presentation. And given that her healthy, 42-year-old husband died after 10 days in custody, it also seems like quite an obvious statement. Shrigley rejects this, declaring that “Amnesty International reports are hearsay repackaged as God's own truth,” and questioning the rigor of their reporting.
9. Shrigley wants to include this sentence into the section on the response to Yu Zhou’s death:
I have a few issues with this. First, it has nothing to do with Yu Zhou, or to the response to his death. The press briefing took place 1.5 years after Yu Zhou died, and there’s no indication that the foreign ministry spokesperson was talking about Yu Zhou. I am also concerned about uncritically parroting the Chinese government’s accusations against Falun Gong, which have been described as “propaganda” and “misinformation” in reliable sources.
10. There’s some disagreement over the attribution of information. In a previous version, I wrote:
Let's compare this to what the reliable sources wrote. From the Congressional Commission report:
The New York Times also reported this information in their coverage of Yu Zhou’s death:
Shrigley changed the text to “Practitioners and their families outside China allege, via the Falun Dafa Information Center, that the state arrested over 8,000 Falun Gong adherents between December 2007 and June 2008.”
I don’t see the Falun Dafa Information Center mentioned in either the Congressional Commission report or in the New York Times. I think the version I wrote was fine, especially after the NYT reference is added. TheBlueCanoe 04:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Crusade
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Similarly, the word "persecution" evokes unfair suppression of religious and social groups that are widely recognized as legitimate, (which gladly or sadly, depending on your POV, they are not), rather than suppression of dangerous or controversial cults.
I don't want to print speculation that they were "at risk" for torture, since it's a subjective and self-interested judgment, rather than a factual statement of what did or was alleged to have happened.
I followed CECC's footnote 127, which quotes 127 Falun Dafa Information Center (Online), "Thousands of Falun Gong Adherents Arrested throughout China in Run up to Olympics," 7 July 08.
Available
online, FDIC says: In recent months, the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDI) has received regular reports from adherents and their families inside China of door-to-door searches and arrests. According to statistics compiled from these reports, there have been at least 8,037 arrests... since December 2007
Since we have a more specific source for the information, clearly it is more illuminating for readers to be able to judge the reliability of the information by citing FDIC via CECC, rather than unnamed "experts on human rights" via NYT, especially since those "experts" are likely quoting FDIC without attribution (as AI reports often do, sometimes with attribution).
TheSoundAndTheFury, I disagree with one of your changes, and it's a small thing. You modified a sentence to say "The Associated Press similarly wrote about Yu Zhou's story on the tenth anniversary of the suppression, referring to Falun Gong's 'strength and wide appeal.'" But I think the point of the AP article wasn't to discuss Falun Gong's popularity so much as to show that the Chinese government continues to persecuted it after ten years. It quotes a Falun Gong practitioner as saying that "the crackdown remains as vicious as ever," and Yu Zhou's case is used as an example on that side of things. I'm just going to modify that sentence a bit. TheBlueCanoe 23:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
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Death of Yu Zhou was nominated as a Social sciences and society good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (September 8, 2014). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. |
A fact from Death of Yu Zhou appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 3 February 2013 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
|
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I see this article underwent some pretty big changes, and I can't say I agree with all of them. Let me go down the list here and explain myself:
I think we have similar concerns, you and I. :) While you don't want wording that "[has] the effect of trivializing and ridiculing the belief system", I also don't want wording that that trivializes or ridicules the campaign against the group. For example, the title "dangerous meditation" is a sarcastic oxymoron which misrepresents the source of the government's concern, which is the group's political-revolutionary activities and not its calisthenics.
For readability, I've divided my responses into sections.
Broad issues
Falun Gong was founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk who is said to have achieved enlightenment.Oleson (AP),
Falun Gong attracted millions of followers in the 1990s with its program of traditional Chinese calisthenics and philosophy drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the often-unorthodox teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now living in hiding overseas.You can see how I compressed Oleson's description to "syncretic", and how both our journalistic sources use "government grain clerk", so it's by no mean an idiosyncratic choice.
Wording issues
the authorities from the Qinghe District Emergency Centre [who] told his family that Yu Zhou had died from either diabetes or from a hunger strikefrom AI. The police probably also presented this explanation, but the hospital's word is first and most authoritative.
Dude, look below and you'll see that the consensus here is against Shrigley/Quigley. He was filibustering with no evidence to support him. Not a single one of the sources cited in the article described Falun Gong either as a new religious movement or as syncretic. It's a weird, uncommon description with accuracy and neutrality problems. TheBlueCanoe 02:34, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm going to list the parts of the article where there is disagreement. It probably looks like a lot, but most of the issues actually aren't super significant.
1. There is a disagreement over whether the article should contain the following paragraph:
I am not super attached to this content, but I think it has value, and I don’t see the problem with including it. These details are some of the only ones in the article that paint a picture of Yu Zhou’s personality, lifestyle, and disposition, and I think that’s useful to have in a biography.
2. There is disagreement over how to label Falun Gong. I suggest simply referring to it as a “ qigong” practice. This is a neutral, widely accepted, accurate, and fairly precise way of categorizing Falun Gong. There are dozens of academic books and journal articles where Falun Gong is described as a form of qigong. That description is also found in a few of the sources cited in this article.
Shrigley prefers to label Falun Gong as “a syncretic new religious movement”--a term that does not appear in any of the sources cited for this article, and which is not a common or widely accepted description of Falun Gong. The term “syncretic” is very rarely found in books or articles on Falun Gong, and is not used in any of the sources cited. Some experts have described it as a new religious movement, though probably because the more accurate Chinese classification systems (“qigong” or “inner cultivation”) don’t mean anything in the West. None of the sources cited in the article use “new religious movement” to refer to Falun Gong. I would also contend that it may not be entirely accurate or neutral (some definitions of NRMs describe them as “fringe”.)
So, my description is neutral, accurate, and widely used. Shrigley's description is not.
3. There is further disagreement when it comes to characterizing Falun Gong. Shrigley wants the description to read “Falun Gong is a syncretic new religious movement based on the teachings of Li Hongzhi, an "enlightened" government grain clerk.” This is clearly not neutral, and the tone and presentation has the effect of needlessly trivializing and ridiculing a belief system.
I would be open to expanding a bit on the explanation of Falun Gong. For instance, I would be fine with something like this: “Falun Gong is a spiritual practice founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi. It combines qigong techniques and meditation with a moral philosophy drawing on Buddhist and Daoist traditions.” I think a description like that is neutral, factual, and supported by the sources.
4. We can’t seem to agree on how to explain the Chinese government’s persecution of Falun Gong. In the interest of compromise, I am prepared to accept this version, even though it frankly falls far short of capturing the severity and intensity of the suppression:
Shrigley wants this version:
My problem with the second version is that it fails to mention that the Communist Party launched a major campaign to suppress Falun Gong. The suppression has been described by historians as an “unprecedented” political campaign, whose stated aim is nothing short of the eradication of Falun Gong through a “massive propaganda campaign” and state-sanctioned “torture and high-pressure indoctrination.” It is not simple matter of calling Falun Gong names and imprisoning some people.
Several of the sources cited in this article make this very clear. Here’s the New York Times article on Yu Zhou: “In the decade since the Chinese government began repressing Falun Gong, a crusade that human rights groups say has led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands of practitioners and claimed at least 2,000 lives, the world’s attention has shifted elsewhere...According to former detainees and human rights organizations, Falun Gong detainees are frequently subjected to harrowing abuse, particularly those who refuse to swear off their faith.” The article quotes Chinese law expert Jerome Cohen on the “excess and the savagery” of the Chinese government’s actions toward Falun Gong, and it refers to the government’s “propaganda juggernaut” against the group. The State Department report notes that “Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in RTL (reeducation through labor) camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher.”
I don’t think we’re doing readers any favors by omitting the context about the larger persecution campaign, as it relates directly to what happened to Yu Zhou and his wife.
5. Shrigley wants to include this sentence immediately after the background to the persecution: “[Falun Gong] has responded by moving its campaign to end Party rule outside of China.” This sentence falsely implies that, prior to the persecution, Falun Gong was engaged in a campaign to end Party rule inside China. This is not supported by any source. Shrigley previously tried to insert the claim that Falun Gong tried “overthrow” the Chinese government. That’s also not true and not supported in the sources. On the talk page above, he wrote that Falun Gong was banned because of its “political-revolutionary” activities. This is directly contradicted by reliable sources. Even when Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated at Zhongnanhai in 1999, their aim was to ask for the government to redress their greivances and grant them a legal recognition, not to protest against or to overthrow it. Dr. David Ownby summarizes it well: “There is in my mind little doubt that Li and Falun Gong had little or no political ambition at the outset, but that the movement has become very politicized since 1999, that is, since the beginning of the campaign of suppression. How could it be otherwise, given the posture of the Chinese state?”
Many Falun Gong practitioners around the world have become very vocal opponent of Communist Party rule in China, but that development came well after the persecution against it began, and the sources are clear on this. In any event, I don’t see how any of this is relevant to understanding Yu Zhou’s case.
6. Shrigley has repeatedly deleted this sentence about the Chinese government’s campaign against Falun Gong before the Olympics:
He described statement from Amnesty International as advocacy, and questioned the reliability of the information. I see no advocacy. Instead, I think Amnesty International is a reliable source on human rights issues, and that this background is directly related to Yu Zhou’s case.
7. Shrigley has repeatedly deleted this sentence:
One of the reasons he indicated for not liking this sentence is that Yu Qun is quoted “selectively,” and that the last part of the quote was cut off. I am perfectly happy to have the full quote, which is “I don’t understand why this happened to them because they didn’t do anything to break the law and they weren't promoting the group.”
8. Shrigley repeatedly deleted this sentence:
I think this is a neutral, factual presentation. And given that her healthy, 42-year-old husband died after 10 days in custody, it also seems like quite an obvious statement. Shrigley rejects this, declaring that “Amnesty International reports are hearsay repackaged as God's own truth,” and questioning the rigor of their reporting.
9. Shrigley wants to include this sentence into the section on the response to Yu Zhou’s death:
I have a few issues with this. First, it has nothing to do with Yu Zhou, or to the response to his death. The press briefing took place 1.5 years after Yu Zhou died, and there’s no indication that the foreign ministry spokesperson was talking about Yu Zhou. I am also concerned about uncritically parroting the Chinese government’s accusations against Falun Gong, which have been described as “propaganda” and “misinformation” in reliable sources.
10. There’s some disagreement over the attribution of information. In a previous version, I wrote:
Let's compare this to what the reliable sources wrote. From the Congressional Commission report:
The New York Times also reported this information in their coverage of Yu Zhou’s death:
Shrigley changed the text to “Practitioners and their families outside China allege, via the Falun Dafa Information Center, that the state arrested over 8,000 Falun Gong adherents between December 2007 and June 2008.”
I don’t see the Falun Dafa Information Center mentioned in either the Congressional Commission report or in the New York Times. I think the version I wrote was fine, especially after the NYT reference is added. TheBlueCanoe 04:59, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Crusade
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Similarly, the word "persecution" evokes unfair suppression of religious and social groups that are widely recognized as legitimate, (which gladly or sadly, depending on your POV, they are not), rather than suppression of dangerous or controversial cults.
I don't want to print speculation that they were "at risk" for torture, since it's a subjective and self-interested judgment, rather than a factual statement of what did or was alleged to have happened.
I followed CECC's footnote 127, which quotes 127 Falun Dafa Information Center (Online), "Thousands of Falun Gong Adherents Arrested throughout China in Run up to Olympics," 7 July 08.
Available
online, FDIC says: In recent months, the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDI) has received regular reports from adherents and their families inside China of door-to-door searches and arrests. According to statistics compiled from these reports, there have been at least 8,037 arrests... since December 2007
Since we have a more specific source for the information, clearly it is more illuminating for readers to be able to judge the reliability of the information by citing FDIC via CECC, rather than unnamed "experts on human rights" via NYT, especially since those "experts" are likely quoting FDIC without attribution (as AI reports often do, sometimes with attribution).
TheSoundAndTheFury, I disagree with one of your changes, and it's a small thing. You modified a sentence to say "The Associated Press similarly wrote about Yu Zhou's story on the tenth anniversary of the suppression, referring to Falun Gong's 'strength and wide appeal.'" But I think the point of the AP article wasn't to discuss Falun Gong's popularity so much as to show that the Chinese government continues to persecuted it after ten years. It quotes a Falun Gong practitioner as saying that "the crackdown remains as vicious as ever," and Yu Zhou's case is used as an example on that side of things. I'm just going to modify that sentence a bit. TheBlueCanoe 23:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
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