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Comment on recent and upcoming changes
I just revised the first paragraph speculating on the rationale for the persecution of Falungong. I found some of the comments in there verbose, some off topic, some unrepresentative of the sources, and some confusing. I can explain further and in detail if anyone is interested. Since the page has not been edited for a long time, I'm going to assume it won't be a problem if I take a break from Human rights in Tibet, catch up on my research for this topic, and jump in. —Zujine|talk 12:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
- Please do. You will probably uncover much of what you mention above in other parts of the article. This page was at the mercy of a group of concerted anti-Falun Gong editors for quite some time. First they tried to delete it, and when that failed, just weakened it terribly and made everything look likes "claims" from Falun Gong. That kind of behaviour makes a mockery of wikipedia. There's a wealth of good research available on the topic. It certainly needs someone who is familiar with the subject and not afraid to accurately represent what the best sources have said, rather than the diluted distortions that have prevailed so far. Good luck. Colipon seems to have taken the page off his watchlist, but I urge you not to be intimidated by his rhetoric should he return. If he tries to block anyone fixing this page, wikipedia has means to prevent that. --Asdfg12345 01:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
We must stop these obviously antiFalun Gong people. They are not helping the wikipedia.
Suggestion on expanding the lead a bit
Zujine, I see you are new to this page. A suggestion - you might want to take a look at the intro in this older version of the page, and draw from it elements you think could help improve the current intro.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 08:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
- PCPP, this statement is sourced, can you please explain your removal of it as 'unattributed source'? Is anyone else confused? —Zujine|talk 15:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Simple, the source provided says nothing regarding what was written. As it stands, it's simply a rhetoric that adds nothing not already covered by the other paragraphs.--PCPP (talk) 16:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Another instance of blanking by User:PCPP
- PCPP, You might want to see section 19 and 22 of the KM reports. The material is sourced to there. Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- And its centrally relevant content in that "International Response" section - not quite covered by other paragraphs. I quite don't see the rationale and I cant help but point out that its not an isolated incident of blanking from the user.
Proposal to start a page on KM Reports
There was some moderated discussion underway regarding creating a page on Kilgour Matas reports, and it was seen that the topic meets WP:N. As I am finding it difficult to pull out time to work on wikipedia, I request other editors who might find the topic interesting to go ahead with the creation of the namespace. The moderated discussion can be read here and there might be some relevant material here. Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:48, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Am suggesting the title "Kilgour-Matas Reports" for the page. Am interested in hearing topic-name suggestions from other editors as well. Also, if, for some reason, you believe the topic fails WP:N, kindly share your perspective here, we can use this discussion thread to reach a resolution.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 03:45, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
- Should it not be Kilgour-Matas report? There is really only one report that deals with this (even though it got updated, and also republished in book form).
I doubt there is an argument for not passing WP:N; the Washington Times - whatever you think of them - recently published a long article on the topic, for example. I would be interested in working on such an article. Homunculus (duihua) 04:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree. It ought to be "Kilgour-Matas report". There is a crescendo of coverage on the topic in mainstream media and it certainly meets WP:N. If it interests you enough you could go straight ahead with creation of the namespace. You might want to look into the sources here and here
Dilip rajeev (talk) 05:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Homunculus, I've created an article on the Kilgour-Matas report. There is a bit of clean-up to do in certain sections, a bit of expansion to do in others. There is some re-factoring to be done with the "Organ harvesting in China " page ( I plan to work on this tomorrow). Just to give you an idea of the work pending.
I've attemtpted to sumamrize the evidence presented by the report. I'd be thankful if you could help improve it. I'd like to hear from you suggestions on improving it.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC
Note there was a prior consensus on the material to be cut down and merged. Dilip simply disregarded the consensus and copy + pasted large chunks of deleted material.--PCPP (talk) 14:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
The article is over mostly newly written and the section of the KM Reports as such is completely newly written. Its surprising how any material exposing CCP's human rights abuses unsettles User:PCPP. Articles are not to be judged by their quality, WP:NPOV, WP:N, etc. PCPP's pattern is whole scale blanking of contributions behind a screen created by lawering and personal attacks, completely deviating attention from the content, in the process.
I request editors to not let their focus dragged away from the content, by the ruckus PCPP creates. Please judge the article on objective factors such as whether the topic meets WP:N, the sourcing and relevance of the content, etc.
It would be worthwhile to note that the above user has been constantly covering up this and related material, through reverts, blanking, and attacks on editors attempting to contribute.
A lot of recent evidence of such blanking by the user can be found on these and related article.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:58, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
- You're wasting your time. You're specifically disregarding your Arbcom case and the terms of the moderated discussion .--PCPP (talk) 15:03, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I had mentioned the reasons and my decision to start a page on SilkTork's talk as well as with Jayen. Neither had raised objections. The article I created is here and other editors are welcome to review. I'll leave your reverts there for now, for other editors to review, and act on as found appropriate.
Its a 50 Cent Party attitude you are taking on wikipedia. And I am not the only editor to have had concern along those lines. Above you blank out a paragraph in this article with a pseudo rationale. Here you again attempt to divert focus from content to personal attacks and non-existent issues.
I can see no other reason why someone would go around blanking content of centrally relevance, clearly meeting WP:N, in such a manner. Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion/plans for fixing this
I recently looked at this page... and I think it could be improved. Let's put it that way. There is a 100kb version here, and basically, I think it may make sense to simply move everything from there here, and then decide what to delete if it's too long. That page represents an enormous amount of research over a long period of time. The current page badly conceals the real conditions of the persecution and most of the good sources on it. If anyone has a care for the persecution of Falun Gong, please note your thoughts and we could work together. Not that I'm hopeful. --Asdfg12345 05:48, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
- Hell no. That version was rejected by numerous editors for a reason - it's simply pro-FLG POV pushing--PCPP (talk) 08:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
- Do you think you could be a little more specific, such as explaining exactly which parts of it are "simply pro-FLG POV pushing"? I am going to copy in some information now, some well-sourced information, to fill out the article a bit. --Asdfg12345 14:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
- I've made some additions just now. --Asdfg12345 15:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
- Do you think you could be a little more specific, such as explaining exactly which parts of it are "simply pro-FLG POV pushing"? I am going to copy in some information now, some well-sourced information, to fill out the article a bit. --Asdfg12345 14:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
- Hell no. That version was rejected by numerous editors for a reason - it's simply pro-FLG POV pushing--PCPP (talk) 08:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
- Let us take this at one step at a time; 1) I do not have a conflict of interest in editing this page. Either prove it and get consensus on it from other editors, or stop saying it and trying to use it to degrade my contributions. This happened previously with Dilip. The fact that I practice Falun Gong does not mean that I have a conflict of interest; this has already been established. 2) You cannot simply say "don't have consensus" and then revert something. Please see WP:DRNC, which states: If the only thing you have to say about a contribution to the encyclopedia is that it lacks consensus, it's best not to revert it. 3) Please explain clearly why you have reverted each paragraph that you have. I have responded to your two core "arguments", that I have a COI and that there is no consensus, now I'm suggesting we get beyond the sniping and discuss the content. I will not revert again. --Asdfg12345 00:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
- Your COI issue is well explored in your arbitration cases - it goes well beyond the territory for activism. And you cannot just resurface after several months and attempt to revert everything to a version that you prefer. Your "additions" were excessive duplicates that has already existed elsewhere in this article.--PCPP (talk) 03:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- PCPP, you recently deleted stuff from the lead], citing WP:LEDE; can you please explain? That page says the lede should be about 4 paragraphs, and cover the main information in the article. It is unclear to me how your changes were made in the spirit of that policy... to put it tactfully. Thanks. --Asdfg12345 18:25, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
- I changed it because it is excessively detailed and one sided. The lede should explain what FLG is, and the basic events and mechanisms that occurred. The organ harvesting allegations do not belong there.--PCPP (talk) 02:58, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- Would you not suggest that they are highly notable, and that a lede should introduce the most notable attributes of something? --Asdfg12345 03:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- I changed it because it is excessively detailed and one sided. The lede should explain what FLG is, and the basic events and mechanisms that occurred. The organ harvesting allegations do not belong there.--PCPP (talk) 02:58, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Reconfig
To the original suggestion that we consider reviving the previous version of the article, I agree that it was more complete. It strikes me as highly problematic that, for instance, the current article seems to have less to say about the imprisonment and torture of Falungong members—arguably the defining characteristic of the persecution—than the main Falun Gong page. That said, while we may be able to pull in some content from them, I advise against the wholesale adoption of previous versions of the article. I think we can do better, frankly. In particular, I would hope that edits we make going forward can move toward giving due weight to each section, and can also be more representative of recent developments in the campaign. I may spend some time on this. I'd also like to suggest a minor reorganization of the page, something along these lines:
- 1. Background (should deal with more than Tianjin and Zhongnanhai; there were more factors at play that led to the crackdown than a single series of protests in April 99)
- 2. Statewide suppression / The ban and crackdown (including rationale)
- 3. Legal and political mechanisms/framework
- 4. Media campaign (section should be more condensed overall, but I also suggest doing more with internet and media restrictions)
- 5. Torture and Abuse
- Arbitrary arrests and imprisonment (this is more appropriate as a title than "forced labor.")
- Torture in custody (section should be longer, I would argue. This is the issue that defines the suppression of Falun Gong)
- Psychiatric abuse (section is too long)
- Organ Harvesting
- Deaths (better name?)
- Societal Discrimination
- 6. Outside China
- 7. Recent campaigns (ie. Olympics)
- 8. Response
Homunculus (duihua) 06:03, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
- These are welcome suggestions, please go ahead on the reconfiguration. I can help draft some new information, if you like. I think the structure you propose is fine, except I would suggest perhaps shifting out "societal discrimination" into either its own section, or including it in one of the other sections, such as legal and political mechanisms, or ban and crackdown. The reason I suggest this is because all the preceeding elements of the "torture and abuse" section relate to treatment in custody, but the societal discrimination is clearly not in custody. I would suggest making it a subsection of the "legal and political mechanisms", since the institutional discrimination preventing, for example, a Falun Gong practitioner from attending school, and the attendant stigmas associated with Falun Gong, etc., are in the end "legal" issues that stem from the Party's campaign. Hope you follow me here. --Asdfg12345 18:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
- Added a section on "outside China": NOTE: This may be a bit long for now, and we can move this out later, but for now, the page is going some restructuring, so I hope we can do this peacefully and not have some bad warefare with deletions and etc. OK? Thanks. Please let me know if you agree with this, Homunculus (I imagine you know what I am concerned about). --Asdfg12345 03:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- What the hell was that? Not only it was excessively long - it was excessively one sided. Please look at Falun Gong outside mainland China and how it was written there.--PCPP (talk) 03:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- Added a section on "outside China": NOTE: This may be a bit long for now, and we can move this out later, but for now, the page is going some restructuring, so I hope we can do this peacefully and not have some bad warefare with deletions and etc. OK? Thanks. Please let me know if you agree with this, Homunculus (I imagine you know what I am concerned about). --Asdfg12345 03:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Please explain revert, PCPP
PCPP, I'll await your reasoning on these two points. Does everything need to be reviewed by you? That is basically the same as saying "no consensus", but you changed the wording. Secondly, how is the information "point of view"? It is a series of facts about what the CCP does to Falun Gong outside China, documented to reliable sources. Please explain the actual problem with the content, if there are any. I hope some other editors will see this ridiculous behaviour and express their views. It's crazy that whenever I make a move, you come along to tear my edits apart. It's unfair and wrong and I hope other people are seeing it and say something, because I am obviously powerless. I'm not going to get into a revert war, that's for sure. --Asdfg12345 03:40, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- This is indeed inappropriate, and badly confounding. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt, but I simply don't understand PCPP's insistence that well sourced facts are "excessively one sided." What, do you propose, is the "other side" of this story? Is it that Falun Gong is not being suppressed? Or that they deserve it? Is it that their claims of harassment outside China are not credible? Please explain yourself. If you do not want to explain yourself, then please revert yourself.
- I looked at Falun Gong outside mainland China, and in particular the section on allegations of interference from Chinese authorities. While Asdfg's contribution may not have been perfect, I would argue that it was actually better than what is provided on that page; he uses better sources (a unanimous congressional resolution, a Canadian newspaper of record, an American newspaper of record, a state department official), and discusses cases that are both more recent and more illustrative of the nature of the Chinese government's interference with Falun Gong overseas. I would like to see Asdfg contribute more research along these lines (though I agree that we should be mindful of length, so maybe he should make the majority of these contributions directly to the Falun Gong outside China page). PCPP, if you were directing us to that page for other reasons (ie. for its discussion of how Falun Gong has been received in the West), I would remind you that we are dealing here with the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese party-state, and the other information found on that page is not germane to this topic.Homunculus (duihua) 04:30, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'll have more time for this later--a lot more time--but for now let me just express my agreement with Homunculus. I find PCPP's editing behaviour to be erratic and harmful. Anyway, that should not be a block to getting real work done on the pages.
I'm very interested with Homunculus' suggestion for a restructure, and have recently begun catching up on my reading on this topic. I will be back with more to add later, and I hope some thoughtful edits. —Zujine|talk 00:52, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'll have more time for this later--a lot more time--but for now let me just express my agreement with Homunculus. I find PCPP's editing behaviour to be erratic and harmful. Anyway, that should not be a block to getting real work done on the pages.
- I don't think that to ask that vested editors submit big changes to very controversial articles on the talk page for review before going live is asking too much. This is common practice on many articles, and is even written explicitly on the talk pages of some. Asdfg12345's edit is riddled with biased wording: "harassment", "abet", "discriminate", etc. and triumphalist language ("it was clear that Falun Gong’s efforts for Internet freedom is China were not subsiding"). More importantly than that, nearly all of the examples of supposed persecution are unsupported accusations and insinuation (two protesters against visiting dignitaries were supposedly shot at, must be religious persecution!) linguistic stretches (withdrawal of explicit resolutions of support? persecution!), and badly sourced (most going back to Falun Gong websites, one paragraph is an extensive quote of a U.S. Congress resolution!). Most incredibly, Asdfg12345's edit on this page claims that emails criticizing Shen Yun and NTDTV are persecution of Falun Gong, while he denies or downplays such a connection between those organizations and Falun Gong on their own articles. Since the premise of this page is "persecution", a loaded and presumptuous word, I suppose that the degeneration that this push represents can't be helped. Quigley (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps your last line says it all. If you have to put scare quotes around such a simple word, we're in trouble. I'll wait for Asdfg to defend himself on the specifics--they are not precisely what concern me, but more the manner in which the discussion is carried out.
It appeared to me legitimate information that was simply reverted by PCPP because he and Asdfg have a longstanding ideological grudge. Asdfg first made a remark above, and the polite thing to do would have been to raise issues with the material (as you have). PCPP has not yet raised issue with the material, which is what I would have liked to have seen. In any case. —Zujine|talk 22:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
- Perhaps your last line says it all. If you have to put scare quotes around such a simple word, we're in trouble. I'll wait for Asdfg to defend himself on the specifics--they are not precisely what concern me, but more the manner in which the discussion is carried out.
- I don't think that to ask that vested editors submit big changes to very controversial articles on the talk page for review before going live is asking too much. This is common practice on many articles, and is even written explicitly on the talk pages of some. Asdfg12345's edit is riddled with biased wording: "harassment", "abet", "discriminate", etc. and triumphalist language ("it was clear that Falun Gong’s efforts for Internet freedom is China were not subsiding"). More importantly than that, nearly all of the examples of supposed persecution are unsupported accusations and insinuation (two protesters against visiting dignitaries were supposedly shot at, must be religious persecution!) linguistic stretches (withdrawal of explicit resolutions of support? persecution!), and badly sourced (most going back to Falun Gong websites, one paragraph is an extensive quote of a U.S. Congress resolution!). Most incredibly, Asdfg12345's edit on this page claims that emails criticizing Shen Yun and NTDTV are persecution of Falun Gong, while he denies or downplays such a connection between those organizations and Falun Gong on their own articles. Since the premise of this page is "persecution", a loaded and presumptuous word, I suppose that the degeneration that this push represents can't be helped. Quigley (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Explanation of edits
As per the earlier discussion on a proposed reorganization of the page, I have added a couple new sections (or, in some cases, the beginnings of new sections). Explanation of changes follows:
- 1. Trimmed down a little bit of content on psychiatric abuse and torture. The former was far too long, so I removed a paragraph citing Amnesty International on a particular case of abuse. The torture section is not too long, but neither is it very well done. I removed a rather weak piece of evidence, though I hope that this section can be improved upon in the future.
- 2. I reinserted the section added previously by Asdfg, but made it a small fraction its original size. As I mentioned before, I would like to see this section built out with solid research (not unconfirmed allegations), and we do need to be mindful of the length and tone.
- 3. Added a section on ‘deaths.’ A morbid header, I know, but it is certainly notable. I provided three examples, which is plenty, and they span the chronological period of 2000 – 2008.
- 4. Added a section on ‘recent campaigns.’ One of my enduring complaints with the Falun Gong articles is that they seem to stop around 2002 (with the exception of the 2006 allegations of organ harvesting). The suppression has continued, and I believe the more recent strike-hard campaigns are relevant. I included only one example, though I can do more research to build this out a little more (unless someone wants to get to it first).
- 5. Added more in the way of background to the persecution. The crackdown was not the result of a single series of protests in April 1999; it had its roots in the ideological orientation of Falun Gong, its independence from the state, its size, etc. These factors are now alluded to in the article.
- 6. I differentiated internet restrictions from restrictions on foreign press.
I hope these edits are not too brash; this page has been mostly dormant for some time, and however inadequate they may be, I think these edits are a step in the right direction and provide a platform for the inclusion of more research.
There is still much work to be done, however, and I’m convinced that a number of sections (ie. media campaign, and legal and bureaucratic measures) can and should be made to say more in far fewer words. Other sections, including torture in custody, should simply be revised to be include better-sourced and more representative examples.
As a quick note going forward, I hope that we can maintain open channels of communication, and more importantly, make earnest efforts to present the facts as they are.Homunculus (duihua) 06:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
- I think the changes are fine; the article may be a little too removed from what happens to people who are targeted, though. I would appreciate a few choice excerpts from survivor memoirs, and a gallery of video and photographs of the atrocities. Kudos to you for working on it. It's hard enough to get things done on human rights topics. —Zujine|talk 06:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
- In the spirit of discussion, let me just state that I added a couple of paragraphs of information, and changed the lead to more accuraetly reflect the nature of the labelling of Falun Gong in China. There are good sources on this on the main page, and I have largely just followed what they said. The version of it that we had here was not quite precise, or accurate, in its explanation--no one's fault, but hopefully I have helped. --Asdfg12345 17:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
No problems here. —Zujine|talk 23:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
- PCPP, how are Asdfg's changes here 'pov'? They are 'point of view', or biased, or what is wrong with them? Please explain if this is not an accurate summary of the campaign against FLG. —Zujine|talk 23:46, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
This seems to have stalled. I'm partly at fault, but it's no surprise that the interests of others also peter out. I'm going to replace the lead and add material to different parts of the article. --Asdfg12345 21:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
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