Talk:New Oasis for Life Commune

Recent Edits and WP:Neutral

I recently made a series of edits to this article, to reflect reliable sources for this article found by @Cunard. There was a lot of material that got cut because it was just a recitation, without footnotes, of doctrine from Xuefeng. In general, on Wikipedia, we do not rely on primary sources. I tried carefully to include some information about the move to Canada but without a secondary source it's not verifiable. All information added to articles on Wikipedia must be supported by a WP:reliable source

@Tongxincao based on our interactions at the AfD I think you need to seriously consider acknowledging a conflict of interest, and following the recommendations of WP:COI. That basically means you don't edit directly, but ask to have other editors make changes. If your goal is to re-insert a bunch of community doctrine I for one won't be inclined to add it. But if you think there are, for example, details about the commune from the NYT or Introvigne articles then feel free to suggest a change. Oblivy (talk) 09:06, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you again for your excellent work cleaning up the article, Oblivy (talk · contribs). I agree with your advice to Tongxincao. Regarding the group's move to Canada, the Introvigne article says on page 62: "En 2017, también en previsión de los próxi-mos 30 años de problemas, Xuefeng se trasladó a Canadá, donde tiene seguidores (existen otros grupos del Templo Zen de la Vida en Tailandia), y ordenó a las comunidades en China que pasaran a la clandestinidad. Esto ya era una señal de que el grupo, habiendo pasado del mercado rojo al gris, estaba cayendo lenta pero seguramente en el mercado negro. Esto se oficializó con la redada de 2021."

From Google Translate: "In 2017, also anticipating the next 30 years of trouble, Xuefeng moved to Canada, where he has followers (there are other Zen Temple of Life groups in Thailand), and ordered communities in China to move to the secrecy. This was already a sign that the group, having moved from the red market to the gray market, was slowly but surely falling into the black market. This was made official with the 2021 raid."

Cunard (talk) 09:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

That's good. I can add that. Thanks for your work on this too. As I said, it seemed like an article worth having but not in the form it was in. Oblivy (talk) 09:16, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

"Xuefeng fled to Canada, and those who could not follow him may be in hiding in China."

This is not true, Xuefeng went to Cananda in 2017, back then, the community had not been defined as a cult by Chinese government, so there was no reason for him to flee. Xuefeng went to Canada because he felt that China was not a right place to build an intentional community as he wished, therefore, he wanted to explore opportunities overseas. Those who could not follow him were not hiding in China; they were not criminals.

As a long-term member of Lifechanyuan, I know many facts, although they can't be found online or verified, but could I still suggest you edit the above sentence since the fact has been altered, many thanks. Conglong99 (talk) 06:52, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't think saying fleeing and hiding implies they are criminals. Sometimes victims flee from attackers and sometimes they hide.

Anyway, this is the source: Esto, según la Seguridad Pública, no era el fin del Templo Zen de la Vida. Mantienen más de 2.000 miembros, la mayoría de ellos escondidos en algún lugar de China, y su líder vive a salvo en Canadá. La caza de la policía especializada para localizar a los devotos restantes en China continúa.

This, according to Public Security, was not the end of the Life Zen Temple. They maintain more than 2,000 members, most of them hidden somewhere in China, and their leader lives safely in Canada. The hunt by the specialist police agency to locate the remaining devotees in China continues. Oblivy (talk) 11:46, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Over at the AfD @Tongxincao said:

"Couples sleep apart" is not a correct and complete description, because there is no marriage and family in the new life mode of the Second Home, and couples are well prepared for this before they decided to join the community and live a collective community life. Therefore, each part of the original couple has their own bedroom, but they can sleep together when they feel like to do so. As an adult, everyone has their own bedroom as the space of his/her own. The reporter from New York Times visited us when we are encountering disbandment in the end of 2013, so they just stayed for several hours and did really quick interview with limited information being understand and collected.
I have mentioned several times all the sources being quoted here is limited and there is not a deep and complete report introducing what Lifechanyuan and the Second Home really is. Plus there are mistakes on time, date, and place, number of members around the world etc. So please delete this item as it is spreading wrong and one-sided information when using the world "fled to Canada", whatever the reason is, "fled" already shows the judgement of the editor here and this is not subjective description, but very objective description. We are from lifechanyuan and you raised the conflict of interest rule, so we cannot prove ourseles, but the edtion here definitely cannot represent what Lifechanyuan international family society is either. Please delete this edition to avoid the misunderstanding and mislead the public. Let them know, analysis, and judge by themselves, but not by you.

I'm not convinced "couples sleep apart" was incorrect based on your description but it's not that important to the article and I removed it. I've also removed the word fled as it does not literally appear in the source, even though it's objectively a good description of what happens when a group leader leaves China amidst a government crackdown.

Regarding the request to delete the article, I'm not sure your complaint amounts to anything more than that it doesn't present facts the way you remember them or wanted them presented. Searches of en.wikipedia.org and zh.wikipedia.org show your group's members have long been intent on getting an article on Wikipedia. Paraphrasing the guideline @Cunard quoted at the AfD, any article you write will get edited, perhaps into a form you wouldn't have chosen. Oblivy (talk) 06:00, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply Oblivy. We would like the article to be edited on a basis of truth and facts, if it's very difficult to do so, we'd rather to delete it and let the public to search, think, investigate, study, and find what Lifechanyuan really is.

There are many mistakes in the article, listed as below:

Xuefeng's birth place was not in Guizhou, it was Gansu;

the disbandment did not start from 2016, it started from 2013;

the member around the world is not 150, but more than 400;

the place of headquarters is not Vancouver;

"was reborn with the same spirit that had run through other key figures in world religion" is not accurate, that's not the original meaning;

Lifechanyuan was not started in 2005, but earlier than that, but from 2001; while the society was registered in 2017;

Lifechanyuan didn't "broke up" as we are still here in Canada,Thailand, Korea, and China, and we are financially healthy.

Lifechanyuan was not "classed illegal cult" in China, the government just reported the disbandment task of April 28, 2021 on the website of “China Anti-Cult Network”, but there was no official notification or document from the Ministry of Public Security of China or other Chinese government department announcing that Lifechanyuan is an "illegal cult", the only official document the government showed to us during the task was issued by Ministry of Civil Affairs, announcing Lifechanyuan is an "illegal organization"(非法组织）, which was also the first time they issued an official announcement to us during the forced disbandment. Therefore the description here is not correct either. If it was classed as "a cult", the founder and main members cannot be free because that means they have the facts of violating the law and need to bear legal responsibility. The fact is no members was ever been arrested since they became member of Lifechanyuan, because there were no facts against the law, after many times of investigation by police officers of different provinces from 2013 to 2021, that's why they can only define and class Lifechanyuan as an "illegal organization", which was not issued by a department with legal authority, but the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

（source： https://www.mca.gov.cn/n152/n164/c36547/content.html

NO.22 贵州省民政部门 安龙县龙山镇龙头大山生命禅院)

"and those who could not follow him may be in hiding in China."

-- nobody can hide in China, as the government has all data to know everything they want to know about a Chinese citizen. And no need to hide, because we didn't do anything illegal or evil.

"In 2017 the organization claimed to be building a new community in Canada",

--in 2017 the society was registered but not meaning a community was building because there were not enough members here.

"As of 2024 the organization claims to invite new members who are "under 58 years old, and wish to become immortal."

-- Lifechanyuan is always welcoming new members; the article is mainly expressing that we are looking for volunteers to get involved and support our new community building.

Based on above, we feel it's difficult to convince the editors that the article need to be rewritten in many aspects, as you mentioned there is a rule of "conflict of interest", but except our introduction, how can you prove the other sources are reliable, after all the third-part sources are so limited, and reporters has their own opinion and understanding when writing the report. Not even mentioned there were reports from the government which was not neutral at all. Just do a little bit of research you will see the religion situation of China was like in the past 10 years and that's the main reason why our communities were disbanded again and again.

In a word, if there is no effective way to prove and verify the source of information, and we cannot prove ourselves based on the rule, we hope this article can be deleted, as it includes so many information that is incomplete and not correct, and nowhere to verify based on "reliable and neutral" sources, which will mislead people.

We hope one day in the future when people have the chance to know more about Lifechanyuan, not only by our introduction but also by their experience, by the reports from many medias or reporters, or even study and investigations by scholars on Lifechanyuan, Lifechanyuan can be much more completely displayed in front of people, include the whole history of it; that might be a much better timing to edit what Lifechanyuan and Lifechanyuan International Family is.

Thank you. Tongxincao (talk) 01:44, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I've made two changes. Again, I think it's a fair to say it was an illegal cult based on the context but I'll change it to illegal organization, no problem.
Thanks for spotting the Gansu vs Guizhou. It's fixed.

I can't address other issues without a citation to a specific source.For example, your point about MoCA's legal authority needs to be supported by a secondary source, not just a statement about what powers are assigned to specific departments. Same with questions like when the crackdown began.

I actually agree with your last point, that if you want the public to have better information on your group you need to get others to report on you. To include that reporting on Wikipedia, there will be standards for independence, reliability, etc., so it has to be genuine reporting or research (and neutrality sometimes means your story isn't told as you wanted it to be told!). Oblivy (talk) 03:00, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

I endorse Oblivy's comments here. I provided an extended comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lifechanyuan International Family Society with my thoughts. Changes to the article can be made only if they are verified by independent reliable sources. Cunard (talk) 08:55, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Oblivy for the response. Sorry I was a bit confused and just find your post here. We welcome medias to interview and report us, but they were not allowed do so by the authority, it happened several times that the reporters were forbidden to interview us on their way to our community or after the interview their article were forbidden to be published. The reports done by NYT and Apple Daily of Hongkong were excepted because they are from out of mainland so the local authority cannot forcibly forbid them. There is a department called "Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China" which controls the medias, so the medias in mainland China is not independent and free. In Thailand we have branch of the Second Home as well, there are many volunteers go to visit and experience there, most of them like the atmosphere and big family, you can check through facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifechanyuaninternationalfamily/

As for the Canada headquarter, we have just a few members here for now so the community life model cannot be presented completely, thus the report is not necessary. In our vision for the minimum size of an ideal Second Home is 30 members. Tongxincao (talk) 23:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Move to New Oasis for Life Commune

As mentioned at the AfD discussion, I'm planning to rename this article to Lifechanyuan as that's the name used in the reliable sources on which the article is now based. In fact that's the name of an article @Tongxincao tried to create[1] but it got deleted.

As things have been a bit contentious around this article I want to raise it now and will give a few days for concerned editors to respond. If you have a WP:Reliable Source showing that this name applied to the Chinese commune I'll reconsider. As far as I know there are NO reliable sources for the post-China organization. Oblivy (talk) 06:14, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@Oblivy: would you provide more details about how Lifechanyuan is the name used in the reliable sources on which the article is based? The official website uses the name "Lifechanyuan International Family Society". This 15 April 2024 press release mostly uses "Lifechanyuan" but has one instance of "Lifechanyuan International Family Society". The English-language sources and a Spanish-language source I listed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lifechanyuan International Family Society have called the group the "Shengmin Chanyuan, or New Oasis for Life" (2014 The New York Times article), "New Oasis for Life Commune" (2016 Asian Highlands Perspectives article), "Life Zen Temple" (2022 Revista Internacional de Estudios Asiáticos article).

Relevant article title guidelines could be WP:COMMONNAME or WP:CONCISION. Would you discuss them in relation to your rename proposal? Thank you, Cunard (talk) 08:20, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

You know, @Cunard I think you are right. Either it's the New Oasis for Life Commune (NYT and Asian Highlands...) or it's Shengming Chanyuan (also in both sources). I think I was impacted by looking at your translations over at the AfD rather than looking at the English language secondary sources.

What isn't established, except through primary sources, is the current article name. I think occasionally we might use a primary source for something factual like a change of name (IIRC there's a Canada business incorporation certificate somewhere on commons) but since the article is really not about the new organization that probably doesn't make sense for this article.

Can I suggest as an alternative "Shengming Chanyuan"? It's supported by both NYT and Asian Highlands. It's a faithful transliteration and it's consistent with smcy... As an alternative New Oasis for Life Commune has good support in the RS. Oblivy (talk) 10:19, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

@Oblivy: I did not do an analysis of how the English-language sources were calling Lifechanyuan before using the Lifechanyuan name as the translations in the AfD. I used that name just because matched the Wikipedia article's name and the group's website. I think "New Oasis for Life Commune" and "Shengming Chanyuan" both work since they're supported by the sources. I am fine with either. Thank you for the analysis and for proposing a rename! Cunard (talk) 05:00, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm thinking New Oasis for Life Commune, then make sure Lifechanyuan and Shengming Chanyuan are in the article so a search will will pull it up. There's not a lot of "common usage" for any of this, and since we're on en.wikipedia I'd advocate for an English name rather than a compound Chinese name. Thanks for asking the question (I sometimes move fast and break things). Oblivy (talk) 06:29, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Your rationale for renaming to "New Oasis for Life Commune" to use an English name rather than a compound Chinese name is sound. Thank you! Cunard (talk) 06:41, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes based on current article, New Oasis for Life Commune is good, it's the name of the new life model created based on Lifechanyuan Values(theory). Lifechanyuan International Family was registered in 2017 so I don't think the introduction before 2017 is suitable, it is more for the community.

Lifechanyuan is a definition include the theory and practice; New Oasis for Life commune is referring to the practice; Lifechanyuan International Family is a society registered in BC Canada, it focuses on establishing International New Oasis for Life Communes around the world.

And again, may I raised up for revising the members of worldwide, it's not 150 members, but around 400 members? The location is not in Vancouver either, if the article will move to the New Oasis for Life commune, the locations are Canada, Thailand, Korea, and China. Tongxincao (talk) 23:22, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

If there are reliable sources that cover any of your proposed changes, please submit an edit request in a new section on this talk page for an established editor to review. Cunard (talk) 08:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I made the proposed move. Let me know if there are any issues.

With regard to location and membership list, I removed both from the infobox. I know I've said it a lot, but information that isn't supported by a reliable source doesn't belong in the article. Vancouver was apparently added by a commune member. The membership numbers are just not available from RS as far as I know. Oblivy (talk) 04:28, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

The move looks good. Thank you! Cunard (talk) 08:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)