Talk:Organization of the Government of Singapore

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[edit] Departments?

The title of this page needs to be renamed. Ministries and Statutory boards of the Singapore government are not departments, the later of which are used to refer to specific bodies usually formed under the PMO etc. Examples include the Elections department and the Statistical department.--Huaiwei 14:40, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The word department was used in the general sense, as a noun to mean a division of a government dealing with a specific area of activity. A third section could be added to include non-ministerial departments, such as the Elections Department (under the Prime Minister's Office) and Singapore Department of Statistics (under the Ministry of Trade and Industry). =Travisyoung= 14:52, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

When you actually do have departmental agencies under the Singapore government, you obviously cannot have a title like this, even if it was meant to have a general meaning.--Huaiwei 15:03, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Then what would you propose? =Travisyoung= 15:08, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Move it back to the Government of Singapore page unless the later has become too long.--Huaiwei 15:21, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have you read my comments on the Government of Singapore talk page? I think this is a misunderstanding arising from the misconception of the word "government". In any case, the majority of the readers from outside of Singapore, where their ministry-equivalent are called "departments". This is merely a case of nomenclature. It is stated in very clear terms in the article the status of ministries vis-à-vis statutory boards and non-ministerial departments. =Travisyoung= 15:25, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You make it sound as thou only Singapore calls her top-tier governmental organisations "Ministries". Almost all Commonwealth and European countries, as well as most major Asian countries call them as such too, with the only major exception being the United States. There is simply no need to explain this, as thou Singapore is a tiny exception on the global arena. I would either change it to "Organisations", "Agency" or simply "structure" for a less controversial word to use.--Huaiwei 15:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Right of my head, I can recall (if I am not mistaken) that they call cabinet level portfolios "departments" in the UK and Australia. These are Commonwealth countries aren't they? Like I mentioned before, it is merely a case of nomenclature. In any case, government is an organisation. Using "structure" would entail a different article. =Travisyoung= 15:52, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh sure they are Commonwalth countries. Did I say all Commonwealth countries? How may other Commonwealth countries uses the word department? Meanwhile, how do you explain the fact that 9 out of 10 countries in Southeast Asia call them ministries, the only exception being the Philippines (quite obviously due to its American heritage)? Or the fact that China, Japan and Korea also call them ministries? How about usage in Latin America? The government is an organisation? Of coz. Can an organisation have sub-organisations? Why not? Structure of the Singapore government has a different meaning? Such as? All in all, it is obvious the word ministry is hardly a exception, and hardly needs explaining beyond Singapore's shores. And most importantly, we do not change the way words are used in Singapore-related articles to conflicting terms just because one forumer thinks it is not well known across the wikipedia community. Are you going to change all of our "secondary school" articles to "High schools" instead, irrespective of how they are known here?--Huaiwei 16:15, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okay looks like you need to cool down. I will reply when you are level headed enough. =Travisyoung= 16:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am feeling quite cool, and I am awaiting an answer. If not, I am changing the title soon.--Huaiwei 18:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Please refer to my reply in Talk:Government of Singapore. Thanks! =Travisyoung= 02:24, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I apologize for causing this misunderstanding. When I modified the Template:Politics of Singapore, I was following the design of Template:PoliticsUK, and (without thinking) kept the wordings "Government Departments".
I don't have a strong understanding on the scope of the words "Government" and "department". The word "government" has been used rather inconsistently in Singapore, sometimes refering only to the cabinet (e.g. when refering to making political decisions). Other times, "government" is understood as including the Ministries or Civil Service (e.g. in implementing policies). May I suggest that the article of Government of Singapore to be modelled after the article Government of Australia, to give an overview of the structure and describe the major branches of government. As for the article Departments of the Singapore Government, the title "department" might be misleading to Singaporeans (like myself) who do not usually associate "Department" with "Ministry". An organization as small as 20 people may be considered as a department. For the lack of a better word, can we change the title to "Government agencies of Singapore"? For example in http://www.gov.sg/, it has the phrase "find websites of Government agencies ....". I don't have a strong opinion here, and "Organisations of the Singapore Government" also seems acceptable to me. -- Vsion 05:25, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi Vsion,
Thanks for your clarification. I have mentioned the reasons for re-directing the article Government of Singapore to Cabinet of Singapore, and the subsequent creation of the new article Departments of the Singapore Government countless of times. However, it seems to me that some recalcitrant contributors have refused to look at how each event has led to another, resulting in this misunderstanding. I would like to re-iterate my point: I strongly believe this is a result of a small misunderstanding. I hope the following "timeline" in bullet form will help those who have difficulty understanding this whole mess.
  1. From my edits in Politics of Singapore, I assumed that the definition of "government" was: "In British English, the word "Government" can also be used to refer only to the executive branch, in this context being a synonym for the word "administration" in American English (e.g. the Blair Government, the Bush Administration). In countries using the Westminster system the Government (or party in Government) will also usually control the legislature" (obtained from Wikipedia article Government).
  2. Natalinasmpf mentioned in Talk:Government of Singapore that the amount of information in Government of Singapore was small. I explained that there might be some misunderstanding.
  3. You did an excellent revamp of Template:Politics of Singapore, which I believed, at that point in time, was modelled on Template:PoliticsUK (this was later clarified to be true by you).
  4. In the template, "Government departments" was linked to Government of Singapore. From point 1 above, because I took the definition of "government" to be "cabinet" and "Government departments" was a sub-list under the item "Cabinet" in the template, I assumed that Vsion might have overlooked this link and meant for "Government departments" to link to an article somewhat similar to Departments of the United Kingdom Government.
  5. Hence, I created a new article Departments of the Singapore Government, and changed the link of "Government departments" in Template:Politics of Singapore to Departments of the Singapore Government.
  6. Consequently, because of point 1 above, I also re-directed Government of Singapore to Cabinet of Singapore.
I hope that this is clear enough that it was an honest mistake. I do not appreciate Huaiwei's accusing and condescending tones in all of his replies. One of the behaviour guidelines in Wikipedia is to assume good faith, which was not apparent in all of his replies to me on both Talk:Government of Singapore and Talk:Departments of the Singapore Government. Huaiwei still does not seem to understand that this was an honest mistake and his last reply below is accusatory and condescending in tone. Huaiwei and I had a somewhat similar miscommunication before, shown in User talk:Huaiwei#Republic of Singapore Navy naval bases. I don't know if it is because I am too difficult to understand, or if he is just being recalcitrant, but I hope that this matter is settled amicably. =Travisyoung= 08:29, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I jus did the renaming a few moments ago. To be honest, I dont like the word "organisation" as well, but it is still miles better than "departments". Just look what happens when I expand the list, and notice how we do have departments under various ministries. I tot of naming it "Ministries of XX", but this means we also need a seperate list for stat boards etc? Too tedious...--Huaiwei 05:43, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)