Wikipedia talk:SGpedians' notice board/Archive 1

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Contents

Government Housing District

There are certain clashes that worth noting: Woodlands New Town is within the Sembawang GRC, Woodlands region. Same for the other neighbourhood estates article. Slivester 04:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template for Photography

I had revised a template for photography, and I am sure there are various sections that require amendments. See Template:Photograph info Slivester 10:50, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Chinese surnames on Wikipedia

If you're interested in working on how Chinese surnames should be presented on Wikipedia, please comment at Talk:Chinese surname#Chinese surnames on Wikipedia. Thanks. — Instantnood 13:51, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

194.206.179.4

Someone should take a look at the above user's edits. There is a lot of NPOV language floating around his articles and at least one, Chia Thye Poh, is copyviol - lifted from http://www.sfdonline.org/Link%20Pages/Link%20Folders/chia1.html. --khaosworks 15:47, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll redo the entry =p -- Melsith 17:47, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Merging Manglish and Singlish

Yes, I know this sounds a bit controversial. But I think it's a good idea, considering how similar the two really are.

You can see my original suggestion here: Talk:British and Malaysian English differences#Merge. All comments are welcome! -- ran (talk) 04:56, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

Personally I'd rather have the two entries apart =p -- Melsith 17:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

It wouldn't be controversial, however, most Malaysians would not find it offensive to have it removed, after all, not quite a topic to be proud of (a point of view from my grandmother, who spoke fluent English, a Malaysian). However, it is something that they, the Malaysians, considered what they had, not a posession of us. I do not think that it would be wise to do such a move. Slivester 18:14, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It sounds rather...weird, because what, we suddenly owe the distinctions and influences of our culture to Malaysia just because they are bigger? Come on! Why do people insist that Singaporean cuisine is the same as Malaysian cuisine, and should be called as such, etc. etc, just because Malaysia is bigger? -- Natalinasmpf 09:36, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Alright alright, I admit it was not that great of an idea. ... :/ However, the Manglish article as of now is very short, and much of the phonology + grammar sections of Singlish can be copied straight over. -- ran (talk) 13:13, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

To be frank, whats so different between Singlish and Manglish, I always uphold the idea that they got it from us. Slivester 05:18, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Repetitive MRT Station work

Can someone help me do a lot of this repetitive work? I've done a template alrady, which you can paste in every MRT station article (ie. Punggol MRT Station, City Hall MRT Station), which I have done for every blue link so far. However, for the stubs, a lot of information can be added with the current format (see some of the current articles for an example) without much thought, just that its tedious. For example, for each line it is on, specifying whether its an above-ground MRT station or an underground one. Of course, specifying it is a Mass Rapid Transit station in the first place (Singapore's kind), rather than the bland "MRT" or generalised "railway" or "metro" station. Don't do that. We have a very good page at Mass Rapid Transit, after all. ;-)

The MRT station template is available by typing {{Singapore MRT stations}}. To specify whether its above-ground or below-ground, use [[Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)#Above-ground|above-ground]] or [[Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)#Underground|underground]].

Then of course, if you know anything about the station, a map, photo, what street it is on, what landmarks are nearby, overpasses, etc.

I just feel when these tasks are completed, we can go on to adding more information, but this foundation should be worked out first. --

To be honest, that template makes the page look a tad messy because it is so long. How about looking at the ones for the Sydney lines, or the London ones for comparison, and we might adopt one of them? I especially like the vertical station list for the Sydney system.--Huaiwei 13:34, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
I'll try taking a look at the other ones. In my opinion, it only looks messy because of the alignment, which can be corrected. It does give a sense of cohesion, if not being rather especially useful for the stubs. -- Natalinasmpf 19:04, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
Refer to Sydney underground railways, for example, although it is a listing of lines. We can adapt it to show a list of stations instead. Alaso, look at the one used for the London Underground in Acton Town tube station, for example. Maybe we can combine the two for our pages? :D--Huaiwei 19:29, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm also thinking of including the terminal station on each end, as well. So there's five stations mentioned for each line, the current station, the next and previous station, and the "destination", that is, the last station on each direction. I'll try making a new "template" (or what do you call them? Infoboxes?). And maybe a link to other lines the station is not on. It would be tedious though, since you have to modify it for every station. -- Natalinasmpf 11:00, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Currently, there are 2 categories covering MRT stations. 1 is [[Category:Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore) stations]] and the other is [[Category:Singaporean railway stations]]

I would suggest removing the Singaporean railway stations, since by definition, i think the MRT is a metro, not really a railway. Sandstorm6299 14:05, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Issues related to SG Articles

I was forced to take a Semi-WikiVacation due to real life committments, but now I'm back I realized that there is a lot of things that is left undone and urgently needs to be cleared up. I'm rather upset by a few first-hand experience that involve Singapore-related Wikipedia articles as well.

  1. Public Transportation Map of Singapore - This map has been repeatedly put on WP:CP, even thought it should be under Fair Use dealing. What I've heard so far is that there's no Fair Use in Singapore and LTA has properitary rights over the map. However, I did a check on the Internet and Singapore's copyright office (Intellectual Property Office of Singapore) does have a "Fair Dealing" clause. [1]. Unless ressolved once and for all, WP:CP will always come back to haunt this map.
  2. Anglo-Chinese School - May have over-emphasised on its achievements. Previously talkpage had comments that the article looked more like an ad. One of my friends actually questioned the validity of this encyclopedia althogether, especially when he felt that the criticisms of the school being elitist/snobbish is somewhat downplayed. I would be interested to hear on what you think on this one.
  3. Singapore gay movement - Needs a proper cleanup, or listed on VFD. Sometimes we just fail to know how many actual visitors look at our articles for research and information, as well as trusting that these articles are neutral and reliable. It was listed as an problem article some time ago for its advocate nature, and surprisingly some joker in my JC actually used this information to his research paper on prejudices and discrimmination.
  4. Nanyang Girls' High School - Listed for POV Check months ago for some alleged prejudices of its students, annoyed NYGH alum-mata has removed the offending section and now it's a very poor stub. Needs to be reworked on. See Talk:Nanyang Girls' High School
  • Update: The article is being slowly reworked. Contributions are welcome!
  1. NPNT - Going, going, gone on VFD. If it doesn't qualify as a full-fledged article, then at least it should qualify to be on Wiktionary.

If you have time to spare, please do have a look and make changes/take action nessecery to ressolve te above problems, as well as giving your comments.

- Mailer Diablo 18:02, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Anglo Chinese School

Personally, I'd chuck the recent achievements altogether. If you look back on the article history, when I first revamped the article last year, I threw out most of the self-aggrandizing and kept to what I felt were the essentials. This was my baseline after all my major edits were done, and then the pigpile of Band, Debate, etc. started.

The snobbishness angle I feel is adequate and NPOV enough if the achievements bit weren't so overblown. For the sake of disclosure, I am an ACS Old Boy (1977-1988), but from the pre-Independent School era, so I grew up with the entire snobbishness dispute and honestly, it wasn't that big a deal even back then. However, a slash and burn would seem to drastic, so if anyone has any suggestions as to how to cut it down, please do so. --khaosworks 19:14, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

School tales and image are precisely just that, and not everyone agrees with them. We have the Nanyang article getting stripped down because alumnus disagrees with the over empahsis on reputations, and in the ACS page, we have people questioning its validity because it didnt talk enough on that! Wikipedia is an encyclopedia...not Friday Weekly or the The New Paper. While it can of coz discuss on school reputations and discriminations, it cannot over-present them just because the image is over-blown amongst some quaters of Singaporean society. So we all know there is a reputation of ACS boys being arrogant. What else can be said about this which are encyclopedic?--Huaiwei 19:23, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Suggest a section on famous alumni, and Khaosworks can be the first name there. Other schools' pages can do the same thing also . Vsion 02:33, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Famous alumni is a good idea - some university pages do have them already. But I'm not going to be on any of them. --khaosworks 02:54, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

I've posted a bit of a rant on the ACS Talk page. I regret having to have written those remarks, but I don't regret what I wrote. Those articles need a lot of help. --khaosworks 12:50, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Singapore gay movement

Your JC friend is no joker. I can vouch for the veracity of every single sentence in this article. It was originally written by the father of the Singapore gay movement himself, Alex Au and everyone in PLU knows the events that unfolded. Attempting to discredit or remove this article would be a great disservice to the documentation of evolving Singaporean history.165.21.154.15 18:37, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

You have not justified your grounds for wanting to delete the article. I have edited the article to remove most of the contentious words. What more do you want? If you feel that it needs a complete revision, why don't you attempt to do it yourself without altering any of the factual events which took place? This is such an important resource for students researching discrimination in Singapore that to even contemplate removing it would be a gross travesty of impartial reportage.Groyn88 18:48, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Homosexuality in Singapore looks fine to me actually, the problem is the MoS (manual of style) and NPOV that has got to do with Singapore gay movement. PLU- the early years and Achievements of the Singapore gay community as a whole still looks very messy and incoherent. It'd be good if you can work on it further to improve and NPOV it. I'll only put it for VFD as a last resort (but unlikely), but if ever I do that then that'll be the time where I'll make my case to justify. - Mailer Diablo 19:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NPNT

If you trace the VFD trail, you'll eventually find that it was me who sent it to the gallows. ASGM and NMNHNLM were also done in by me. The revised reasons for deletion vary slightly for each, but all were non-notable at the very least. This is Wikipedia, not the Coxford Singlish Dictionary created by TalkingCock. Still, if they qualify under another section of the Wikiproject, by all means go ahead. CABAL 10:35, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Current events in Malaysia and Singapore?

What do you people think of collaborating on a project on that, or do you think they can survive as two seperate pages?--Huaiwei 18:09, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Collaborating will be good, I like to read Malaysia articles myself (and Dr M's page is better than Lky's!) I’m too new to comment on the 2nd question. Another related thing: I was tracking the UK election and it was a lot of work. Don’t know when is Singapore's election coming. That could be good for publicity, but we need more users support, and hell will break loose. ;p -- Vsion 02:27, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Collobarion of this sort will be no diff from that between the UK and Ireland, and of HK and Macau, from what we can see in the existing regional current event stuff. Afterall, quite a number of our biggest contributors happen to span the causeway anyway, so I would think this is a natural progression. :D Elections...much talk about it, but only the presidential one has to be held this year. the GE is at most 2 years away, but no one will know...yet :D--Huaiwei 15:25, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Removal of past content on notice board

Hi,

Just came across the History pages of the notice board and I realized Huaiwei reverted my delete. Just to clarify:

  • I removed the discussion on Category:Republic of Singapore Navy naval bases under "Singapore related candidates for deletion" as it was a resolved issue (or so I thought, a consensus has been reached [2]).
  • In any case, I assumed that the section contained ongoing debates, since the section lead clearly says:
This is a list of current deletion debates...

I do apologize if I offended Huaiwei. I didn't know that "[i]t is meant to be a reference point for all cases, resolved or otherwise." (quoted from History pages, edit summary by Huaiwei on 6 May 2005, 19:53 (UTC))

-Travisyoung 03:35, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

No lah I am not offended. I suppose I didnt make the page's usage clear in the first place, so I should share the blame, but anyhow, the page's usage shdnt be dictated by me alone also. My intention of that list is so that we know what changes has ever taken place involving sg cats, and if any sg cat should be deleted before, we might wish to collaborate to write articles such that the cat cat be created again. My biggest concern now is to rekindle the Singapore cuisine category, which was deleted simply coz someone from another city outside SEA fails to understand that cuisine names are kinda shared in this region.--Huaiwei 09:55, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Places in Singapore

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Singaporean places--Huaiwei 20:59, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Dialects

REDIRECTED to [3]. (It's getting dry!)

Singapore-related templates

Hi, is there a single page that shows all the templates related to Singapore? I'm thinking of something like what appear in User:Ran. It would be very useful, especially for newcomers, to have a quick overview of the structure of Singapore related articles, and it also consolidates many links which is good for quick accessing. If there isn't one now, can we create it? A user page is not suitable, maybe we can show the templates in Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Singapore, but I'm not quite sure. A side-benefit is that it would encourage more visits to the portal; also I only then need to bookmark the portal in my browser and can access most articles in just two mouse clicks. -- Vsion 20:42, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Like this? Template:India topics

-- ran (talk) 20:49, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Well, this is a rather high-density alternative (and may be good for those with low-resolution monitors), but wouldn't it be difficult to maintain, since the template of each sub-topic could still be evolving? I like what appear in your userpage, and seriously tempted to do the same in mine as well. ;-) Vsion 21:08, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Clean Slate for Singapore IPs

I've decided to archive the talkpage (of ugly vandal warnings) and add the ISP's {{sharedip}} notice for the three major ISPs (PacNet, Singnet and Starhub) and welcome message for Singapore IPs. This is to make the Singapore contributors feel more welcomed. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this, please let me know at my talkpage! =) - Mailer Diablo 18:33, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Singapore political and muncipal buildings

I think its high time we started articles on the central political buildings that house the critical government functions in Singapore...I was shocked not to find them! And I just wanted to write a description of City Hall MRT Station! Oh well. Lets get started on it. Two things I'm about to start: Parliament House, Singapore and Padang (Singapore). We really need to get into this, otherwise its going to be very hard organising, classfiying and categorising areas later if we procrastinate, especially if we need to address them collectively. Oh, the the article on Singapore's urban geography could address such areas too, not too detailed (as that wouldn't be its roled) but show how they are interlinked. We better decide some framework and taxonomy immediately (what gets categorised where), so we don't have any problems with redundancy, contradiction, or vagueness, especially division of information into geography, politics, economy, culture and so forth, they all have some overlapping areas which need to be resolved on which gets where. Oh, then there's the issue of the reference to the central business district as compared to the Central Area (which is what the Urban Redevelopment Authority classifies it as). -- Natalinasmpf 19:33, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Haha....try figuring out if we should use Padang (Singapore) or Padang, Singapore first! :D--Huaiwei 17:19, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, the Padang isn't a town, its just a (prominent) common field, so Padang by itself is already a city in Indonesia, hence the reason for just brackets. Although redirects would suffice: doesn't seem to be much difference. -- Natalinasmpf 18:21, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but when would we use brackets, and when do we use commas? It would be best if we could standardise the way our articles are titled.--Huaiwei 18:40, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I may consider taking photos of MRT stations and uploading them when I have the time. ;) - Mailer Diablo 19:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Standardisation

Yes, standardisation is an important issue....starting with regional classification. We need to agree on a standard taxonomy for locations in Singapore...starting with the classification under the Urban Redevelopment Authority, but some of the 55 regions doesn't include things like Raffles Place, Chinatown or Little India so I'm a tad confused. This applies to many other areas as well, and I would like to standardise them under one hierarchial classification system. I realise there are many exceptions because a collection of a few streets can house an entire commerical district and 50,000 people within the Central Region, for example. Ultimately, I also need to know the distinctions between the Central Region, the Central Area and the Downtown Core....they all have the hallmark of "CBD" or "central", but what are the distinctions, besides size? Here's my current interpretation: Central Region is just a convenient region to draw up to divide Singapore into five proportionate regions (ie. like east, west, central, etc.) - the Central Area is the collective term for Singapore's Central Business District(s), while the Downtown Core is the skyscraper filled area near the mouth of the Singapore River of high commercial density, and was the original port area under the Singapore Raffles Plan. Orchard Road for example, under URA classification, isn't part of the Downtown Core [4], while Shenton Way is. Which I'm just wondering, is there any apparent economical distinction between say, the Downtown Core? Is it aesthetic? Merely geographical? They both seem to be part of the ERP area. I'm advocating the URA standard, which we can reference to from here - http://www.ura.gov.sg/dc/street_name/street_name.html, but I don't know what areas like Raffles Place and other towns are classified as. That said, I'm thinking of a taxonomy more of, URA Region (ie. Central Region) => Urban Planning Area => Town => Street? I know sometimes the area IS the town, but what about areas where its otherwise? But I believe the URA classification standard will speed up editing due to lack of ambiguity, or explain concepts better we know, but couldn't articulate before, we can have a standard to put places which don't have a common theme like Ang Mo Kio (versus Shenton Way) in templates other than just a template which has collection of places? We could have a taxonomy of templates. -- Natalinasmpf 21:34, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Singaporean government, departments, ministries and GRC's

We really need to get started on those, the first three holding up the FAC process for Singapore - and GRC's, in terms of elaboration on a general level. Ie. Ministry of Finance AND the Minister of Finance (Singapore), and this will also be helpful in aiding the wikifying and organising of the articles for Singapore politicians...(notice how someone like Richard Hu doesn't even have his own article?)...also I'm thinking of modelling the Government of Singapore article to something like the Federal Government of the United States (in terms of formatting and style, not literally). -- Natalinasmpf 12:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

photographs

So uh...I'm thinking, should we have a request section for photographs? Which by the way, I'll take the time to ask, when any of us should go out and happen to have a camera available, snap some photos of Singapore's landmarks, and heck normally mundane things, like mee siam and such - food, landmarks and the like. We need some good photos of the Esplanade, preferably both night and day, that are confirmed public domain/GFDL/creative commons - across the riverfront, or from the Carlsberg sky tower, anything! -- Natalinasmpf 20:16, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Support. The food articles are good examples where photos will make big difference! Should we also include a map request section? I can service these map requests. Let's make Singapore articles colorful and vibrant! :D -- Vsion 20:43, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I have a number of photos, without its articles only though! =P - Mailer Diablo 28 June 2005 15:28 (UTC)
Great! You have done the difficult part. You provide the bacon, we provide the bread — let's make sandwiches! Btw, what's the plan for the FAC thing? The copyvio issues has been resolved. If mrt has a better chance, let's go for it! --Vsion 28 June 2005 17:52 (UTC)
See the Mass Rapid Transit todo area - some of the sections actually need to be split off into their own articles (just to be sweet and succinct). Oh Mailer Diablo, sorry to trouble you again, but can we get some photos of the Port of Singapore? I figured it was quite ironic, how we have so much information on a transport boon (rather than a real life or death necessity), but we lack so much information on our port. Evolution of the port, usage of lighter boats, etc. (some of this information can be from the PSA website, discard anything irrelevant, suit to an encylopedic language)...oh by the way, Keppel Harbour is the same as Keppel Container Terminal, right? Or at best, they are related enough for one to be redirected to the other? (Keppel Harbour is in a dismal state, I'm trying to improve it, but that's only if I can clarify how this will set a precedent for other harbours/terminals too.) -- Natalinasmpf 28 June 2005 18:11 (UTC)
Yes, the Port of Singapore, etc., is an excellent topic. Amazed at how Huaiwei revamp, champion, and revolutionize the articles on Singapore Airlines, Changi Airport, etc. Surely Singapore's harbour/sea transport industries deserved equal attention if not more. Very suitable for collaborative effort. :-) -- Vsion 28 June 2005 18:53 (UTC)
Er...we give me too much credit. :D Anyway with regards to the harbours, Keppel Harbour refers to the waters between the islands and the Mainland. Its a geographical entity. Keppel Container Terminal is...a container terminal. :D So they arent exactly the same.--Huaiwei 29 June 2005 07:56 (UTC)
Support of coz! My comp is still down thou, so I cant contribute them yet. Now accessing the net in school again (actually I am not even supposed to be using this...I am an alumni! :D). It is unfortunate I lost almost my entire photo collection due to an earlier pc issue early this year, so I hv to rebuild my photos again. I have taken quite a few shots of Changi Airport, some city buildings (most of which dont hv an article yet), plus uniformed personal for my police-related pages...haha. Mailer apparantly saw my first contribution last week. Unfortunately, it was a little blurred coz I didnt hv a tripod and lighting was low there.--Huaiwei 29 June 2005 06:09 (UTC)
We missed u, buddy. ;-) Vsion 29 June 2005 06:41 (UTC)
I miss all of you and wikipedia too. :D What got me so irritated was when I went all the way to my fren's house to borrow his internet access, only to find this site locked for a software upgrade a few days ago! LOL!--Huaiwei 29 June 2005 06:44 (UTC)
About the photographs, check out these amazing pictures at a CHIJ Primary website. I found this when google "Sarong Kebaya" and my jaw dropped! Anyone who is a CHIJ alumni or know the principal? -- Vsion 29 June 2005 07:40 (UTC)
Wakaoz.....aiyah lets just find our own models lah. Or be the models! I will be safely behind the camera thou. :D --Huaiwei 29 June 2005 07:54 (UTC)

A proposal to set a precedent for articles about Singapore places, and the Singapore article itself

Introduction

This is a rather long statement, bearing on a speech, so bear with me. Or, if you're impatient, you can skip down to the actual proposal, rather than hearing the beginning, which is the justification for such a proposal and why it should be considered over other alternatives.

I've thought more and more about the articles concerning Singapore, and I've come to a few conclusions. Firstly, I guess the thing is theme cohesion and completeness. To have a perfect article (or at least one that you can sigh relief and look back at it as our masterpiece), it needs to be complete, covering every area, and presenting it well. Hence, it covers components from culture to history, as well as division by division (Singapore places)...and to ease presentation, have a general => more specific => even more specific => most specific kind of taxonomical flow for moving content off to different articles. This has been done somewhat, but a lot of general important areas hasn't been covered, namely, mention of the importance and the role of the individual divisions and towns, urban planning, etc. - which needs its own section almost. Then, the fact that the scope of each section overlaps somewhat, and where it doesn't overlap, is simply because content hasn't been included on that part. Hence, this needs to be resolved.

The need for taxonomy

So obviously an important part depends on taxonomy and how articles are organised. We shouldn't have articles making vague references to one another all over the place, rather one needs to be organised under another, for the sake of well, clarity, and so the reader can easily grasp the entire picture. For example, Ang Mo Kio is, in its purest essence, planning area or no planning area, a town, having its own subculture (probably little distinction between other towns, so it's more in terms of attractions and amenities and resident culture, ie. does it have a strong elderly population, does it have a strong youth population). It is home to an extensive amount of residents. It plays a role in mainly housing and education, and some commercial amenities, and little light industry, if any. Compare this to Jurong, with medium industry (heavier ones off to Jurong Island), some residential area, it is a regional centre so it has some commercial amenities as well, but strong emphasis on industry. The Central Area is the central business district, mainly commercial, little housing and industry...etc. mention all this in a main, unifying article or section, which then is tied in to the Singaporea rticle itself. Then the town would be classified according to geographical location, and we can use a traditional rough indicator "south-west Singapore" for Jurong, for example, or perhaps a more defined one, "North-East Region" for some of the other towns, for example. The reader would be able to learn about Singapore far more easily than now. This again, needs to be well linked into the main Singapore article, as for example, Jurong plays a part in both history, politics, culture, economy and geography of Singapore, as do all the other towns, because of economic or residental contribution, GRC's, etc.

As an example again, GRC's - they overlap - while Singapore has 55 planning areas, there are 84 seats, but of course, far less GRC's, even less than the planning areas, in fact. So again, one sort of system needs to be prevalent over the other. This is important: urban planning is a major component of Singapore, just as the port is, just as its culture is...but again, urban planning overlaps, or at least where to place this section. Then of course, there is the fact that Government of Singapore is embarassingly a...stub. This is probably because "Laws of Singapore" and "Politics of Singapore" contains overlapping material compared to Government of Singapore, which starves it of material. Again, organisational taxonomy is key.

There are many ways to organise our articles. Thus, having stated the need for such a scheme, I now state my proposal:

The actual proposal

Singapore Places

Some of this originated from the dilemna at Sengkang versus Ang Mo Kio. Both have great content. At least according to the WikiProject Singapore Places guidelines, one is inconsistent in style to the other, yet they both seem fairly well. One of the things that should be reminded is, we should treat articles like Ang Mo Kio Planning Area as a subarticle of Ang Mo Kio. They are very closely correlated. In fact, they should be considered to have the same relationship as Culture of Singapore has with the article Singapore - one the subset of the other. But for example with Ang Mo Kio, I don't see the Ang Mo Kio Planning Area a subsection of the Ang Mo Kio article, I only see it under "see also" - they are not similar articles - but rather, one is the subset of the other. The Ang Mo Kio planning area is to basically plan and allot urban development for the area known as Ang Mo Kio, in relation with the rest of the country. The Ang Mo Kio New Town is to create residential, commercial and cultural infrastructure for the people living in Ang Mo Kio, or for Singaporeans who have chosen to "migrate" from some other part of Singapore to Ang Mo Kio.

Sengkang seems well integrated with itself. However, the other problem is that going into specifics like urban planning details and each amenity isn't necessary for an article about the general area. It needs to be moved into a specific article. But such articles, when they move off, needs to be well-linked with its parent. So thus, and urban planning area article should state how this affects or improves the lives of people, or the economy, or the culture or attractions of Ang Mo Kio. If I state details like, "the New Town is laid in such and such a fashion, complete with this and that", then a statement like "this improves the usage of space in Ang Mo Kio" should also be included, and back to the other article, a statement such as, "a New Town has been built in order to save the space used in Ang Mo Kio, while housing her residences better..." would also be wanted.

This also applies to GRC's. Again, when we create things like "[Singaporean Place] Planning Area" we should remember not to alienate a daughter article from its parent article, nor when editing an article about that Singaporean place, whether it be Ang Mo Kio, Dover, Pasir Ris or otherwise, to include specifics in the general article when they should be in the daughter article. Simply because they disrupt flow when reading about other general things about the area. If I'm reading about say, how Pasir Ris is a housing centre, and its initial history, main issues facing it, and its economic and commercial contributions as a whole, (ie. it has several shopping centres, with such and such a role ), I don't need specific commercial shops to be named, that should be within the New Town article, or in fact, perhaps even the commercial amenities article as a subset of that article. Unless of course, it's a landmark, like the Expo or something. That is what I mean by taxonomical organising.

Language is important. Rather than say, "Jurong Planning Area (or its equivalent, I need to check the URA map) is an important industrial area in Singapore" - which belongs to Jurong, rather say, because Jurong is an important industrial area - the geographical location, "Jurong Planning Area" is defined by the URA to fit urban planning to accomodate industrial growth in Jurong, which is important to it" as an opening statement.

However, new articles, still at stub status say, we shouldn't need to have articles like say, "Queenstown Planning Area", if the actual Queenstown article itself is lacking. (Which it is.) This is just not to alienate the two articles from each other, as well as cause unneeded redundancy about the role it plays - one should temporarily redirect to the other. We should also consider applying this to MRT Stations (ie. the ones in red) to their appropriate place area first, as a section first, then split it off again when we have way more information. (Ie. a paragraph or more about it's relevance to the place it is in) - then it becomes part of say, the "transport" section. Sengkang New Town, which currently redirects to Sengkang, actually has enough material (from Sengkang, which precisely has overlapping, specific information that can be organised into section articles) - for example, should be a subsection of the Sengkang Article....using the ever useful {{main|[[article name]]}} template. Perhaps I will fix that soon. I just wanted to declare the precedent, and see if anyone agreed.

And integration into the rest of the articles

Having classified place articles to resolve this sticky tendency, then of course, there is the bigger picture. The main thing is also to thus present the different areas within Singapore in an organised manner from the top-down, and it has to be well, succinct. A crowded template box doesn't really suit it, especially if you want to get a good idea of Singapore's different locations. So I suggest classifying them into North-East, Central, etc. (basically following the 5 URA regions), while giving the link to each respective region, just calling it "Towns in North-East Singapore" and a separate one for "islands"...but that would require a dozen new templates, but it would make it rather organised. Ie. so if I look up the Downtown Core I'd see at most the different divisions in the Central Region, although a link to the entire "places in Singapore" article which would link back to the different other regions would be there.

This is because we were getting a funny thing with different areas, ie. Dover or Chinatown, seemingly being alongside as equivalents of Queenstown and Ang Mo Kio, I think for organisation's sake we can classify Dover under Queesntown, as a place within Queenstown (hence a subarticle), as well as treat other smaller areas not being roughly the equivalent of the 55 planning areas themselves as a subordinate of those areas. This would ease the dilemna.

The subarticles can also have convergent parents. Precisely because all the different areas and articles overlap in area, an article "Transport in Sengkang" would mainly be a subarticle of Sengkang, but also be a section perhaps, within "Transport in Singapore", given as it's part of the transport network. (Depending of course, we have enough information in the first place: this for future considerations).

And the ultimate of all, how to mention all this in the Singapore article. I think the place articles basically should be a subset of Geography and Climate of Singapore, as an entire subarticle - hence it's mention in Geography of Singapore would be a few paragraphs, while linking back, and a mention in the Singapore article as one or two. "Singapore is divided into regions, and then divided into towns", and with a mention of the Central Area. From here, a template which basically recalls the five regions (but not going into the specific towns for neatness, that's why it was important to classify them) would be placed in the Singapore article. Then a short discourse on the roles of each area, ie. one region is mainly industrial, the Central Region is substantially commercial, especially in the Central Area. Having laid this out, in areas like Economy of Singapore and Culture of Singapore, these divisions can be further commented on, (namely in terms of economic and cultural contribution), without having to go into detail about urban planning - that would be in the daughter article within Geography of Singapore, for example.

Elaboration on urban planning would be part of the Urban Geography section. Seeing its importance in playing a role in our nation, we need an article "Urban planning in Singapore", although this would be a subarticle belonging to Urban Geography, perhaps, it would also be able to be mentioned in other sections, ie. History of Singapore, Economy of Singapore, when appropriate.

Overlapping Divisions: political versus geographical parentage

I haven't thought about how to introduce the Government of Singapore yet into the article. As far as I know however, Laws of Singapore, for example, should actually be under Government of Singapore. Hence, the two main articles should be Government of Singapore, Politics of Singapore, rather than the current combination. The Government of Singapore would be a subarticle of Politics of Singapore, perhaps, just with the second link for clarity and ease of use. The "Politics of Singapore" should be an article about Singapore's political climate, and about the political system: Government of Singapore should go into the government itself. Seeing how as the constant campaigns, different programmes it has, budgeting, subsidies, etc. should be part of "Government of Singapore".

The mention of the different electoral divisions would be part of Politics of Singapore, of course, (which we have yet to even outline them), but an article about an electoral division, would be basically correlating to the fact that it represents a geographical area, ie. probably a town, or a region. Hence, an article about "West Coast GRC" (when we get one), would be mainly a political article, but would have to be closely interlinked with its geographical counterpart - its purpose is to represent the towns within the West Coast.

Lastly, photos. Mostly I feel it's because there isn't enough space, so hence, maybe a photo gallery at the bottom, and not a sweeping one containing everything from the commons, but perhaps in addition to illustrating the main sections, representing each component of Singapore, ie. the industry, Sentosa, the port, the central business district from really close (think claustrophobia close), looking upwards; the HDB flats (we really need good photos of some of those, of various types) This would really push it to the standard of a featured article, helping to wrap it up - but again, each of the photos should not be redundant, ie. we don't want to see two photos of the same industrial building (in the same article). Stuff like the that. Coastline, especially, and Bukit Timah.

This would make it a complete coverage - do all of you agree? Of course, it wouldn't be the end, it would be complete in the sense that one has completed school for example, and can now, having the base framework laid out, can get on to really specific things without having to worry about alienating articles. Any suggestions welcome. If this policy is agreed on, I feel, it would be universal (in terms of Singaporean articles) enough to warrant notification on the Singapore article talk page itself...although perhaps it's more of updating the todo list kind of thing. This of course would require modifying to the WikiProject Singapore Places as appropriate.

Natalinasmpf 1 July 2005 22:44 (UTC)

I basically agree with most of the above, the organisation, taxonomy, 5 URA areas, GRCs, etc, Ang Mo Kio Planning Area is clearly a subarticle of Ang Mo Kio. However, my only concern is regarding (for example) splitting Sengkang New Town from Sengkang, which is going to be difficult given the current content in Sengkang. If we force a split (whatever way), I'm afraid neither articles would be as good as the current one. Argh ... it quite a dilemna ... -- Vsion 3 July 2005 09:12 (UTC)

National Day Parade, 2005

Hi folks, I started the article on National Day Parade, 2005 (with some plagiarism from National Day Parade). This is an interesting topic, don't u think so? Please join in and contribute! (Photos needed!) -- Vsion 3 July 2005 21:09 (UTC)

emergency cleanup needed

Well I'll try to get to it, but I need to ell you that Demographics of Singapore and Bus transport in Singapore really needs some emergency editing and substantiation, especially for articles of their stature. -- Natalinasmpf 16:42, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

People's Action Party

Look at it. It has serious POV issues. Some points are valid though.

Strange, surprising, even shocking that this is allowed to stand. In USA this would have sparked off an edit war. Speaks volumes about Singaporean's political sensibilities. Mandel July 7, 2005 02:42 (UTC)

How is it POV? Looks perfectly fine to me. In fact, we need more content like that, if anything. -- Natalinasmpf 7 July 2005 02:50 (UTC)

I just read the article, and it seems okay to me too; although it is far from complete. -- Vsion 7 July 2005 03:46 (UTC)

For starters:

"The party was formed in 1954 by English-educated middle-class men who had returned from Britain."

If this is completely true, why is there a split in 1960s of factions within PAP Barisan Sosialis Party? Some of them are, but not all.

"However, the prospect that PAP might rule Malaysia upset PAP relations with UMNO:"

????

Adopting a traditionalist Leninist party?

PAP started out as a socialist party, not a Leninist party.

Even though PAP can be credited with the economic success of Singapore, it rules the country with authoritarianism....One example of such oppression is all demonstrations against the 2003 Iraq war withered due to lack of demonstration permits registered by the demonstrators.

"Authoritarianism" and "Oppression" are POV. For an accurate description of authoritarianism, try Britannica:

"principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action. In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people. Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily and without regard to existing bodies of law, and they usually cannot be replaced by citizens choosing freely among various competitors in elections. The freedom to create opposition political parties or other alternative political groupings with which to compete for power with the ruling group is either limited or nonexistent in authoritarian regimes."

Or a dictionary:

Authoritarianism - a political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule [5]

The leading newspaper of Singapore, the Straits Times is often perceived as a propaganda newspaper because it is rarely criticises of government policy, and covers little about the opposition.

Propanganda is POV, to "propagate (actively spread) a philosophy or point of view". For benefits of Singaporeans, whom I reckon will not understand what the term "propanganda" is, try answers.com:

Modern propaganda is distinguished from other forms of communication in that it is consciously and deliberately used to influence group attitudes; all other functions are secondary...
Official government communications to the public that are designed to influence opinion. The information may be true or false, but it is always carefully selected for its political effect. [6]

Presentation of facts. All criticisms, which make it difficult to understand why PAP was voted in from the 1960s to 1990s (at least before they gerrymander). Mandel July 7, 2005 13:14 (UTC)

I agree with all the points except Straits Times not being propaganda. It IS government sanctioned/censored and it does indeed not cover anything about opposition parties.
Propaganda is not NPOV. Everything is propaganda, be they produced by the USSR, PRC, USA, Singapore or McDonalds'. Everything that tries to influence a person's opinion is propaganda, and as such, everything is propaganda. (Even purely quantitative statements, like "There's 2 apples on the table" is propaganda, for you never know whether are real apple or wax moulds unless you bite on them, at which point the propaganda has already done its work ;) you get my point.) That is my personal definition, of course. (But from an expert on propaganda, haha!)
And I have to criticise your misguided opinion that Singaporeans are ignorant. ;) They're not. Like the people of most countries, they are brainwashed. But they're not stupid. At least in the context of understanding (the government sanctioned meaning of) propaganda. As for whether they can recognise something as propaganda however, is a wholly different matter. -Hmib 16:53, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

If everything and everywhere is propaganda, then nothing is, since the word propaganda will lose all possible meaning.:) If there are no differentiation between man and woman, then the term "gender" will cease to exist.:) The important distinction of political propaganda is active propagation - you must actively indoctrinate your people with the political ideas. If you merely state you support some party, that's not propaganda. If you do not cover news from opposition, that's not propaganda either, merely political bias.

I didn't state PAP does not produce propaganda. But to say ST is propagandistic material just because it does not cover opposition news is a misunderstanding of the word "propaganda".

And I did not say Singaporeans are ignorant. They are ignorant and uninterested about politics, and by choice (yah, they have a choice, they live in democratic country, Americans). Mandel 17:34, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

POV issues? These things perceived as. For propaganda, it's not the articles' official stance', but Singaporeans stance. Ask any taxi driver, they'll tell you it's all propaganda. In any case, the ruling government has already gone through massive constitutional violations, and I believe this qualifies for "authoritarianism". It is precisely that Singapore is not the US that this doesn't spark off an edit war. I don't seem to find a flaw in the article at all. It didn't start out as Leninist party, but it adopted the same structure, although the aims may be different. I believe you are confused on how the Barisian Sosialis got into the picture as well...they weren't part of the founders of the party; they were allowed in because Lee Kuan Yew thought he could control them as subordinates...sort of how Hindenberg thought he could control Hitler as chancellor, of course, with vastly different implications. -- Natalinasmpf 19:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Leninism is a very specific term - it implies a communist slant. "Authoritarianism" is also used much more loosely than it ought to be. It implies that the authority given is not constitutional, not governed by democratic procedures, but the fact that the country actually voted for PAP in much of the history of Singapore (before they gerrymander of course) would belie this. If one would use the term authoritarianism this way, one needs to redefine it, at least in this article.
My gripe with propaganda lies in how it is used to describe the ST, not PAP. The PAP obviously produces tons and tons of propaganda materials.
It will be much better to describe the PAP as a brainchild of the British-educated rather than formed by them; the early PAP is something like a coalition between them and left-wing pro-Communist members. For example, one of prominent founding members of PAP was Fong Swee Suan, Secretary-General of the Bus Workers’ Union. Maybe the word "largely" before the "formed by them" is missing. Mandel 23:50, July 11, 2005 (UTC)