Talk:Calvin Cheng

@The Gnome: We had consensus for this change (I like yours) for some time now. Would you take a shot at adding your proposed version in a way that incorporates the sources cited in the first proposed revision? ~Anachronist (talk) 19:58, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I have added it to article as per the RFC. Kept the wording by Gnome.--BukitBintang8888 (talk) 14:32, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Given the amount of COI editing on this article for more than 10 years, I am not sure how to look at this attempt to remove this content , The Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) noted in its decision that as president of the Association of Modelling Industry Professionals Singapore (AMIP), Cheng played a central role by instructing AMIP members how to mask the collusion to evade detection and complaints. There is a secondary source for this and this information is particularly relevant as Cheng tried to file an appeal against the CCS decision specifically as he considering it to be damaging to his character.--BukitBintang8888 (talk) 14:30, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

While it was removed supposedly on WP:BLPREQUESTRESTORE, the information is verifiable and reliable as well as relevant and in no case a BLP violation. So unless someone can prove the contrary, I don't see why this should be removed.--BukitBintang8888 (talk) 14:54, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Please quote something from Concurrences, that supports this claim. I do not have access to it. We cannot rely on "point 213h, page 95" which is a primary source court document. Concurrences is the only secondary source presented that is acceptable to Wikipedia per WP:BLPPRIMARY. Because this issue has become contentious, anything not found in secondary sources should be removed. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 15:14, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

There is an entire section in Concurrences which discusses this issue and calls him Calvin Cheng, a director and shareholder of Looque, one of the Appellants, was held by the CCS as being the leader and instigator of the cartel. As for RedwireTimes, there is no evidence it is unreliable. Sure, it is an alternate media in Singapore (as mainstream media is under government influence). That doesn't make it unreliable. It is also quoted by other media such as at , , , . More importantly, in this particular case the information in redwire times can be verified from the primary source as well, so it is reliable here.--BukitBintang8888 (talk) 15:24, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I have started a discussion at WP:RSN about Redwire. I also wish you would stop relying on primary sources like CCS. This whole situation would be so much easier. If you relied solely on secondary sources, there would be zero issues. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 15:30, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

We have had this discussion (it's there is the archives where a COI editor constantly tried to whitewash this article).--BukitBintang8888 (talk) 15:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

The issue with Singapore is that there is a dearth of secondary sources given its small area and press freedom. In a BLP, the primary source can be used to augment content and in this case it is useful.--BukitBintang8888 (talk) 16:02, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Please comment at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#"This commentary was submitted by A.S.E.". --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 16:34, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I recently had an opportunity to converse with Mr Cheng about this article. He maintained that the statement "Cheng profited from..." is factually wrong, he never profited personally. I told him I'd look into it.

Examining the sources, I found three discrepancies, unrelated to each other:

• Unsourced claim: The citations in the article say nothing about Cheng claiming his goal was to "raise wages for models". The Straits Times source that verified this claim was in a version proposed in the closed discussion above, but somehow got omitted after the discussion closed.
• Failed verification: I was unable to find any verification in any cited source for the statement "Cheng profited...." The CCS report says that "entities" profited, but the context is about modeling agencies, not individuals. The article states that Cheng's appeal was denied because he was never personally fined, and we cite a source verifying this, but the source doesn't say he personally profited (and it's likely he would have been fined if he had profited). As it stands, the statement violates WP:BLP.
• Possibly unreliable source: Redwire Times seems to be defunct, existing now only as a Facebook presence that solicits contributions from anyone, which seemed to be the case with the present citation too. While the cited Redwire piece (now on archive.org) includes useful links to official documents, the article is clearly an editorial written in first-person, and submitted to Redwire by a person identified only by the initials "A.S.E." Because that source is backed up by official records cited in the same two sentences, it is redundant and could be removed.

Given those points, some surgical changes to the article are in order, adding the missing source, removing the phrase "profited from the higher agency commissions", and removing an editorial as a source. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:45, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

It has been four months since I made the observations above. Absent any objection, I have made these surgical changes to the article. ~Anachronist (talk) 06:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Anachronist Can I with you on your comment during the revert: "The WP:BURDEN to include this gossip has not been met. Cheng posts a lot, and his posts get written about.".

Considering this was covered by no less than 5 different news sources to date, across the political spectrum (2 clearly state media and 1 considered anti-establishment), and the news is covering the reactions of the general public to his post, rather than just mentioning what he did. Surely this crosses the definition of "gossip"?

Just want clarification as it's been a while since I actively edited (as you can tell from my edit history and trying to remember how to format sources), threshold seems a bit different from what I recall from last time. Zhanzhao (talk) 05:54, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Also on another note, @Anachronist, can you share the source of the prize that Calvin Cheng created still exists in 2020? I did a search on both Google and the college website, which only turns up the one-time 2017 donation. His name does show up in donation lists for the years after, but that's just a "generic" list of donors with no mention that it was to maintain a specific prize under his name. Zhanzhao (talk) 06:04, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Cheng posts a lot on social media. The reactions on social media get covered by news sources. Over and over. There is no reason to single out one social media incident over others. He's a controversial figure, so a lot of what he says becomes news because he pushes people's buttons. WP:INDISCRIMINATE says that just because something is true and verifiable doesn't autmoatically merit inclusion in an article. I would say this applies to most social media activity. It's coverage of gossip.

The fact that he established a prize is worthy of mentioning; the fact that he did this doesn't expire just because time passes. Prizes do tend to be established once, and then are awarded annually thereafter. I didn't save the sources I found, but see the section I started below. I am uncomfortable with this fact being in the Education section of the article. ~Anachronist (talk) 06:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Ah I found mentions of the prize now that you mentioned linkedin. Thanks! Oddly the college doesn't list the prize name on their site, plus I see 2 linkedin awardees refer to it alternately as the Calvin Cheng Prize" and "Calvin Cheng Award" which adds to the confusion. Zhanzhao (talk) 08:08, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Seems like Cheng himself is not allowing the topic to die off. Also even Ho Ching has words for Cheng's "shame and name" campaign. Anyways at this rate, there seems to be enough material for a section on digital assets to consolidate his business forays and how he is pushing it. In the meantime, just putting these here as potential sources if this is revisited.

New Sources

'This is mad': Ex-NMP Calvin Cheng, who's for cashless society, slams MP Don Wee over new Choa Chu Kang ATM

While sharing Sun's Facebook post on Thursday (Feb 17), Ho Ching also referenced Calvin Cheng's comments and said: "Indeed there is no need to shame others for using cash. What matters is that the heart is in the right place."

[]

Original Writeup Zhanzhao (talk) 02:40, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

One item that seems out of place in the education section is the bit about establishing a scholarship prize at Hertford. I was able to find some evidence (a LinkedIn profile of a Hertford graduate and another university document) suggesting that this prize still gets awarded. However, it should probably be in a section about philanthropy.

There are a couple other sources providing further evidence of philanthropy:

• https://www.comchest.gov.sg/docs/default-source/event/ncss_community-chest-awards-2020_booklet.pdf - this government publication gives a trivial mention to Cheng receiving an award for fundraising and giving efforts. I am not sure how notable the award is, although being established by the government, it probably is notable in Singapore. It is recognition of philanthropy, however.
• https://fintechnews.sg/11846/fintech/launch-singapore-valley-awards/ - says that Cheng and others provided over S$3 million of seed money to fund the "Singapore Valley Awards".

I wouldn't say these are strong sources, but they do verify an attribute of Cheng's career. One example wouldn't merit a section, but multiple examples might. I don't know if there are more. ~Anachronist (talk) 06:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes that award/prize definitely makes more sense under a "Philanthropy" section.

Retech, a company that Cheng merged one of his companies into, and for which Cheng is a co-chairman, is having some problems. According to the edits recently added by Zhanzhao (which I have removed, for reasoning below), the problems are these:

• The stock was suspended in 2022.
• In February 2023, Retech was taken to courts over its failure to repay debts citing covid complications.
• A winding-up petition (liquidation? bankruptcy?) was filed by its creditor.
• Cheng resigned his directorship in June 2023.

All of these facts are verifiable by sources.

What isn't established is whether Cheng induced, or was involved with, any of these events (save the last one of course). The presentation of the facts and ordering implies an entanglement that isn't established by the sources, treading dangerously into WP:SYNTH territory and consequently a WP:BLP violation, and we shouldn't go there.

Certainly we can say he resigned his directorship, because that's something Cheng actually did. The sources documenting the other events don't mention Cheng at all, so including them here looks like an indirect way to synthesize a conclusion that the sources don't actually say. That is why I removed ZhanZhao's addition. ~Anachronist (talk) 02:35, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I will agree to just list the resignation while Retech's troubles are independent (as it is not verifiable it is due to Cheng's involvement or otherwise). Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 02:56, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Calvin Cheng wasn't merely a director, he was a Chairman of the directors. As clearly indicated in the World Economic Forum page https://www.weforum.org/people/calvin-cheng. This happened under his watch. To say what happend to the company when he was chairman is irrelevant or synthesis, is really wiki-lawyering it. Just like nobody would question any major happening or decision related to Tesla to be in Elon Musks' page. Zhanzhao (talk) 03:03, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

That's a poor example as Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla so any major decision or happening has to be decided by him. Unless it can be proved that Cheng is acting as a CEO (or similar capacity) of Retech, being chairman of directors does not mean he is directly involved in decisions made by Retech. The role of directors is to guide and direct, daily operations are still managed by the CEO or similar capacity. Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 03:19, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

My blushes, I forgot Musk was removed from his chairman seat a while back. But back to Calvin Cheng, him being Chairman of Directors is highly relevant. The chairman and the board's role is actually to ensures that the firm's duties to shareholders are being fulfilled by acting as a link between the board and upper management. The stock being delisted and hence affecting the shareholders comes under his direct jurisdiction. Not to mention he was the one who led the company to IPO in the first place. PS: His role also involves picking the right CEO to run the company properly, but that can be left out for now. Zhanzhao (talk) 03:57, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

So let's say Retech's issues are caused by poor decisions by the CEO which are not guided by the board of directors, then how will this be attributed to Cheng? This is what Anachronist and I are pointing out. The troubles are caused by factors, which may or not have his involvement. The statement you made become problematic as it is not verifiable by sources that whether is it due to him. There is WP:SYNTHESIS in saying since he is the chair of the board so he must be involved which is unverifiable.

By your logic, any Tesla's issues should not be attributable to Elon Musk since he is the CEO and not the Chairman of the board directors.

I can accept mentioning the company stock being suspended which is the current state of the article. Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 04:15, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm traveling this week so will have limited access to Wikipedia.

What kind of director is Cheng? If independent director, then he is independent of the company's day to day business. An independent director would likely resign if there were adverse news coming out about the company he's independent of.

Why was the stock suspended? This is a common and non-controversial practice if the company is preparing to relist its stock on another exchange. I removed that sentence because the cited sources say nothing about it, although we can add it back if proper sources can be found. The current sources described instead how Retech would settle some large debts, which hardly seem relevant to this biography.

The point is that we cannot make implications that violate WP:BLP. Context matters. The context of these additions is not clear, and I don't expect to have time to investigate more fully for several days.

If the goings-on with Retech are truly attributable to Cheng, then by all means we need to include it. But this "guilt by association" POV pushing that seems evident by the way these facts are included isn't acceptable and would be a WP:BLP violation. ~Anachronist (talk) 14:04, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

@Anachronist He was the chairman of the board of directors. That is as active as one gets in terms of directorship. Per the role of a chairman, he would be the one to authorise any voluntary delisting. There are more articles on the state of the company on Chinese media under its Chinese name 睿泰科技, and seems to be an ongoing story - I just checked and there's been a string of mass resignations so it's not a done case. I'll get back to this in the future. As an irregular editor this article is unnecessarily taking too much of my time. Zhanzhao (talk)• Zhanzhao (talk) 00:21, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

It's original research to assume that he had an active role in these dealings or that he authorized anything simply by virtue of his position, if not explicitly stated in sources. As a counter-point, Retech's own corporate governance statement (page 6) requires the chairman to be an independent director. An independent director, according to our Wikipedia article on it, is "a member of a board of directors who does not have a material or pecuniary relationship with company or related persons." Therefore I am skeptical that Cheng had any direct involvement with the goings-on in the news at Retech. It's more likely he performs ceremonial duties like bringing meetings to order and calling for votes.

I do agree with you about this article taking too much time, irregular or not; I'm a regular editor and have a lot of other things on my watchlist to deal with. Nevertheless, this is a biography about a living person, and WP:BLP policy requires that any statement about a living person, especially controversial statements about controversial people, be backed up solidly by reliable sources, and not by conclusions synthesized from sources. Other BLPs on my watchlist receive the same level of scrutiny. ~Anachronist (talk) 10:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)