Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Singapore

I've noticed quite a number of The Online Citizen (TOC) citations (or its spin-offs such as Gutzy Asia and Heidoh) being used on Singapore-related articles, usually by TAs, new users, or "on-and-off" editors. Looking at the archives, it seems like TOC's reliability hasn't properly been established yet, but considering its "colourful history", I'm leaning towards it being a questionable source. I'm looking for input from other editors on this. Aleain (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

It's a website for political activism. We don't know anything about its editorial oversight, or even the qualifications of its "editors". It seems that TOC allows whatever to be published on their website, including stuff that prompted the government to intervene several times over misinformation; the veracity of the government's justification is not certain as the original TOC articles were deleted, but I'm inclined to think that it is prone to misinformation given the lack of information on its editorial oversight (not to mention how TOC published an article with the exceptional claim that the Singapore government had "corruption at the highest echelons"... but that was 8 years ago). So probably questionable. Icepinner (Come to Hakurei Shrine!) 15:23, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

@Aleain: I'd say that it's aligned with the Singaporean opposition Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 02:07, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

@Aleain Reviving this, I think should be considered as WP:GUNREL. In 2018, it was revealed that the outlet was basically a one-man show for some time, which makes the editorial control quite a suspect, especially when it had been proven, whether we like it or not, that it had been wrong on basic facts by the authorities over and over again, and even as recent as March 2026. As for from when its articles should be considered as unreliable, we can take February 2018 as the date, when TOC was de-gazetted as a "political association" because it has been operated by Xu himself, alone. – robertsky (talk) 03:54, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Ok, are we very sure that this could never be construed as the government talking bullshit using POFMA? Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 04:00, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

There's no way to prove that, of course, but you can read the government's official statements on the matter (1, 2). I believe the issue is – whether the government is interfering or not – that it has been proven that TOC has published false information. Besides, the discussion is on TOC's reliability, not particularly on whether the POFMAs are justified.

Additionally, TOC has been run mainly by Terry Xu since 2018 (possibly since 2016 as well) and the opinions of one person can't really be considered reliable. Regarding its team, the TOC states about itself that it "has never been a large operation", and that it is "supported by a small editorial team and a group of committed volunteers", though it remains vague on an exact number. Thus, I agree with Robertsky that TOC should be WP:GUNREL. – actuall7 (talk | contrib) 06:16, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

An editor has requested that Eileen Chong (politician) be moved to Eileen Chong, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. S5A-0043🚎^(Talk) 13:36, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

An editor has requested that Diana Pang (Singaporean politician) be moved to another page, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 02:36, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Lord Mountbatten#Requested move 10 March 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Jacksonvil (talk|contribs) 22:27, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

The article Chang & Eng has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unsourced for almost 17 years. Tagged as Unreferenced for almost 3 years. No other language has a reliably sourced article from which to translate. Fails the relevant notability guidelines. Lacks significant coverage.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion based on established criteria.

If the proposed deletion has already been carried out, you may request undeletion of the article at any time. Bearian (talk) 16:21, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

An editor has requested that River Valley High School, Singapore be moved to River Valley High School, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 06:16, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi there! Just a heads-up, I've done the work of linking boundaries of SMCs, GRCs, and GRC division/wards that someone's added in OSM to Wikidata, and I'm currently making interactive maps of them in their respective articles (eg. Sembawang Group Representation Constituency), with SMCs coming shortly. Any feedback is welcome. –twotwofourtysix^{(talk || edits)} 07:02, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

An editor has requested that Benny Lim Siang Hoe be moved to Benny Lim, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 02:08, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

Constitution of the Republic of Singapore Tribunal has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Carrying over from User talk:Whyiseverythingalreadyused#Non-Mandarin Chinese romanisations where @Freelance Intellectual confronted @Whyiseverythingalreadyused over mass removal of non-mandarin chinese romanisations added by me and @Cr1ngef1sh. My compromise for this since the main complaint of Whyiseverythingalreadyused is the removal of mandarin romanisation (although the user also removed non-mandarin romanisations from pages that included mandarin and non-mandarin romanisation) is that we keep both mandarin and non-mandarin romanisations. If this compromise can be reached I will add both mandarin and non-mandarin romanisations together on pages. (Also tagging @Danielbunchie and @Vampyricon since they also decided to insert themselves into this) Warpswitch (talk) 04:25, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

@Warpswitch: I am here, though I may be active on-and-off because I'm about to return to the polytechnic term

I'd like to retract my prior accusations of an SPA ring if that works Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 04:34, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Sure, just to double confirm you are fine with my proposal of keeping keep both mandarin and non-mandarin romanisations? Warpswitch (talk) 04:38, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I'd say when the latter are clearly relevant... say, historical? Dialects are deprecated under the Singaporean national agenda, and we generally don't spell this man as Lí Tì-seng since the POJ does not appear to serve a historical purpose on the article about him Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 04:47, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

The point of romanisation of chinese names on english wikipedia is to show where their "english" names come from in the chinese context. Including the mandarin romanisation of 李智陞 "Lǐ Zhìshēng" does not help a user understand the hokkien "Lí Tì-seng" derived "english" name Lee Ti-Seng. Mandarin is an official langauge in SG yes I understand but that but that does not warrant the lack of inclusion of the actual language the name comes from. Warpswitch (talk) 04:57, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Oh yeah sure Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 05:00, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

(not in the sarcastic manner, just in case anyone mistakes my intention) Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 05:01, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for opening up the discussion. However if the main point at hand is relevance, then why is the Mandarin Pinyin there at all? And what does the Singaporean national agenda have to do with how somebody's name is romanised on Wikipedia? Danielbunchie (talk) 05:01, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I'm not entirely opposed to pinyin, I just feel the actual language the english transliteration comes from should have precedence for clarity's sake. Sorry if my previous reply came across as combative btw, I'm just saying it's a dangerous political precedent to erase languages that are historically & culturally relevant (and still alive and widely spoken today) just because one country's government seeks to deprecate them. Danielbunchie (talk) 05:10, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks... I do get your point, and sorry for my own prior combativeness

I just feel that, as the dialect of spoken Chinese largest by a great margin, Mandarin has greater general relevance and hence takes precedence in a series of dialectal readings Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 05:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Nobody is erasing anything. If you can found sources, I be happy to put it in for you. You are free to expand the relevant articles in the Southern Min Wikipedia. You are adding things that are OR and SYNTH! ~ JASWE (talk) 06:33, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I will remind everyone of WP:ADVOCACY. The Singaporean national agenda is irrelevant to Wikipedia. Vampyricon (talk) 15:36, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

And so is insisting on deducing one's dialect without verification. – robertsky (talk) 16:03, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

The argument for only Mandarin Pinyin to be eligible to transcribe someone's name that we know for an absolute verified certainty to not be from the Mandarin language is clearly a far more egregious violation of WP:ADVOCACY's core principle of "a neutral point of view". Danielbunchie (talk) 01:33, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Of course. But that means that one cannot add Pinyin to names either without verification. Separately, given the linguistic history of Singapore's Chinese community (that is, with Hokkien being a lingua franca), I can understand the argument for adding a Hokkien romanization but not a Mandarin one for articles of that period, but I cannot see a reasonable argument for adding a Mandarin romanization but not a Hokkien one. Vampyricon (talk) 01:55, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree that we can do without a Mandarin romanization for certain periods, in fact for all periods. The issue is without knowing the dialect heritage of a person, the argument to add a transcription of a certain romanization instead of knowing what is the actual dialect heritage? We are adding a transcription based on what we think and guesswork? Again, I like to point to reliability and verifiability again.

As an extended example,

"I like to know why it is transcribed in this way?"

"Oh, he is a Hokkien."

"Is it? I read the article and there is nothing to indicate he is Hokkien."

"Oh the name is in Hokkien."

"I have names in various dialects and languages so I am multi-dialects etc?" ~ JASWE (talk) 02:19, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes he would be "multi-dialects etc." The overwhelming majority of Singaporean chinese before the 1980s also could converse decently in Hokkien in addition to their native dialect, this is especially true for the teochews in Singapore. I would pay you money to find a fluent teochew speaker in Singapore who is not also fluent in hokkien Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 02:24, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Adding pinyin is given, WP:PINYIN: English Wikipedia uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default method of romanising Chinese characters. There is no differentiation between Mandarin Chinese, Hokkien, Teochew, etc. in the guidelines. – robertsky (talk) 07:00, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, so just to clarify (again as a user and not really an editor), my understanding is that you are saying the guidelines in WP:PINYIN take precedence over Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue? Is this because one is a guideline rather than an essay? Eyteo (talk) 07:14, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I would say yes; see Wikipedia:Don't cite essays or proposals as if they were policy (which, ironically, is itself an essay). Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 07:17, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

😂 (on the ironic part) – robertsky (talk) 07:20, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Ah okay! So if I am understanding this correctly, it voids most of the conversation that has happened here since most arguments were based on the false basis of Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue when the actual outcome is not decided on that but rather WP:PINYIN? Thank you for your responses. Eyteo (talk) 07:25, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes. On the totem pole of precedence: WP:5P < policies/guidelines < site-wide consensus < local consensus < essays. But that being said, policies and guidelines can be updated, usually with site-wide consensus (through WP:RfC, please don't launch one without workshopping with experienced editors as without the workshop, it usually would fail). – robertsky (talk) 07:26, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

(Sorry just side note, I think your '<' should be '>', since the comment in this current state is saying that essays have the highest precedence) Eyteo (talk) 07:35, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

👍 – robertsky (talk) 08:08, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

As with most BLPs that I edited, if there is no evidence of a person's known dialect descent, it will be best omitted from the article. While we generally can guess which dialect the person originate from, the ICA of that olden times is fickle-minded and sometimes interpret based on their own interpretation / spelling etc. Personal experiences of the same household having different variations of a single surname and to a less life changing middle name spelling. So people who are over a certain age might have their name spelled differently from their dialect.

Based on my above reasoning, if it is verifiable, add the correct dialect in. Otherwise, it will be original research to assume the dialect descent and adding on the dialect pronunciation. The question inevitably comes to, show a reference to prove the dialect descent. ~ JASWE (talk) 05:42, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Warpswitch and Danielbunchie, I believe my stand was previously written at the discussion for Etymology sections on MRT/LRT station pages. It remains the same. This was similarly expressed by Paper9oll in the discussion "Adding Hokkien and other "dialect" romanisations to MRT station name pages". Quoting Paper9oll, Without such sources, adding Min Nan romanisations would fall under WP:OR or WP:SYN. ~ JASWE (talk) 05:55, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

By that logic, it is also original research to put the Mandarin dialect romanization, as people do not have official romanizations of their Chinese names in Singapore to my knowledge. Our Chinese names are written ONLY in Chinese characters and the English approximation on official documents such as the NRIC and birth cert. Danielbunchie (talk) 05:58, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

@Danielbunchie: (do not read this as either an endorsement or repudiation)

I believe JASWE's point is that pinyin is not OR, given that it is used as the international standard of Chinese

And then the use of specific non-Mandarin romanisations, unless demonstrated to apply to a person's ancestry, is... he said it already Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 06:05, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

So you are saying we cannot verify the names being printed on the newspaper? If you are suggesting to remove Hanyu pinyin, it is acceptable to translate directly as there is direct official mapping from the Chinese Characters to Hanyu Pinyin.

Let's try a few examples, ming, miah, meow, mia is in which dialect and translates to which chinese character? ~ JASWE (talk) 06:06, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Using "ming, miah, meow, mia" does not help your argument. You are taking sections of names that obviously cannot be deduced from, if I asked you to figure out what language "Hong" is from you obviosuly cannot deduce, but once you have the full name of "Chee Hong Tat" you can easily deduce that it is southern min. Warpswitch (talk) 06:11, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Most Chinese Singaporeans, unlike you, are not experienced in dialects

Check out the curse of knowledge... Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 06:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Is the point of wikipedia not to share knowledge? Warpswitch (talk) 06:23, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Knowledge which can be verified and sourced reliably. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:28, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I know Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 06:33, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

You do know that official standards exist for many non-mandarin languages right? There is no reason to apply one standard to Pinyin and another standard to the others with official statuses. Danielbunchie (talk) 06:34, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I believe Hong Kong has official standardised Jyutping for characters and Hokkien has a fairly standardised Tai-lo and Peh-oe-ji system (there are also many competiting standards for others like Hakka and Teochew which can be generally categorised as either Pinyin-based or Peh-oe-ji based). (Peh-oe-ji and Tai-lo have extra symbols for accent variation btw)

The only issue with the non-mandarin sinitic languages is deciding which character you want to assign to which reading. However, this only occurs for words which do not occur in mandarin (e.g. the character for the Hokkien possesive particle "ê" which on wikitionary lists 8 possible characters it can be representated with.)

Characters in names are for the overwhelming majority universally agreed upon by the entirety of Sinitic. 林 for example has standardised lín in pinyin, lam4 in jyutping, lìm (literary) / nà (colloquial) in Phak-fa-su, nâ (vernacular) / lîm/lêm (literary) in Peh-oe-ji. Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 06:58, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

As for the cases where the names have been recorded in the wrong language, I do agree there is nothing we can do about that if we do not search through the records to identify the language the individual would have spoken at home. I do however think that the wrong romanisations in the wrong language ought to be included if it is the one used for the person's name in english-language sources

I generally think at least a good chunk of wikipedia users look at the romanisation to figure out how the english spelling came about. This would still fulfill that. Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 07:03, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for acknowledging easily deduce, please read WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The issue is that end of the day, you are using contextual clues to estimate or guess the dialect descent, which goes against WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:16, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, please indeed read WP:OR. Please source the claims for the Pinyin romanizations of the names. Vampyricon (talk) 14:48, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I am saying exactly that. You are conflating Chinese characters with other non-logographic scripts that have a direct phonetic correspondence. Let me ask you similarly, how would you write the name 覃重乐 in Pinyin? How would you write the name Zhang Jingwei in Chinese characters? Impossible right? Now if I gave you both the characters and the english spelling it's simple right?

There is in fact a direct official mapping of romanizations like POJ and TL to characters as well fyi. Given the characters AND the phonetic rendering in English, it is usually very clear which is the reading used. Don't argue disingenuously as if only one is known. Danielbunchie (talk) 06:21, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I will not write 覃重乐 in Pinyin at all. Since there are multiple mapping and which is the correct one will requires the said person to verify and written in reliable sources. Any editor who do so will get it reverted once spotted if added without reliable sources as there is no verificability.

Note I am consistently saying I am using reliable sources and that verifiability is important. It is wrong to presume and assume certain pronunciation based on the characters.

Note that you have not been using reliable sources and purely arguing based on assumptions. Hanyu pinyin provides how to pronounce the Chinese name just like adding IPA to an english name. Providing Hokkien or Teochew pronunciation to a dialect name assumes the dialect heritage and excluding the fact that the dialect name could have been a misspell which could have propagated down the generations. Provide proof of his heritage and the bar is actually quite low to allow the pronunciation to be entered in. ~ JASWE (talk) 07:03, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

We cannot reliably deduce one's dialect/ancestry from the 'dialect name' that a person has given that:

1. there can be overlaps in how various dialect groups pronounce one's Chinese name. An example, my name, which I don't mind using since my profile is rather public, 沈鑫佑, or Sim King Yiu in written form. It is "sim him iu" (without the tonality markings) in both Hokkien poj and Teochew pengim. Without telling you my ancestry, how certain can you be sure that I am from either group or not? Also that intermarriages across the various dialect groups are not unheard of in Singapore. What if there is a mishmash of spelling, i.e. canto surname, hokkien personal name, or vice versa?
2. The 'dialect names' that we have were shaped not only by our dialects, but also by colonial/government officials' who might not know how to transliterate correctly. Anecdotally, My grand father and papa time they get their surname spelt according to the dialect group of the person in charge of the registration my papa is Tok卓 as in hock chew 福州话. But his sister who is my 姑妈，her surname is Chok 卓，as in cantomese (sic).

– robertsky (talk) 08:51, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Not gonna tell anyone how to do stuff but I would just like to say that in those situations in Point 1. of mishmashing I put both. (e.g. Chan Lee Kheng (陈丽卿) for which I put both Jyutping and Peh-oe-ji romanisations for Cantonese and Hokkien respectively.) I have done similarly for the common dialect surname + pinyin name combos most chinese singaporeans born post-1979 have, pinyin + the specific dialect of the surname. (e.g. Many of those involved in the 2010 Downtown East stabbing )

Point 2. of mistakes in the transcriptions by government offcials is unfortunately a big issue which I have not much answer to other than trying to dig into their ancestries or contacting them in person., Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 15:06, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

both are pretty much WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:OR respectively. – robertsky (talk) 16:02, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

And the Pinyin that was there before isn't? We must either (1) follow WP:OR and WP:SYNTH to the letter of the law and remove ALL romanizations (which I find absolutely unhelpful for readers, but it's a valid compromise I can accept for now), (2) allow only the obviously more accurate language's standard transcription, or (3) allow both for readers' ease. You are arguing for (1)? Danielbunchie (talk) 01:29, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

See the section "§ What about article X?" at WP:ATA. The more I read, the more I feel like Danielbunchie specifically is an immovable POJ partisan. Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 01:37, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Ok I don't know why you are accusing me of being a POJ partisan; if you look at my contribution history you would see I have been adding the appropriate language's romanizations to the appropriate cases, not just POJ. I have in fact removed POJ or other impromptu hokkien romanizations from some articles of people/places which are not Hokkien in origin. My stance is and always has been to provide romanization that is a faithful and accurate reflection of the name's background/origin, and which best helps the average English reader understand where the common name in English comes from. Danielbunchie (talk) 02:53, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not really part of this particular conversation, but just chiming in. Based on what I have read, the parties involved have been transparent about their intents and purposes with regard to original question and proposal. I think you may have shown some hasty conduct in implying that users were SPA (which was later retracted) and now implying another user is not operating in good faith (without evidence)? I am not sure if this falls under WP:Civility#Identifying Incivility c. ill-considered accusations of impropriety, but I hope you can understand what I am trying to get at. Eyteo (talk) 06:47, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

the difference is that on English Wikipedia, usage of pinyin is because it is the established romanisation scheme for Chinese language per WP:PINYIN. As for other romanisation schemes, it depends on if there is a common usage for that particular topic/subject. So far, it has been shown that the common usage for what have been discussed are the derived dialect names, not poj or other romanisations. The pinyin can remain next to the names in the prose, not others. – robertsky (talk) 03:39, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I believe you are misinterpreting the guideline, and it is not relevant here. It clearly uses the term Chinese-language and even Chinese characters in reference to Mandarin Chinese, with pinyin as the standard (contrasting with romanizations such as Wade-Giles and Tongyong) - nobody is disputing this here. It would seem to me ridiculous, as I'm sure you would agree, for the guideline to prescribe pinyin for romanizing Chu Nom or Kanji for example, and indeed this is not the case. Therefore, this guideline clearly does not encompass Chinese characters used to write other languages.

Besides, as was already raised previously in this discussion, it explicitly acknowledges this in the line "... Other examples would be places or things relating to non-Mandarin-speaking regions ...". Singapore was not Mandarin-speaking historically (as can be verified by multiple sources posted in the course of this discussion). Danielbunchie (talk) 04:04, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

the guidelines is not limited to Mandarin Chinese. – robertsky (talk) 05:52, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't see anything indicating as such (albeit the article's wording admittedly, perhaps intentionally, being very vague). However as I pointed out, it even makes explicit exceptions for cases where Mandarin is not the relevant language in the context, such as in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. I also provided examples such as kanji and Chu Nom which are clearly not romanized with Pinyin throughout Wikipedia, despite being written in Chinese. Danielbunchie (talk) 06:01, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I think you got it backwards. Right at the top of the guideline page: These conventions should be followed when making edits involving Chinese-language text, or when editing articles concerning China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and other Chinese-speaking areas. and also English Wikipedia uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default method of romanising Chinese characters. (emphasis in bold mine) No distinction has been made between the individual Chinese languages. If the guideline is specifically for Mandarin Chinese, a separate guideline page would have been created for the likes of Cantonese, Hokkien, etc rather than carves out as exceptions, and Hong Kong/Macau would have also been shunted into there as well, given that when back in 2003 when the guidelines was written, Cantonese was still a primary language of communications there.

The source in #c-Cr1ngef1sh-20260413163400-Justanothersgwikieditor-20260413081500 states that Mandarin Chinese and Hokkien were considered as major languages of Singapore as far back as 1957, and Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka as minor languages. All in all, 67.4% of the population were Chinese speaking. This population don't build overnight. – robertsky (talk) 06:53, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, my point is that this exact sentence: "English Wikipedia uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default method of romanising Chinese characters." does not preclude text that is obviously in other languages to be written in romanizations appropriate for those other languages, instead of Pinyin. It being a default doesn't mean it must be applied strictly and with a wide brush to every single page with Chinese characters on it, as you can clearly again see from articles on things from Japan or Hong Kong for example. I don't think it is appropriate either to use the argument that a separate guideline would have been created for the other cases, given the prevalence of "Mandarin=Chinese" defaultism, such that these other languages were likely not even considered when the guideline was written (and hence needed to be added later as exceptions).

Regardless I think most would agree that the guideline is written very vaguely and narrowly and is probably outdated, but that is a separate matter of course. Danielbunchie (talk) 07:22, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Hong Kong/Cantonese is under the same guidelines as other Chinese languages, while Japan's is dealt with under WP:ROMAJI. Don't bring Japanese in as the characters are specifically kanji, not Chinese. I think the guidelines for WP:PINYIN is clear, and contrary to your take, is pretty broad: default: pinyin. region specific, Hong Kong: jyutping; Taiwan: poj; etc, are acceptable as long as it is shown that the languages are used predominantly or commonly there. This arrangement is pretty standard everywhere. I mean, if I want to draw parallels, it is like, if we want to put phonetics marking of individual English words, the default would be using the IPA, and if there are region specific ones, I don't know, like maybe katakana for Japanglish words?

Now bringing back to Singapore, what is it that is wanted here? – robertsky (talk) 07:46, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

"Now bringing back to Singapore, what is it that is wanted here?"

I'm very sure the answer would be the use of POJ within WikiProject Singapore Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 07:49, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

The crux of widespread usage of poj for Singapore related articles on here should lie with how widespread the use of Hokkien as a language in Singapore (and also the time period in which it is/was widespead) rather than basing on one's 'dialect name'. I am not denying that it was not widespread before the Speak Mandarin campaigns here. If I had done so, it wouldn't be 67.4% that I had totalled up above. I would probably be appreciative if we start with small/baby steps from the obvious ones like Waterloo Street where the reference to the Hokkien name is already there. – robertsky (talk) 08:07, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

(not a comment on the correctness lol) Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 08:41, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

In that case I think we have a consensus on the addition of POJ to names from the period of 1960-1979 (as per @Cr1ngef1sh). Vampyricon (talk) 13:10, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I believe that is not a consensus on the addition of POJ to names from the period of 1960-1979. Which part of I would probably be appreciative if we start with small/baby steps from the obvious ones like Waterloo Street where the reference to the Hokkien name is already there is a consensus on all the names from the period of 1960-1979? This is a major extrapolation of a baby step. ~ JASWE (talk) 07:45, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree that there might be some articles that might benefit from having poj, but not a blanket application. Again, start from what's obvious rather than blind application. In any case, a blanket change like this might benefit from having a RfC, at the very least to update the Manual of Style guidelines so that when this comes up again, there is a place we can point to without rehashing the arguments. – robertsky (talk) 07:57, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I believe this would be the best way forward. Given that you are probably the most experienced editor in this discussion so far, is it alright if an RfC or other such review is raised on this context? I understand that's going to be a process that will take a long time but I hope a more concrete outcome can be reached.

Basically I believe the crux of the problem at hand is that each side is arguing about different things. I don't think anyone seriously disputes the idea that "adding non-pinyin romanizations is often more helpful and logical" (which one side is generally pushing for), but rather that it arguably is not following wikipedia guidelines (as the other side is generally pushing back with). Hence perhaps it would be more fruitful to look at the guidelines themselves. For example I don't think the WP:PINYIN policy is very up-to-date nor well-written, and was likely made by someone with limited knowledge on the Sinosphere. It's also very China/Taiwan-specific and doesn't really consider the wide variety of possible "Chinese" topics outside this region, including but not limited to Singapore.

Would this be an amenable next step to consider for everyone? Danielbunchie (talk) 10:43, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

" are acceptable as long as it is shown that the languages are used predominantly or commonly there." Hokkien being used commonly in Singapore can be shown.

To copy from another of my replies here (to JASWE a few messages down),

(I would like to add that in A Sociolinguistic Profile of Singapore published by Eddie C.Y.Kuo in Sociology Working Paper No.52, Department of Sociology, University of Singapore in 1976 it is stated in Table 2 that 91.1% of ethnic Chinese in Singapore aged 15 and above in 1972 were "able to understand Hokkien", corresponding to 72.7% of the Total Singaporean population. (Data from 2 surveys of 4839 and 5000 each. The 4839 survey was " recent national sample study by Survey Research Singapore, a market research group, inin 1972. The survey was carried out among a representative cross-sectional sample of the adult population aged 15 and over in Singapore, using the multi-stage random sampling procedures." and the 5000 survey was 1972 ECAFE study directed by Chen. This also was a national survey and covered a sample of 2,500 married individuals in Singapore. A two-stage stratifed random sample was applied. I very much believe that this is roughly representative of the general population, 5000-10000 ppl in random sample. Yes it is self-declared but this is a random sample, there would be no reason for non-Hokkien fluent individuals to lie about knowing Hokkien)

In my opinion at least this means it is unreasonable to doubt that any Chinese Singaporean in that era would not have used at least some Hokkien on a daily basis or not to have come into contact with Hokkien speakers who give nicknames. In my opinion POJ for Chinese Singaporeans alive before the early 1980s cannot be questioned as being potentially unused if they were born locally, this is especially true for teochew speakers who from personal experience in Singapore are practically all also fluent in Hokkien if they grew up in SG.)

(Note: I'm conceding that the confirmation of identification of other "dialects" in poeples' names is doubtable due to the circumstances of the inconsistent and inaccurate transcriptions by ICA as experienced by many others in this thread including my own family, but I really cannot concede Hokkien and thus Church romanisation used of POJ as doubtable or irrelevant in the context of 1960s-1990s Singapore most of the articles I have edited take place in due to the sheer widespreadness of Hokkien usage. Even if the name cannot be confirmed as Hokkien they almost definitely still used the Hokkien pronounciation in their lives.) Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 08:11, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

the bolding flipped mb gang Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 08:12, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Also ignore this comment I did not read the last paragraph of your reply. But based on it I assume you agree that removing POJ for "we dk whether it was used by people" is invalid right? Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 08:20, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Apologies for my innattentiveness I probably should take a break from this mess for a day Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 09:01, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

And per Cringefish, I am unsubscribing from this

Ping me here if you have urgent requests Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 09:41, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

FYI Cantonese is still the primary Sinitic language in Hong Kong and Macau. Vampyricon (talk) 13:06, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't see the removal of non-Mandarin Chinese romanisations especially from historical figures and places in Singapore as helpful. This is a highly political and controversial issue in real life, and doing so only advances the government's view and serves to further kill the notion of how other Chinese languages played a major part in Singapore's history prior to the Speak Mandarin Campaign. As Warpswitch mentioned, a compromise of including both the non-Mandarin and Mandarin romanisations is feasible to stop this edit warring. Aleain (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

We could probably separate these into smaller sets. I would suggest as an initial small category, BLPs should only use non-mandarin dialects if it is demonstrated that the individual in question refers to themselves with a non-mandarin name. This is likely also applicable to historical figures, although with more potential complications. CMD (talk) 06:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

That sounds like a sensible first step. Applying its use in BLPs to instances where the individual self-identifies with that name is a practical way to ensure accuracy and respect for the subject's identity. We could apply the same standard to historical figures to see how they referred to themselves. For those living before 1979, the use of a dialect-specific name is highly probable and should be verifiable with sources. Aleain (talk) 07:43, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

The issue is in most cases the only sources for these are the English transcriptions of names. While we can make a very good guess in most cases (trust me, me and warpswitch have been Dming each other a lot trying to identify the dialect from the character + transcription, i would love to show you guys the convos) if you want any confirmation as defined by the standard of verifiable sources we would have to dig up ancestral and migratory records of thousands of people, which I fear may not be available in some cases. (Also the chinese newspapers often don't agree with each other on the characters so side tangent: some of the mandarin pinyin names shouldn't be on there either)

Also a good chunk of these people spoke more than 1 dialect (usually their ancestral one + hokkien and post-1980s + mandarin) so uh Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 08:04, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

If the Chinese characters are written wrongly or not confirmed, it can be noted as 陈啊九 or 陈啊牛 (A note that 2 different sources printed different names with sources) for Tan Ah Gu and we are good with that.

Appreciate the effort to find verifiable sources. ~ JASWE (talk) 08:15, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Ok in those cases would adding the Peh-oe-ji romanisations of the Character names be fine then (陈啊九; Tân A-káu/kiú or 陈啊牛; Tân A-gû). Yes i am making an assumption that it is in Hokkien but literally no other dialect could possibly result in 陈 being Tan if this is post-1900 (Apart from a small number of teochew varieties which I have encountered no trace of in Singapore). Since the 阿 is present as the first character of the given name the name is very likely a nickname. In the context of chinese in Singapore, nicknames are usually given by friends or family hence I am concluding that this man is Hokkien or at least regularly uses Hokkien and thus the peh-oe-ji is appropriate. (And either way the nickname is almost certainly in Hokkien)

(I would like to add that in A Sociolinguistic Profile of Singapore published by Eddie C.Y.Kuo in Sociology Working Paper No.52, Department of Sociology, University of Singapore in 1976 it is stated in Table 2 that 91.1% of ethnic Chinese in Singapore in 1972 were "able to understand Hokkien", corresponding to 72.7% of the Total Singaporean population. In my opinion at least this means it is unreasonable to doubt that any Chinese Singaporean in that era would not have used at least some Hokkien on a daily basis or not to have come into contact with Hokkien speakers who give nicknames. In my opinion POJ for Chinese Singaporeans alive before the early 1980s cannot be questioned as being potentially unused if they were born locally, this is especially true for teochew speakers who from personal experience in Singapore are practically all also fluent in Hokkien if they grew up in SG.)

(Note: I'm conceding that the confirmation of identification of other "dialects" in poeples' names is doubtable due to the circumstances of the inconsistent and inaccurate transcriptions by ICA as experienced by many others in this thread including my own family, but I really cannot concede Hokkien and thus Church romanisation used of POJ as doubtable or irrelevant in the context of 1960s-1990s Singapore most of the articles I have edited take place in due to the sheer widespreadness of Hokkien usage. Even if the name cannot be confirmed as Hokkien they almost definitely still used the Hokkien pronounciation in their lives.) Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 16:34, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Basically I'm saying that POJ in 1960s-1979 (at minimum) in Singapore should be treated like Jyutping in Hong Kong due to cultural relevance. Of course, Pinyin should also still be added for it is the norm in historical work and the Speak Mandarin Campaign, but in this timeframe and space alongside POJ. Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this concrete proposal to move the discussion forwards. This sounds sensible to me, and I hope we can reach consensus on a compromise position like this. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 22:09, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

As for the cases where the english name is based off the wrong dialect, personally I would be fine with the romanisation in the wrong dialect since if they would be speaking in english to anyone (e.g. an to english-speaking court or filling in government forms) they would still be using that wrong pronounciation no? I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this (like unironically because this has been a major worry for me and I would like to see if I don't have to worry) Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 08:04, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

For example, Chee Hong Tat is most likely his official name on NRIC and common name. Generally speaking, the dialect romanisation is the official English name for Singaporeans. There are batches where there is no dialect romanisation name and purely a Hanyu Pinyin name as their English name. As a generalisation, I think most of the BLPs are fine where they are. The other editors are arguing for something else instead. ~ JASWE (talk) 08:12, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Apologies for the informality of this reply but,

FR (insert finger pointing up)

The international standard for chinese curently is to assume it is mandarin and aslo we cannot deny that in the present day most Singaporean chinese speak mandarin. However we also cannot deny that in the pre-1979 local 方言 were used and also the fact that practically all Chinese singaporeans born pre-1990 speak both personal 方言 and mandarin. There is no reason that the 2 cannot co-exist. Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 06:15, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Nobody say they cannot co-exist but it needs to be demonstrated (WP:V) that a person is of a particular dialect descent before writing he is of that descent. It goes against core Wikipedia policy, we do not guess, deduce based on what we know and write it as a fact. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:18, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Do you not see how the pinyin is equally as much, if not moreso deducing? Can you prove the Mandarin dialectical descent of a historical Singaporean Chinese person? Danielbunchie (talk) 06:24, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

You are repeating the same argument which I have answered earlier. There is an official mapping of Chinese characters to hanyu pinyin. We have official Chinese characters of the name of the person, verifiability can be shown if we find the equivalent Chinese article of the same English article. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:27, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Sorry but no, you did not answer it. There is also not a 1:1 mapping of Chinese characters to pinyin. Danielbunchie (talk) 06:31, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

And you choose to repeat the argument somewhere again instead of the same thread. No, there is no 1:1 mapping for some characters and we are not going to argue about it. The fact is there is an official mapping. When there is a doubt which 1 is the correct one, we find sources to verify which one is it. This is what we do in Wikipedia. Verifiablity and reliable sources. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:38, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Again, you do realise there are other languages with official mappings too right? So again, why are you applying a double standard in favour of just one completely irrelevant mapping? Danielbunchie (talk) 06:43, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

And you jump back to the original thread. Please decide which thread do you like continue on. Goalposts are literally and figuratively moved. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:51, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I'n not jumping threads, it just seems you are reading the replies in asynchronous order. Let's step back from that anyway because it is irrelevant to the actual discussion and it's probably a notification or internet thing. I'm happy to continue the discussion in one continuous thread if you were to answer any of the points I or the other editors have raised.

Anyway, there is an explicit allowance for good faith translations in WP:OR of non-English language sources which Chinese names certainly fall under. Given that there are official mappings of characters in languages like Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew, etc. I again don't see why you think it is unacceptable to translate/transcribe these names from their respective languages using the official mappings, but somehow an unrelated language is? Danielbunchie (talk) 07:07, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

The section writes Faithfully translating sourced material into English, or transcribing spoken words from audio or video sources, is not considered original research. Are you translating? This section is about translating audio/video sources to English and transcribing it. You are not doing that. You are using a name, assume its dialect and do something with it. And the next line talks about WP:verifiability. You are interpreting this wrongly. ~ JASWE (talk) 07:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

WP:TRANSCRIPTION does not explicitly mention converting between alternative scripts, but there is a valid analogy here. Translation and transcription both require a certain amount of interpretation on the part of the editor, but this is agreed to be straightforward enough not to be considered OR. In many cases, a Hokkien name that is written in both Chinese characters and an ad hoc romanisation can be unambiguously identified and standardised in POJ (even if both the characters and romanisation are individually ambiguous), and this can be verified by reference to Hokkien dictionaries. Of course some cases are more complicated, just as some translations and some transcriptions are more complicated. In complicated cases, we need to be careful with any alternative spelling, including both POJ and pinyin. Nonetheless, POJ is still straightforward in many cases. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 14:21, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Freelance Intellectual, as written, the section is about Faithfully sourced material into English, or transcribing spoken words from audio or video sources. We are not transcribing spoken words from audio or video source here. The issue here is transcribing from a dialect into how it is being pronounced. If we do not know what is the original dialect supposed to be, how do we know which dialect to use? Using robertsky's example, while the name may seems to be of a dialect, the person is actually of another dialect. Should we continue to transcribe based on what we think of (OR), or based off the Chinese name and transcribe it based on the person's dialect (which we need a RS to confirm the dialect heritage)? Or should we entirely leave it off?

Based on Wikipedia's guidelines on reliability and verifiability, an editor or reader, without the knowledge of dialects in East Asia, reading the article will challenge the straightforward in many cases.

"I like to know why it is transcribed in this way?"

"Oh, he is a Hokkien."

"Is it? I read the article and there is nothing to indicate he is Hokkien."

This is why Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue (an essay, not a guideline) even though it is straightforward in many cases. ~ JASWE (talk) 01:47, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I already agreed with these points in my comment above and they are consistent with what I have said. I'm not going to repeat myself. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 22:19, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Just to add onto this here, yes theres is mapping for chinese characters to romanisations of mandarin, cantonese, hokkien, hakka, teochew and others as there are many credible resources and dictionaries out there that do this. Warpswitch (talk) 06:44, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Oh yeah tangentally related but I have noticed in the course of editing that chinese-language newspapers often cannot agree on the names of most people (I presume this has something to do with the traditional chinese practice of someone being called by different names in different contexts and journalists mixing up pseudonyms but i can't confirm). Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 06:31, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

For newspapers, journalists might hear the name and not get the actual spellings. So in my hazy recollection, the article will say (similar in sound, 谐音) to indicate it might not be the correct choice, especially for the given name. As such, wikipedia editing means it will need to show that it is assumed by the journalist and we indicate a note for that. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:36, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Noted. Need to add that to at least 50 articles then lmao. Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 06:38, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. We have even calculated which year a celebrity was born based on zodiac sign (as said by celebrity), newspaper articles and note that these are the sources and we are using WP:MATH WP:CALC to calculate the birth year and the calculation can be verified by anybody following the same steps and it is not a SYNTH issue! ~ JASWE (talk) 06:43, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I find it hard to see Justanothersgwikieditor (talk · contribs) as acting in good faith, when they choose to raise a sockpuppet investigation instead of trying to reach consensus. I can see in the edit histories of both Danielbunchie (talk · contribs) and Vampyricon (talk · contribs) that they have been editing for a decade across various topics, so I find it implausible to see them as single-purpose accounts. I would like all of us to assume good faith of each other. I'm pleased to see Danielbunchie (talk · contribs) and Robertsky (talk · contribs) trying to find common ground in their last comments.

In that spirit, I would like to try laying out what I see as some points of consensus that have been reached so far. I hope we can gradually agree on more points.

• Determining the original language of a conventional romanised name is not always possible and could be considered OR in a non-neglible number of cases.
• Hokkien has been a prominent language in Singapore, especially pre-1979.
• It is often helpful for readers if an article provides one or more additional romanisations (POJ, Pinyin, Jyutping, etc.) alongside the conventional romanisation.

We have not yet reached consensus on when it is appropriate to add which romanisations. I see that WP:PINYIN has been discussed -- the guideline states that subjects with Chinese names should be referred to using their conventional romanised names ("used by a clear majority of reliable sources") if such a name exists (in other cases pinyin would be the default, except for subjects relating to non-Mandarin-speaking regions). In the Singapore context, we almost always have a conventional romanised name, and I don't believe anyone here is proposing to violate this principle. On the other hand, the guideline does not say when we should provide additional romanisations in running text (which I believe applies to many of the articles which prompted this discussion). I would suggest that using an {{efn}} helps in any case to avoid interrupting the flow of the text, and then it is not burdensome to add multiple romanisations. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 22:17, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying me of the sockpuppetry investgation. Vampyricon (talk) 22:36, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Tagging @Cr1ngef1sh, @Warpswitch, and @Eyteo as well, in case you weren't aware of this. I only learned of this thanks to the previous comment. Vampyricon (talk) 23:40, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the notification. My understanding of the current situation is that:

1) It is established that using Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue is moot (and hence lines of discussion following these can be safely discarded), since it has been agreed that this conflicts with and is superseded by interpretations of and is a problem of WP:PINYIN - which itself is apparently too vague and awaiting clarification.

2) Inclusion of non-Mandarin romanisation on figures/places historical and contemporary with cited ancestry/fluency is uncontroversial.

3) There is potentially a difference between how pre- and post-1979 articles are to be treated with respect to the above. This is a point to be clarified further.

At this juncture, I feel like the conversation has devolved significantly, and I personally interpret some comments as showing (not accusing anyone in particular) that there is some toxicity and self-aggrandizement in the thread. Some ill-considered accusations were made where there was no due diligence in ensuring they were well-founded, and so I no longer feel comfortable contributing to this thread because of the behaviour of involved parties. Before extricating myself, I would like to commend @Robertsky for his helpful, receptive, and measured approach. Thank you all for the conversation. Eyteo (talk) 05:14, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Back on topic, I believe pre-1979 Singapore falls under non-Mandarin-speaking regions as per WP:NONPINYIN Vampyricon (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

@Freelance Intellectual, I have reasons that meatpuppetry was involved and raised an SPI for it. If there is no meatpuppetry involved, state your case at SPI and you will be fine. In fact, if you are found to be involved in meatpuppetry and blocked, you can always appeal with evidence otherwise. I have been involved with multiple SPIs with me being listed as a possible sock (as both multiple and meat accounts) and defended myself as needed.

SPI can be raised at anytime, there is no need for the discussion to reach a conclusion before raising it. Imagine a sockmaster, raising a lot of socks and meats to overwhelm a discussion, pushing POV and force a conclusion. ~ JASWE (talk) 23:56, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Yeah i was also proposing a lot of the concern behind the romanised name being based on the wrong language could be solved by adding multiple. I can guarantee the majority of wiki users are not familiar with this issue and when looking at the bolded name + characters + romanisation(s) are just gonna assume the romanisation represents the bolded name before moving on to actually read the article. Considering how the English spelling for SGMY is based off of Received pronounciation, users of other English accents may not get an accurate inference of what the intended pronunciation of the bold name is, hence i believe adding the appropriate romanisation for the bold name is still necessary for the reader's sake.

Concerns about whether they actually used the dialect their English name is in, if it is the wrong one, I feel are not much of a concern if one of them (their family or the name) is Hokkien (as shown previously in the paper i linked, Hokkien can definitely be considered the lingua franca among Singaporean Chinese at minimum during the 1960s-1970s and likely a larger range. They almost certainly spoke some Hokkien in their life or at minimum called by the Hokkien reading of their name pretty commonly. In my opinion the linguistic situation is analogous to 1st gen Hakkas or Teochews in Hong Kong with Cantonese)

My updated proposal is:

1. Pinyin because of the current position of mandarin as standard Chinese
2. The closest romanisation to the bolded English name/transcription as possible for the user's sake (I am willing to compromise by removing this if the majority of you guys wish)
3. POJ to guarantee at least 1 of the romanisations was used or heard by them in their lifetime to refer to them

If it is too long to be in parenthesis, then hiding it in {{efn}} seems like a suitable compromise to me at least.

I'm also not too sure of why robertsky claimed this was WP:SYNTHESIS. It is the standard for Sinitic, Korean and Vietnamese languages to read names by just taking the characters and using the pronounciation in their respective languages. In this case the different sources (romanisations) ARE employed in tandem and cannot possibly contradict because they are separate (and again all possible to be used at the same time by different people), merely copy-pasting from different dictionaries based on the same characters. (Take a look at the "Chinese name" infobox of Xi Jinping and also this video explaining what I'm talking about with regards to Korean, the Korean section also applies to all Sinitic languages and Vietnamese as well) Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 00:36, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

With all this discussion, I would like to give my current stance on this issue since it seems to have gone completely out of hand. My current stance is if the persons ancestry can be verified and cited, then a romanisation of their chinese name based on their verified ancestries should be added. Since Pinyin is the current standard it seems for even non-mandarin chinese names in SG, Pinyin + the romanisation based of their cited ancestry should suffice. If we mandatorily add POJ and Pinyin to all non-mandarin names, this means a solid chunk of people will have 2 romanisations in languages completely unrelated to their actual name. Warpswitch (talk) 03:21, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with romanisation of their chinese name based on their verified ancestries should be added, I am indifferent to Pinyin to be added. If there is no verified heritage associated, Pinyin can be added (but not necessarily) and predominantly to help with the pronunciation of the Chinese Name (Chinese Characters), similar to IPA being added for English names.

The second point of mandatorily add POJ and Pinyin to all non-mandarin names, if we are to mandatorily add POJ, it will not be based on verified ancestries as your earlier point, a contradiction. Pinyin can optionally be added (if there is an official Chinese Name / Characters attached to a place/building/person) so there would be cases of no POJ and Pinyin romanisation, only POJ (or other verified dialects) romanisation, only Pinyin romanisation (for recognised official names).

As an example, Eu Tong Sen's ancestry hailed from Jiangxi, a Hakka majority and then moved to Foshan, a Cantonese majority locale. Eu's father moved to Penang, Malaysia which means it is complicated to determine for Eu's acknowledged heritage. We defer to reliable sources to quote him as a Hakka or Cantonese businessman and so on. If there are discrepancies, I am fine with putting both up with references to both descriptions. If an unrelated dialect is added, I would challenge that on reliable sources again.

To maintain a more neutral stance, we can actually put the transcriptions to the Template:Infobox Chinese or as a note to show as a footnote is fine also. Is Pinyin needed here? I personally do not think so but if you list it in the Template:Infobox Chinese or footnote, I am fine with or without it. ~ JASWE (talk) 04:58, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Note: this means that in the opening line (if we opt for footnote / Infobox Chinese), there will be no romanisation of the names in the opening line, aka, PersonABC (Chinese:甲乙丙 1940-2000) is a businessman etc etc. Footnote can be added to indicate the romanisation or manifested via the Template:Infobox Chinese. Rendering both might be seen as a duplication of content for some editors and I am on the fence on it. ~ JASWE (talk) 05:05, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I think infoboxes would work only for articles dedicated specifically to that person (so biographies basically), maybe in cases where there is only 1 chinese person with known characters in their name but that would weird.

I think leaving romanisations in non-biographies to the footnotes is the best. This would remove the main issue of not knowing which romanisations are relevant and being unable to put all potential ones for fear of cluttering the page. (And in the case of Singapore if we take the city as a whole there are like 10 relevant sinitic languages)

So ([Characters](footnote: Pinyin, POJ, Jyutping etc.), 1940-2000) for most articles and then Infobox for biographies. I believe this would satisfy everyone. (Also let's be honest most readers are more interested in the content of the article than the romanisation of the name lmao) Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 05:15, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Also, i would like to add this is probably my final stance. I have school to deal with and idt i can discuss anymore. As per EyTeo, thank you everyone for actually engaging with each other and more importantly i think most of us changed our stances when challenged. Safe travels! Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 05:33, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I think my earlier message was a bit unclear. My mention of "mandatorily add POJ and Pinyin to all non-mandarin names" was that I was against the proposal of making POJ a romanisation standard to names of people born before the Speak Mandarin Campaign as that seems to be what some people like Cr1ngef1sh seem to arguing to be instated. In this way, we will just be enforcing mandarin and hokkien onto completely random people who have no proven connection to these languages. Warpswitch (talk) 05:39, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 05:55, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Cr1ngef1sh (talk) 05:57, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Fair enough. I am not reading that far back as there are many threads criss-crossing. Thanks for the clarification. ~ JASWE (talk) 06:17, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I think this + your previous comment + your comment about eventually getting this properly documented under the SG style manual is a neat and sensible way to do things. As for infobox vs footnote I find both are neat but personally as a Wikipedia reader i find the style where the footnote is right next to the Chinese characters more accessible/discoverable. Danielbunchie (talk) 06:16, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think referring to the "closest" romanisation is going to help resolve disputes. What is the "closest" for Lee Kwan Yew? This is an idiosyncratic spelling with no close match to any (standardised) language. The article currently includes an infobox with romanisations in Mandarin, Hakka, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Teochew (without claiming LKY's ancestry from all those groups), and this is a stable infobox on a relatively frequently edited article. Of course, this is a very prominent subject, and I don't think we need to aim for this level of thoroughness for every Chinese name in Singapore. I'm giving this example because it shows the difficulty of trying to apply a rigid rule. The level of due weight will depend on many factors.

But we seem to be agreeing on the use of footnotes for multiple romanisations in running text. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 22:34, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

@Freelance Intellectual, I will ask you to desist making changes while the discussion is not closed or concluded. Example on Sylvia Lim, your edit here added back POJ while Lim has a category of Teochew descent. It is not sourced whether she is of Hokkien or Teochew descent. Your edits were disruptive and setting the discussion back. ~ JASWE (talk) 08:41, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

A romanisation is not a claim about ancestry. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 08:47, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Slippery slope argument there... then why not this romanisation , why not that romanisation .. why particular this romanisation ... Please do not reset the discussion. ~ JASWE (talk) 08:51, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

I have researched and she has only ever identified herself as being of Teochew and Hakka descent (see this interview), so I am in agreement with JASWE here, there is no relevance to add POJ, only Pe̍h-ūe-jī,Peng'im and Hakka romanisations would be relevant. Warpswitch (talk) 14:43, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

@Warpswitch: thank you for your efforts.

As discussed above for pages like Lee Kwan Yew and Xi Jinping, there can be various reasons for relevance, not just ancestry. I never claimed that POJ should take priority on this page. Reverting content removal (by an editor blocked for edit warring, no less) is not an endorsement of blanket use of POJ, and it is not claiming that the articles are in ideal states.

There is also no "reset" of the discussion here. Like others, I feel some of the discussion has become toxic and I will only comment if I feel there is a concrete good-faith proposal to build further consensus. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 15:51, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

This is somewhat related to the previous discussion but is more of a personal enquiry. For Singaporeans with sourced teochew ancestry, for example Heng Swee Keat and Ng Chee Meng, do we take preference to using the Peng'im or Pe̍h-ūe-jī for the teochew romanisation or are both fine? Pe̍h-ūe-jī is descended from Pe̍h-ōe-jī which we already use as the standard romanisation for verifiably hokkien people on singapore-related articles while Peng'im is a quite different romanisation system. Warpswitch (talk) 14:52, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

It might be worth aligning with grassroots efforts to support Teochew in Singapore, if they have a preference for one or the other. I'm aware of Learn Teochew, which uses Peng'im, but there may be others. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 22:27, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Wouldn't aligning the romanisation with grassroots efforts to support Teochew in Singapore fall under WP:Advocacy? Warpswitch (talk) 03:05, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Working with them will be good but just be careful of influences to push a POV. They have resources that we might not have and a gleam into them will help in getting resources and references. Even understanding evolution of usage of choice of romanisation system will help in writing articles or deciding choices. You can then use these resources to put forward your case of which romanisation system to use. ~ JASWE (talk) 05:03, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Sure, also tagging @Danielbunchie since they have given their opinion on the Hainanese romanisation standard we should use but not their opinion on the Teochew romanisation standard. Warpswitch (talk) 06:28, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Afaik both are good. Peng'im has the plus of being officially recognised/published by the Chinese govt and as you noted is used by some organisations, whereas PUJ has been in use for a much longer time, was developed specifically for the min nan languages, & is more interchangeable with the related POJ/TL and their other derivatives. So it would just be a matter of choosing one and standardizing i guess. No opinion in favour of either atm. Danielbunchie (talk) 08:47, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Any writing system requires a community of users. I just mean looking at what is actually used in practice. Advocacy would be promoting what you think people should use. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 22:39, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

While we had not reached a conclusion to the previous discussion, you decided to start a new similar discussion. ~ JASWE (talk) 00:00, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

The previous discussion seems to have somehow devolved into focusing adding on POJ of all things to all Singaporean chinese born prior to the Speak Mandarin Campaign even though there are verifiably non-Hokkien Singaporean chinese like the people I have just mentioned. As I could gather for the discussion, if the persons ancestry can be cited then adding a romanisation of a chinese name based on that ancestry does not seem to be an issue. The issue I am bringing up here pertains to which romanisation to use for people with cited ancestries. Warpswitch (talk) 02:53, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

We should return to the section immediately above as it was very much available for comment when this one was created Whyiseverythingalreadyused (t · c · he/him) 03:22, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Sure, just the section just seems to be quite cluttered. Warpswitch (talk) 04:09, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I apologise for fast reading this and miss the words "verifiably", "sourced" in the title and and statement. As per my previous stance, as long as it is properly cited for their dialect heritage, there is no issue from my side. I leave the choice of Peng'im or Pe̍h-ūe-jī up for you all who are more well-versed in the area. Once there is a consensus, we can add to the Manual of Style for Singapore related articles at WP:MOSSG.

We can continue the discussion here as I initially misinterpreted per my first sentence here. ~ JASWE (talk) 04:33, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Sure, also on this topic, there is a similar situation for Hainanese romanisation where there is the Hainanese Transliteration Scheme (similar system to Peng'im) and Bǽh-oe-tu (system similar to POJ). I would like to hear other peoples thoughts on this as I feel I am biased towards using POJ adjacent systems for consistency between articles. Warpswitch (talk) 04:48, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

As Freelance Intellectual had mentioned, if there is any organisations you can speak to, feel free to speak to them and get resources to based your thoughts and evidence. A wider net will be asking related dialect based clan associations but I doubt you get much information nor resources from them. ~ JASWE (talk) 05:08, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I have contacted Singapore Hainan Hwee Kuan a while back regarding what romanisation they were going to be using in their Hainanese lessons and the response I got was "Students may note down the sounds in any way that is easy for them to remember. If needed, teacher and students can discuss and agree on a common way of marking pronunciation that works for the group in class." which implies they do not have a romanisation standard. Warpswitch (talk) 05:30, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I would suggest HTS as there is a readily accessible and quite comprehensive dictionary that is also officially published by the Chinese government available, that uses HTS. In contrast it is quite hard to find any readily accessible resources on BŒT. My understanding is that HTS is also more modern/updated, whereas BŒT was developed very long ago and may not accurately reflect more modern pronunciations, and was possibly also developed for Danish not English speakers. But happy to be corrected on any of these points as I am not familiar with Hainanese. Danielbunchie (talk) 05:58, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Sure, after doing some research BOT does seem quite hard to find resource for when compared to HTS and BOT is not actually as similar to POJ as I initially thought. Warpswitch (talk) 06:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Recently, I have translated a biography for our WikiProject that I created on the Chinese Wikipedia, on a Singaporean television writer Draft:Ang Eng Tee. As I'm not very well versed in the English Wikipedia, I have submitted my draft for AfC. But from previous experiences such as my article on Kok Len Shoong, it is time consuming and not much feedback is given. In my eyes, the quality of the article is decent, but I need help in formatting and sourcing. Hence, I request for help from anyone possible to review and improve the article. I am also thinking of nominating this for DYK, but I'm not really sure if this meets the requirements, so it would be good if guidance is given. Any help is appreciated. Infodump0 (talk) 13:57, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

So long as all the sources back up their statements and there is an interesting fact that is not just person doing job, then it meets the requirements for DYK. You may want to look again at the last sentence of 2006-present: Independent work. CMD (talk) 14:16, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

I was thinking of continuing that sentence but then I realised I couldn’t continue unless I combined sources (not sure if it counts as WP:SYNTH), it’s so hard to complete Infodump0 (talk) 14:23, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Internal Security Act (Singapore) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 03:11, 27 April 2026 (UTC)