Talk:Alex Tan

Edits by ZhanZhao

There has been repeated defamatory writeups on this topic and the article is now on close monitoring to reverse these errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgwatcher (talk • contribs) 07:16, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Edits by 202.129.82.110 IP

There's recently been this IP that has been adding writeups without providing citation/sources, as well as removing sourced/cited writeups. This runs contrary to WP:CITE and WP:BLP. I have left a message on the IP's talk page to request he familiarize with those policies, but would appreciate additional eyes on this, thanks.

@202.129.82.110:, if you are reading this, please understand that we cannot just allow anyone to add/remove stuff on just because they feel like it as there is not way to verify if these changes are in fact factual - See WP:VERIFY. Zhanzhao (talk) 06:44, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Needs verification

Moved the following here pending verification. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 08:40, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Works

Alex started writing when he was 19 during his National Service time. His first blog was utopia8787, and he was subsequently jailed 5 days in the military camp when he wrote an article criticising the number of servicemen deaths in National Service. When he left the army in 2009, he joined Temasek Review, a popular alternative current affairs media in Singapore. Alex was a frequent contributor and eventually made it to become one of Temasek Review's key editors. The website faced police investigations for sedition and a copyright infringement lawsuit from the government's sovereign wealth fund company, Temasek Holdings, who claimed that the website abused the name "Temasek Review" which is also the name of it's annual report. The website was briefly shut down and Alex set up his own blog, Temasek Revealed. Alex then joined The Real Singapore as a founder editor and also set up another website WikiTemasek. When The Real Singapore was forced to shut down in April 2015, Alex set up States Times Review.

Neutrality Question

Hi User:Lemongirl942, I see you removed some parts I had reverted due to BLP "neutrality issues", I'm not sure what is the issue here. Both incidents were covered by The New Paper which is a news publication. This is pretty straight forward reporting of a sequence of events, and The New Paper is recognized as a news agency and a reliable source - in fact the 1st 2 references used were from the same source. This is different from the National Kidney Foundation Singapore scandal where one of the news agencies is one of the active parties of the case (and accepted as a source without question). TNP is already used in the article (as the 1st 2 links in fact). If wording is an issue, would appreciate some help in this area - I had already used verbatim quotes from the subject to try to avoid slanting it. PS I am not purposely reopening old wounds, just that I did not realize what I had added previously was removed (as the character-difference was so close). Zhanzhao (talk) 23:45, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

@Zhanzhao:, the problem is we don't put undue weight on certain issues. Mainstream media in Singapore is linked to the government. It would be incorrect to use these sources to support information in contentious cases. For the same reason we don't use publications like The Online Citizen, Mothership, Vulcan Post for information about government politicians. I'm aware that some of the contentious information in the article uses the New Paper as a source. But the same information has also been carried by other non-Singaporean media which is independent of the Singapore government. If we maintain neutrality, we need to maintain it in all articles .--Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:59, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Let me just clarify, are you saying that TNP made up all these news? PS: IMHO the main problem with the other sites you mentioned is that most do not make a clear demarcation between opinion/commentary and hard news pieces, which is a tricky issue when attributing news sources, because it makes them no different from blogs. With regards to the SBS issue, it had even resulted in an official reply from a political party the subject was a member of, which specifically mentioned In this specific event relating to an email to SBS Transit, we strongly disagree with the use of vulgarities and the spirit in which that email was written..[[1]]. To selectively exclude news from the same source purely on the grounds of alleged bias is a form of bias in itself. If its a matter of undue weight, the 2 incidences were just singular examples of the subjects activism. As I requested earlier, if you suspect bias, I would welcome help to make the wording/tone more neutral. Hope that clarifies. Alternatively, as we are clearly both Singaporeans and may have inherent bias, I would suggest a neutral 3rd party review of the issue in perhaps Third Opinion. But thats jumping the gun a bit - lets see what we can do ourselves. I'll try to see how I can copywrite the content later today before adding it back. (Not sure how much that will help, since I was already using verbatim quotes generously), but if you are free, do feel free to chip in to remove the bias you see. Removing it wholesale isn't the way though. BLP does not apply here: Things happened, things got reported. Zhanzhao (talk) 04:42, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

No TNP did not make up this news. The relevant policy is WP:UNDUE and not every newsworthy event is worth including, unless it can be demonstrated that the event has some lasting significance or created a major controversy which has been referenced later as well. The problem is certainly not about how the content is worded. I have applied this same policy on pages of PAP politicians and removed information about insignificant "small" controversies which do not have any lasting significance. In cases of contentious items we also need independent sources. The Singaporean mainstream media is not independent of the government and multiple third party organisations have said so. The question here is not reliability, but independence of source. If indeed the incident you are mentioning has some lasting significance, a neutral third party source documenting it would help. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 05:18, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I am still unconvinced about how the government affiliation plays a part in this, as the rest of the article (and in fact most Singapore related articles) carry similar sourcing. One can copywrite opinions, but events either happened, or did not, so as long as we stick to raw facts, that negates bias. With the question of lasting significance, the website which the claimed the NSman Death hoax was permanently removed, and for the SMRT case, the subject was asked to retract his statements, which is not a temporary thing. This is not the case of one guy ranting against the wall without an audience. Once case resulted in actions being taken by government bodies either having to explain the situation, or threat of legal action against the subject which led to the unreserved retraction. If you are asking for 3rd party sources, the post from the Singapore People's Party mentioning the SMRT case surely counts as one (As its an alternative party, I think you would agree that it does not carry any bias for the government). Now. Your points do instead lead me to question why the other 2 cases do not come under the level of scrutiny. I was going through the page's history and just realized that I had raised a question about one of the cases in 2012, that there was no way to connect the subject to Sun Xu's case beyond the self-published link from Temasek Times. And in the case of Wang Peng Fei, it was also only reported by one singular source, The New Paper. By your logic, the whole activism section would have to be removed as its undue and with questionable verifiability. Upon backtracking, I also note with interest that the SMRT content which existed prior was actually removed and the Sun Xu content re-added by an IP from New South Wales [[2]], which coincidentally is the same area as the IP address 202.129.82.110, before he started editing with the Sgwatcher account which identified himself as the subject of the article. There's something really dodgy going on with this article with these accounts focused purely on peacocking the subject and I'm calling WP:DUCK. The question now is, how do we fix all this? Zhanzhao (talk) 07:16, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Government affiliation plays a part particularly when the press may have a tendency of bias towards a certain viewpoint. State-associated news organisations are questionable sources when dealing with contentious issues about opposition politicians. The link to the SPP website is self published. (We need reliable, independent and secondary sources). In some cases, this may be OK, but it contentious cases, we tend to avoid using such sources. The incident of the scholars was included because it seems to be a major incident and there was academic report [3] on it which documents that the subject filed the police reports. Had this academic report not been there, I would have removed it as well. (If you see carefully, I have also removed another section about Works). The part about the Real Singapore was included because the website received persistent coverage at regular intervals of time and the subject's role was well documented.

The conflict of interest editing is something different. I regularly work on COI issues and this page is on my watchlist. We can't stop COI editing, but we can manage it. Of course, any content added contrary to guidelines is immediately removed. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 07:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Noted on your points about the 2 students, though the Sun Xu incident, by your strict criteria would have to be removed - the only non-domestic news site covering it, Yahoo, does not mention Alex Tan at all. I posted the SPP link not as a source because I was not sure if you were still unconvinced that such an incident took place. The fact of the matter is, Alex Tan as a subject on wikipedia seems questionably notable in the first place - he's never been covered by external press [[4]], so all news about him are either on blogs, forums, or local news sites. (In fact speedy deletion tag put on it was literally removed within minutes [[5]] by the article creator who has only ever created and added to this article[[6]]. As mentioned, dodgy business). I do find your carte blanche discounting of domestic news outlets a little worrying as well, as it could ironically lead to a bias in the extreme opposite spectrum of what you are hoping to protect against, so please take note. “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche Zhanzhao (talk) 04:19, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Umm, you're mixing 2 different things here, but I should have explained clearly before. The first criteria is whether an incident is worth including or not. The relevant policy is WP:NOTNEWS Simply because it has been reported in the news does not mean that it is worth reporting. A certain enduring notability about the incident has to be demonstrated. In the case of the 2 scholars, there was an academic work specifically focused on it which shows that the incident about the scholars had a certain significance. This is the reason why the incident was included at all. Similarly, in the case of the Real Singapore, a lasting significance was demonstrated by the continuous regular coverage over an extended period of time. This is the criteria for including an event. Once it can be demonstrated than an event is worth including, we go to the second phase and start looking at how to phrase the event and ensure compliance with NPOV and Weight. It is at this phase that we consider sources - is there a possible bias in sources?. If it is a BLP and the event is a contentious issues and we only have sources from the opposite side, we generally do not include it. This is the most common decision I have seen happening.

Using mainstream media is OK in general and I think you misunderstood. I'm not doing a carte blance discounting of local news sources; the situation is more nuanced than that. It is only in certain contentious cases where it is the "only" reliable source, that we need to be careful. This is applied equally throughout Wikipedia. Coverage by PressTV is usually not used for Iranian dissidents, if it is the sole source for a contentious incident. For contentious content about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, both JPost and Al-Jazeera are used. Should coverage be limited to only 1 of them, the incident is usually never included. Same with Falun Gong and Chinese government leaning sources.

Coming back on topic, the SBS incident has no long lasting significance or effects. Wikipedia is not a newspaper and so we don't document small non-notable incidents. This is also the same reason why we do not include the Lee Hsien Loong and Lee Wei Ling feud ([7],[8], even though there are reliable international sources for it) and we don't include that Ho Ching apologised for the monkey photograph. [9]. In contrast, the corrosive speech and the xenophobic website were much more notable and persistent issues. This is the only why they are included. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 06:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Mainstream are reliable sources for WP purposes, no matter our bias. Even if we were to give Alex a benefit of doubt, he has not refuted these incidents, so all we have are source reports. Your long explanation is a good effort but brought up points not covered in policy. WP:NOTNEWS refers to "routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion", and which are "very frequent and cover a lot of trivia". The incidents here are not trival. Warpslider (talk) 04:07, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

If you feel strongly about it, you should bring them up for policy discussions to have them modified. That will be a greater contribution to wikipedia. Else editors will have to over-think each time they want to insert useful information. I would support Zhanzhao if he wants to revert to his version. Warpslider (talk) 04:20, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

This is a BLP, so contentious content cannot be added back. You can always try to seek a different opinion but believe me, this is precisely WP:NOTNEWS. Also you are reading the policy wrong: WP:NOTNEWS states an example of routine coverage; it is by no means not an exhaustive list. Otherwise all Wikipedia articles would be padded with details like the example of Ho Ching added a monkey showing a middle finger photo. We simply don't cover insignificant events. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 04:46, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

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Singapore government-hired online group on Wikipedia to defame critics

I am Alex Tan here and it has come to my notice that I have been defamed with numerous false claims made here on a wikipedia page featuring myself. I am currently fighting with Wiki admins who are obviously paid by the Singapore government to keep up the personal attacks and false claims, especially in regards to the Singapore's fake news law POFMA. 5staravenger (talk) 05:21, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, well, presuming that you are Alex Tan -- for which you've not provided a sliver of proof -- your attitude, insults, f-bombs and the like ensured your speedy blocking. It's rather rich that you're charging Singapore with misinformation against those who won't kowtow to them while in the same breath hurling insults against people who weren't kowtowing to you. In any event, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not your personal press agent, and our policies on articles for living persons do not encompass only putting the spin on your biography that you want out there. For that, you will want your own personal web page or blog site. Ravenswing 09:30, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:ELOFFICIAL?

Is there one we can use? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:09, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång only to the web.archive.org for statestimesreview.com as the domain has since being usurped. – robertsky (talk) 07:34, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

So, no current verified Instagram, TikTok etc? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:40, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Google search throws me this: [10], but from where I am, I am not sure if the page is geo-blocked or simply does not exist anymore. – robertsky (talk) 07:42, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I get "This content isn't available at the moment", so usefulness is kinda limited. Oh well. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately a lot of the stuff the subject is trying to wipe off record happened about 10 years ago, and the Internet isn't as forever as we would like to think.... ----Zhanzhao (talk) 08:03, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality concerns

The apparent subject (emphasis on apparent) shouldn't be editing this article, but that doesn't mean potential concerns about some information in it are unwarranted. There are some weasel words I have removed, and some of the sourcing and wording for "false statements" and such is suspect to me. I think the word "alleged" should be used in some cases and that the article may benefit from being more concise. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 08:21, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

There's been a lot of good work done in the last few hours whacking down a lot of the hyperbole, unsourced statements and the like, and a lot of referencing done. Good work all around. Ravenswing 09:23, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately some of the stuff are no longer sourcable due to references being dead. I.e. regarding the NS man hoax, I recall there were news articles directly linking the subject to the blogpost, not just the site. IIRC he was the named contributor, not just the owner of the site. Ah well, at least the whitewashing by the subject stops too. (fingerscrossed) ----Zhanzhao (talk) 09:30, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

You may have luck with some sort of newspaper archive. Perhaps archive.org can help hunt down some. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:37, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Will give that a shot. Btw regarding the States Times Review site being a blog now, Alex Tan did mention (also covered in the article) he would close the site after the 2020 elections, seems like that really was the case and it's been taken over by an Indonesian blogger, looks very different from a random snapshot of the site I picked from 2020 using archive.org. ----Zhanzhao (talk) 15:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

@ Ravenswing @Gråbergs Gråa Sång as you previously worked on the article to improve it and dealt with the subject, could use your input at the [proposed page merger talk page] ----Zhanzhao (talk) 03:17, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

"In an open letter published in the States Times Review..."

@Zhanzhao on [11]. Yeah, I was thinking of that angle too. So per WP:ABOUTSELF, without any secondary coverage, this fails WP:PROPORTION. Just because he wrote something, doesn't mean it should be included. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:48, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång This is a politician talking about a political action he intends to take though, surely that is relevant? ----Zhanzhao (talk) 14:56, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

IMO, not unless some independent RS bothered to notice. And if I'm correctly informed, nothing happened. Very meh. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:09, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah well, let's trim it off then. This page was a hotbed warzone between his supporters and detractors back when the subject was active, with all sorts of stuff removed/editorialized (the subject himself having been involved at least on 2 other occasions), was surprised it suddenly blew up again, and was just trying to thrawl through the history to see what was suspiciously removed. But this is a job probably more suited to more active editors - My understanding of policies is probably a bit outdated. (I am super irregular now). Carry on the good work. ----Zhanzhao (talk) 15:21, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing

Regardless of whether the subject of the article has socked or called people here rude names, we have a responsibility under our own BLP policy to properly source everything here to WP:RS. I need to point out that Singaporean state-sponsored sources are absolutely NOT reliable in an article about a Singaporean political dissident. That is all. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 16:16, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

To wit: the subject has stated on his talk page that ChannelNewsAsia, Mothership and Straits Times are Singaporean state news outlets. If this is true they should not be used in this BLP whatsoever. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 16:22, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Reading the Reporters without Borders summary about Singapore [12], it seems that essentially all singaporean press is highly controlled by the government, so they may have a point. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:16, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia, @Balph Eubank I've done some further cleanup and am planning on getting to the 1MDB section later today, feel free to try and improve/remove further issues. A frustrating thing is that Singapore government affiliated sources mostly dominate coverage of him. This Asia Sentinel source could be useful. I think this is about a different guy?. This book briefly discusses him and his Facebook ban, there's a brief mention here, more of the same in this book. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 21:36, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

[13], can confirm this is a different guy. – robertsky (talk) 21:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Relevant WP:RSN discussion: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_350#Reliability_of_The_Straits_Times. – robertsky (talk) 21:40, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

@Balph Eubank State-sponsored is a very misleadingly vague and wide-ranging term. Due to the unique way it is set up, the government's investment arm Temasek invests in literally everything here as they think it makes money. (Even FTX - even as the government itself discourages crypto trading - just to show how independent the state investment arm is from the state operations). So CNA and Mothership are technically "state sponsored" by virtue of them being publically traded companies, or the investment arm holding a stake in the company. Also these 2 are in fact more moderate and "sinned" only in that they had re-reported the many happenings related to the subject. Mediafactcheck says CNA is the most balanced of the lot with its use of balanced language in coverage, and shows examples of opposition parties given a fair voice. Mothership is more of a mixed bag, they veer from more social-media-click-baity headlines and tone, but do get the reporting done.

As the 1MDB incident concerning Claire Brown of Sawawak Report shows, the subject is not beyond making up stuff about other media outlets. That was one of the rare times the subject's website got interest from outside Singapore, and only because its "reports" implicated outside media outlets and forced a corrective rebuttal from them. Frankly there is not much interest in the subject beyond local shores - even searching Yahoo.com.sg, which dedicates resources to covering Singapore news, barely gives any hits on him. To disregard the top 3 news sources in Singapore (Recent Reuters report rank local readership at #1 Mothership, #2 CNA, #3 Straits Times) based on the words of a (not name calling, thats how the article describes him) ex-opposition politician and activist is disingenuous - and again thats assuming it IS him.

Straits Times is an interesting case - in the past few years it has undergone restructuring and ownership changes under its mother company SPH (I think its partially nationalized?) Need more research on that one. But then again, most of the related reports happened before this ownership change, and in any case, most of the Straits Times sources back up writing that states straight up cause and effect (Subject does one thing, other entities react) or very specific discussions about POFMA and how the subject was penalized under that specific law (again, straight up cause and effect).----Zhanzhao (talk) 02:02, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

This article isn't about crypto, and whether or not the subject invents falsehoods about media outlets is beside the point. There is a very simple fact here: Singaporean government-connected media cannot be considered impartial when covering political dissidents who oppose the Singaporean government. Our sourcing policy is structured on the premise that sources must be third-party, reliable and impartial in a way that allows us to write an article from a neutral POV. This is doubly so for a BLP. It is impossible to write a neutral BLP using sources connected in some way to those who are in direct opposition to the article subject, not least because this makes them PRIMARY sources (which cannot be used to establish notability). We need to abide by our policies, period. If an article cannot be written about the subject without including sources connected to people in direct dispute with the subject then we should not have an article at all. And if the aubject receives effectively zero coverage outside of Singapore, then perhaps he fails notability. I also want to remind everyone that we don't "punish" people here by producing unbalanced articles. That is completely contrary to everything we claim to be about. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 13:08, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

The bit about crypto is just an analogy, which is a bit off track. Apologies for digressing. With regards to your point about impartiality: Again, most of the writeup I see, as I said before, are just reporting straight up cause and effect (Subject does one thing, other entities react) or very specific discussions about POFMA and how the subject was penalized under that specific law (again, straight up cause and effect). I don't see how any POV is being introduced. Maybe you can point out the POVs you think are being introduced by said "Singaporean government-connected media" so we can have a better discussion?

PS: As I mentioned before, yes, CNA and Mothership received investments from the government sovereign fund. You might not be aware, but that profit-driven investment entity also invests in international companies. Case in point, one of the companies it invested in back in 2018 is Thomson Reuters F&R - the same Thomson Reuters that owns (no surprise here) Reuters News Agency. Fairly sure it also invests in Walt Disney Company (ABC news) and Verizon (yahoo) as well. ----Zhanzhao (talk) 15:10, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

There is nothing to discuss from my view. A source that is biased by its very nature should not be used in a BLP whatsoever, regardless of what it says or how we try to interpret what they are saying as being basic coverage. This is devolving into Wikilawyering. The link to Reports Without Borders is highly persuasive and I stand by my statement that the Singaporean sources are unacceptable. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 18:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Claiming "Wikilawyering" is a sword that cuts both ways. Since we seem to be at an impase and suggest if you have anything that you think involves POV, to bring it here for discussion first. As for the "The link to Reports Without Borders" you mentioned, I and assuming you are refering to this? As much as I hold them in high regard, they are not infallible, or at least they seem to be quite selective in their wording. Case in point, it just states that "Harassment by the authorities has steadily silenced the few independent news websites, such as The Online Citizen, which was forced to close at the end of 2021". One would be led to believe the site is dead. Well here is an article on The Online Citizen about the presidential election that just happened this month, September 2023.... Zhanzhao (talk) 19:56, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not wikilawyering, I'm laying out what our policies say regarding reliable sourcing in BLPs. You're trying to make a content argument in a debate about sources. What the sources, which are biased by their very nature, say is 100% irrelevant. I think the article should be deleted as it's impossible to source it and follow policy and the subject isn't covered outside of Singapore. Most of the article just repeats stuff about the 1MDB scandal anyway, making this a COATRACK and a BLP1E. - Who is John Galt? ✉ 02:59, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

If you think it should be deleted, open the AfD. – robertsky (talk) 03:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Zhanzhao I really can't agree with you saying "I don't see how any POV is being introduced...". Before recent edits the article was pretty negative and several of his statements were labeled "false". He was painted as more of an internet troll than an actual dissident. The article has been cleaned up some more but looking over the sources I agree with this being a WP:BLP1E case and that it may be best to merge appropriate content to Protection_from_Online_Falsehoods_and_Manipulation_Act_2019#Notable_uses. If there is no good sourcing for a BLP like this then I don't think we should have one. Outside of Singapore based sources, Tan is mostly covered in relation to his Facebook ban which under that act, and it seems after this he has gone back to being a more private figure (hence the lack of recent coverage). I've already copied over some content to that article and rewrote the section related to him there. I will open a merge discussion in case there is a desire to add anything else to that article. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi Moneytrees, I am only talking about the state of the article now, as its been editorialized over time to suit particular editors' agendas. For example, even through this whole chain was started by the alleged subject again wanting to remove content that puts him in a bad light, he himself had contributed content in the past to puff himself up. He basically thinks he owns this page now. There's no doubt Alex Tan has gone back to being a private figure, which is probably the reason why there's been attempts to wipe his slate clean. But he was actually notable for a few reasons and it extended beyond just POFMA.

It started with him being the youngest politician at that time to run in the general elections, and most importantly, running in a consituency contest directly head-on against the prime minister himself - even gaining the nickname "Suicide Squad". (I see quite a bit of writeup regarding his election activities had been taken out in the current form of the article). See an earlier version of the article here. After that, it was his involvement in a string of independent sites, for example infamously "The Real Singapore" (which has lead to editors being charged for falsifying news - covered outside Singapore as well as well as its shut down in 2015), which happened earlier than the timeline being discussed in the POFMA and is only briefly mentioned here. His infamy culminated in his involvement in false then retracted claims implicating the Singapore prime minister in the 1MDB scandal, the biggest embezzlement scandal to hit the region and necessitated an official response by the Singapore’s High Commission in Malaysia, to the Malaysian people and government (btw this has sufficiant significance to be included in the article). At that time the subject was practically a one-man-show running the later sites (wayback and archives show him signing off on all articles that were not re-posts). The facebook ban is merely the final chapter in a long running saga involving him before he faded into obscurity.

The subject is known for way more than just in relation to POFMA, and I don't see how a merger to this POFMA would retain the contents of his political history or the details of the involvement in 1MDB without bloating it unnecessarily. Get other editors who have edited on Singapore centric topics in the past and hence paid attention to the news - not necessarily jsut Singapore editors - and I feel they will share the same thoughts.

Cos if this is the benchmark WP:BLP1E, then articles like 2006 Singapore elitism controversy argueably falls within this zone too and "deserves" merging and I am betting most

----Zhanzhao (talk) 00:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Moneytrees, Who is John Galt? I feel I am getting too personally involved with this article. Its just very frustrating to see the subject treat the article like his personal page, happily puffing it up with he wants without any source given, then crying NPOV when the article had grown organically out of his control after other editors started adding content. The last addition I will make will be the Singapore High Commission's official response to the Malaysian government and people on dodgy 1MDB reporting, which should not casue any issue raised since it is a significant incident being an interaction between 2 governemnts, was covered by the Malaysian publically owned New Straits Times, (not to be confused with the Straits Times in Singapore), and the NST article specifically says they checked that the root source of the incident is the ST Review (already repeatedly collaborated by other sources). Weekend's over, and I was already pretty much inactive before this. Will suggest other editors who have worked on Singapore topics and are familiar with the environment to chip in instead, as they can come in fresh. ----Zhanzhao (talk) 01:53, 25 September 2023 (UTC)