Talk:City Harvest Church

Notice to all concerned!
As of today, I have tagged the article with a "current event" tag pending the outcome of an official police investigation report, I have also requested for a Semi-page protection to protect the article against POV (per WP:CPUSH), OR (per WP:No original research) and patent nonsense (per WP:Vandalism) from newly registered users and anon IP editors alike. If an article on Wikipedia, such as this one (emphasis being this one), is to be a faithful and neutral-point-of-view representation of the real-life one, we need all the participating parties or people to be accountable and responsible for their edits here or there will be no peace from all quarters. All those failing to comply will be held for their actions. That is all. --Dave ♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™ 19:14, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

--Dave ♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™ 09:07, 11 June 2010 (UTC) (updated 11 June 2010)
 * Blocked indefinitely

Joy Tong Study Given Undue Credance?
Is it normal practice to allow one singular source to dictate the direction of close to 30% of an article, especially if the view is contentious ( given the reaction of the arguments on the source). Proportionately, that makes it the single most inluential source in the whole article. Granted it is a scholastic study which gives it credibility, but it is still only one source. Another editor mentioned that that Tong's article was quoted in other studies and articles. In which case, these other sources should be quoted as well. The other sources are only acknowledging the sections which they are quoting, and not necessarily a blanket endorsement of the whole study. I know this is a little late (going though my huge watchlist), but just thought this bares mentioning. Zhanzhao (talk) 01:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Looking at the other sources, a good 60% of them are either the church itself or directly affiliated entities (Harvest Times, Asia Conference etc), and the rest are from Singapore's lapdog local media, so I think Tong's study gives a very much needed alternative viewpoint. Also, if you peruse the discussion above, there are plenty of CHC people disputing the study's inclusion in this article on all sorts of spurious grounds (OR, UNDUE, etc etc), but no criticism whatsoever of the study's actual content, much less any mention of other sources that dispute her findings. Jpatokal (talk) 05:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Erm I don't see how describing the local media as "lapdog" has anything to do with it. After all, most of the new reports in the article i.e. the ongoing investigations are sourced to them as well. Are you saying they are somehow biased? As I mentioned above, an alternative viewpoint is fine, but with the amount of debatable content here thats sourced to JT, I would suggest just streamlining the info from JT's study to a singular section by itself rather than as it appears all over the article. I see a subsection has already been created in any case for the study. Zhanzhao (talk) 09:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The editor who introduced Tong's study was recently blocked indefinitely for combative editing and wiki hounding. Come to think of it, at the time when the editor suddenly developed an exceptional interest in this article, she practically only edited Singapore politics and science articles. It was also during that time that me and Zhanzhao were voicing out in an ANI and RfC against her. Coincidence? Or DUCK? I know its not related to the issue at hand, but just saying. DanS76 (talk) 10:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * On a related note, the reason there were no sources questioning Tong's study could be because its too, well, obscure..... Some might even call it FRINGE since that is the only one source the editor kept refering to. But I am not gonna do anything here, might make it worse if the editor becomes "convinced" I have some attachment to the article.DanS76 (talk) 10:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * (to Zhanzhao)
 * "Controversy" sections are discouraged on WP and Tong's study is not an attempt to discredit the church, it's simply an analysis of its methods and actions. For example, the descriptions of the church's teachings on tithes, worship and discipline -- which happen to be referenced to both Tong and the church's own publications  -- very much belong in the core "Culture" section (or something like it, that's not actually a great name...), not hidden away in some little separate section.
 * More simply, the important of Tong's study is not that it's "Tong's study", but that it's a reliable source for aspects of the church not covered by the church's own propaganda or the mainstream media. Jpatokal (talk) 10:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * (to Jpatokal) Actually I was not pitching for a "controversy" section, just a section on JT's study itself. Written in a neutral, unbiased manner that just states parts of the study relevant to the church in question. Its like how some articles have a section dedicated to how it is depicted in alternative media or made a subject of a study as in the case here. Its more of a clean-up exercise to consolidate points made by the study in one single section than have it flying all over the place, as it is sometimes hard to tell what part can be attributed to her study. Its either that, or we can attempt to create an article for thhe study itself, but I do not think thats likely at the moment, so consolidation is the next best option. Zhanzhao (talk) 11:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, I don't think that makes sense or follows Wikipedia practice. This is, first and foremost, an article about the church, not a study. Jpatokal (talk) 01:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think we are both on the same page about this article being about the church and not the study. What I am questioning is how that one single source seems to pervade through the whole article, making it seem as if most of the article emphasis is on JT's findings on the church. Ultimately, it is still one person's findings on the church, rather than something that was covered extensively by multiple sources. Overreliance on single sources is actually highly debatable here in wikipedia. And again, I am not aiming for a "controversy" section, just a subsection to consolidate points made by the study to make the article more organized. As for controversy sections, well, there is already one in this article...... Zhanzhao (talk) 10:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This is fairly incredible that a little-known study is practically being used as a backbone of so much of the content of this article. Having info which is sourced from the parent source is a fairly common practice with most articles that deals with organizations, such as those that pull information from company reports and corporate websites. Unless Tong's article has been widely used and reprinted by other media as a secondary/third party source, it remains just a singular source, of which undue weight is being given here. BBFreman (talk) 00:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Lets go over this again. Exactly why has this one study been given so much influence on this whole article? At this rate one might as well just write up a whole article titled "Joy Tong's Study on CHC". Including the article is fine, but its still just one source only thats quoted repeatedly throughout the article. I believe UNDUE is becoming an issue here. Our objective should be to keep wikipedia neutral, not swing it towards being anti-CHC as a punishment just because their followers had been running rampant here in the past should be avoided. Keep it clean and neutral guys. Zhanzhao (talk) 06:38, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Joy Tong Article Being Given Undue Weight.
I put up the UNDUE tag because I believe more eyes need to look at this. This one study (which no one had even heard of until it got dug up by a banned editor who apparently had an axe to grind) had since been elevated to such "importance" that it is dictating about 30% of the whole article, and even included for the lead section. My opinion, just getting it out of the way.

I understand that some editors here may be frustrated because CHC defenders have been whitewashing the page for quite some time, but let cooler and more neutral heads prevail now. Our goal is to keep the article neutral and objective. Not punish the article because certain editors misbehaved.Zhanzhao (talk) 06:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm also not entirely happy with our reliance on the Tong article. However, the content of Tong's study is only "anti-CHC" if its content is in dispute, but there appear to be basically no sources that dispute its claims, even from the church itself. Jpatokal (talk) 12:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * As mentioned earlier, the study itself is not that well publicized. If no one (except till recently here) knew about it, they would not dispute it in another publication/study. Such an action merely draws more attention to it. My opinion anyway. If this had been an article about a person, BLP would not have allowed it to be taken this far. Zhanzhao (talk) 15:27, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Useful link
Report - What you need to know about the City Harvest trial - by the Straits Times. starship.paint ~  KO   09:42, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Currently glaringly missing from the article - a full named list of the 6 accused. Any way to introduce it in prose? Right now only 3 are named. Also just for knowledge, who was the 6th person to be charged? Zhanzhao (talk) 04:16, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on City Harvest Church. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100523130356/http://www.konghee.com:80/www/chc-history/ to http://www.konghee.com/www/chc-history
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101221235450/http://www.chc.org.sg/eng/church/church_stats_missions.php to http://www.chc.org.sg/eng/church/church_stats_missions.php
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101124121320/http://www.todayonline.com:80/Singapore/EDC100601-0000111/City-Harvest-probe to http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100601-0000111/City-Harvest-probe

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:14, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on City Harvest Church. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20081113205257/http://www.chc.org.sg/eng/church/church_missionStt.php to http://www.chc.org.sg/eng/church/church_missionStt.php
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151201041450/http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/chc-funds-scandal/story/city-harvest-warned-over-fund-raising-six-accused-20120822g-six-accused-20120822 to http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/chc-funds-scandal/story/city-harvest-warned-over-fund-raising-six-accused-20120822g-six-accused-20120822

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 20:02, 28 February 2016 (UTC).