Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/REACHSingapore


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   nomination withdrawn. Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:56, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

REACHSingapore

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No evidence of notability. Referenced only to primary sources. Promotional tone. Is it really a government department/division? It certainly doesn't look like it from the website. It looks like a website that promotes some Government programmes. Is every individual website that a government produces notable? Probably not. Is this one? Not that I can see. Google has next to nothing on it. DanielRigal (talk) 19:33, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Singapore-related deletion discussions.  —DanielRigal (talk) 20:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions.  —DanielRigal (talk) 20:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Notable as important national government interface with its population. The nominator asks whether this is really an arm of government? With the three top stories when I looked on the website the results of the pre-budget consultation, the official inflation statistics and a crime prevention initiative I'd say it is fairly typical. The fact that it may be presented differently and use social media makes it notable in itself. There is a big problem in applying notability criteria to government and large organisations when most of what is produced concerning them is generated by them and therefore a primary source, but it must be well known in Singapore and it has been going for five years. The Government of Singapore, by the way, has a reputation of being a well run and progressive outfit, so it isn't surprising to see them doing something different. --AJHingston (talk) 20:05, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * We are certainly not here to argue the merits of any particular government and I am surprised to see it raised as an issue. Lets leave that aside and look at your points. If this really is the main government information portal then I would accept that this makes it automatically notable (for any government in the world) but it was certainly not obvious to me that this is that. Lots of governments make lots of overlapping portalish websites that repeat and reblog government information. This looks like it could be one of those and I see nothing to prove otherwise in the article.
 * I strongly disagree that there is any intrinsic problem proving notability. If this really is the main government web portal then it will have been covered in the Singapore media. You say it "must be well known in Singapore" (my emphasis). If that really is so then it must be possible to prove it. Where are the newspaper references from a few years back saying "Government unveils brand new web portal". Where is the verifiability here? Singapore is an English speaking country. It shouldn't be hard to find the references required, if they exist, but I am finding almost nothing when I look. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I am now pretty certain that www.gov.sg is actually the main Singapore government web portal. It says "The www.gov.sg Portal is the official electronic communication platform of the Singapore Government. This portal, together with three other portals - Citizens & Residents, Business and Non-Residents - collectively make up the Singapore Government Online (SGOL) presence.". It doesn't get much clearer than that. And it doesn't even mention Reach. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:40, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure whether we are arguing here about whether the website is what it claims to be or whether it is notable in the sense that people will have heard of it, since they overlap. The stated purpose is set out on the website . Accessing press coverage is difficult because the Straits Times does not appear to be searchable directly, but these two articles are pertinent - from Jan 2009 and Oct 2010. I didn't look for others. I am not in favout of including websites in general, but this does seem to me different from the usual. --AJHingston (talk) 22:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Those two media links are both helpful for demonstrating some notability and providing verifiability. It is now possible to be clearer about what the site actually is and what the organisation is behind it. This is something that the article, and the site itself, does not explain clearly at all. Now that we know that Reach is an agency as well as a website this does make it much more likely to be notable. If the article is kept I think we would want to use those sources as the basis for a more-or-less complete rewrite and rename the article to match the correct name. (I was taking it on trust that the article was correctly named which is why I wasn't finding stuff when I searched for sources and why I assumed it would be easier than it is.) As it stands the article is pretty much a puff piece but now we have some better sources it may be rescuable after all. --DanielRigal (talk) 23:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Nobody else has chimed in in favour of deletion and the above exchange has weakened my belief that deletion is necessary. Accordingly I think it best if I abandon the nomination so we can instead try to clean up the article according to the sources found. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:09, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.