Talk:Central Provident Fund

Disputes & Criticism

The section on disputes added by Yosri was incomprehensible, until I read the reference provided. The reference is dedicated to bias opinion for workers' rights. Yosri, in this case, use a paragraph of the page for the disputes section in a bias way. If you would like to add anything, even if there's reference, please make sure that it is a NPOV and unbias. Anti.Exams (talk) 01:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rating

I re-did the entire page taking out the redundant criticisms and whatever stuff about people wanting CPF to move here and there. So putting this article against others, I rate it as Start class. Please tell me if you beg to differ. Also, I will be adding much more stuff later on during the day as of the time I post this comment. ^^ Anti.Exams (talk) 22:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rates section

its terrible. I should not need to parse the text of the entire section to understand what the current contribution rates are. -- 180.214.70.94 (talk) 03:50, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The current rates are clearly stated in the (very short) lede para of the article - right at the top/beginning of the article.... Zhanzhao (talk) 07:50, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pinyin

Say about the pinyin, wouldn't a multilingual infobox be preferred instead? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 07:55, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:CPFLogo.jpg

Image:CPFLogo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Investing?

Does the CPF invest in tradable assests? If so who controls these investments, and how much is owned? Kevlar67 01:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kervlar, I think you should write to CPF regarding this and ask them to post information about this or you can contribute by finding out as well. ^^ Anti.Exams (talk) 22:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

not social security to me...

I am surprised by seing CPF referred to as a "social security savings plan".

My understanding of "social" security means fundings are centralized by a State or local administration controlled body, which controls distribution of the benefits to a population according to specific rules : you don't get what you save, you get what you are entitled to by such rules.

CPF is a compulsary savings plan at individual level, whereby each one funds its own benefits, even though it is controlled by a State organization : therefore it is a "private" security savings plan : you will get exactly what you save, and nobody else (except family) will benefit from this savings.

This is particularly true under a western European understanding : poorer population fund little or nothing, but will benefit the most from the social security; wealthier population will fund much more, yet will benefit little or nothing from the Scheme (true in France for government medical insurance schemes, unemployement schemes and retirement schemes). Toh-mah (talk)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Central Provident Fund (Singapore) → Central Provident Fund – Rather than revert the move as Tony suggested, I would rather have a discussion about it. Tony's contention is that using what could be a generic term to refer exclusively to a specific instance of that term is misleading, and that such uses ought to include parenthetical qualification (Tony, correct me if I got that wrong). However, I contend that our usual practice is to only provide disambiguation where necessary, and that in this case there are no other "central provident funds" with articles, and so no disambiguation is needed. Powers ^T 12:59, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose—to start with, how do you know there are no other funds of this name? Have you checked? It's so generic in its scope that one could easily be created tomorrow, and without knowing it, the article name becomes POV. Why mislead the readers? Tony (talk) 14:33, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To start with, I didn't say this was the only fund of this name. Powers ^T 16:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The title "Central Provident Fund (Singapore)" is the one that is misleading. To the non-initiated, it implies the existence of other Central Provident Funds. To the user versed in the ways of Wikipedia, it directly states that there is another article at Wikipedia dealing with another important Central Provident Fund. Neither is true. — AjaxSmack 17:59, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Parentheticals in titles at Wikipedia are used for titles that are ambiguous and there is no ambiguity here.

There are two negative reasons why parentheticals are not needed if there is no ambiguity based on how users access the topic and what information they might be seeking. There are several ways a user might arrive at this article.

First, through an inline link. For example, a passage at Howe Yoon Chong reads: "Howe became best remembered by Singaporeans for his controversial proposal in 1984 to raise the age for the withdrawal of Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings from 55 to 60 years." The context of Singapore is perfectly clear from the sentence. Parenthetical identifiers do nothing in such cases because they don't appear in running text, anyway. Therefore, a parenthetical is not needed.

Second, a user might access the article through Wikipedia's search function or an external search engine such as Google. In this case, a vast majority of searchers will be looking for the Singapore fund because it is the primary topic (see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for details on what this means). There may be other Central Provident Funds out there but, since there is no article on them at Wikipedia, the small minority of users naturally could not find any information about them here anyway. Therefore, a parenthetical disambiguator is not needed.

There is a clear affirmative reason not to preemptively disambiguate as well. Although there may not be any great harm in having a parenthetical following a title in any individual case, it runs counter to the general prescription that conciseness of titles is important. This is long-established policy at Wikipedia. WP:PRECISION says in part "over-precision should be avoided. Be precise, but only as precise as necessary...Remember that concise titles are preferred." This sensibly prevents mass proliferation of superfluous descriptions that should be in the intro paragraph rather than the title.

Editorially, I would add that simply supposing that Singapore is too small or far from the great English-speaking centers of the world to warrant a non-parenthetical title is to perpetuate systemic geographical bias at Wikipedia. — AjaxSmack 17:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I think Tony was perfectly justified in his move. The avoidance of parenthetic qualifiers has gone too far, and needs system-wide review. So what if Singapore's central provident fund is the most widely known? Other places want to continue to use this descriptive term in their way, as in Shanghai (which makes reference to Singapore's better-known CPF), or the Indian state of Kerala; and even if this is only for proposed or temporary CPFs such as in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Of course we can agree with AjaxSmack, above: the fact that this article is about "little" Singapore and not the US or Britain, say, is not itself a warrant for parenthetic qualification. But then, what about "little" Shenzhen? A sub-provincial city with twice the population of Singapore, and a GDP of $US146 billion. What about "little" Kerala, with three times the population of Singapore? Wikipedia should play no part in shoring up linguistic, economic, or geopolitical hegemonies in the economy of ideas. If some pension fund in Singapore appropriates a certain name, that is well and good: and such a name serves them well. But on Wikipedia, nothing is lost by retaining the qualification "(Singapore)". It has been alleged above that such qualifications might mislead readers; I say they can only inform. AjaxSmack has made three assertions here: "To the non-initiated, it implies the existence of other Central Provident Funds. To the user versed in the ways of Wikipedia, it directly states that there is another article at Wikipedia dealing with another important Central Provident Fund. Neither is true." I see no evidence for the first and second assertions, which make a spurious distinction between insiders and outsiders. If I am either, I am an insider: but Central Provident Fund is certainly a misleading title for me, when despite its generic appearance it turns out to be about one central provident fund. The third assertion ("neither is true") is false, as my examples of other such funds, real or projected, demonstrate.

It's high time we met the real needs of real users, instead of narrowly appealing to favourite practices here – or to guidelines that were never intended to mask the true topic of an article.

Noetica^Tea? 00:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, having read the arguments above. Without the parenthetical, the title gives little clue about the topic of the article. Dicklyon (talk) 01:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[Boldly amended from "With the parenthetical, the title gives no clue ...", which is clearly not meant. Let the editor revert, if this is out of line. Noetica^Tea? 03:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)][reply]

AjaxSmack, you say "it implies the existence of other central provident funds", I say, "how do you know there aren't other ones", and why put a rod down our backs by creating admin work when another pops up? This is apart from the other issues at stake. A quick google search found one in South Africa. Tony (talk) 02:14, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closer: Do note that the established title of this article was simply "Central Provident Fund", and thus, per WP:RM guidelines, a 'no consensus' result should result in a reversion to that title. Powers ^T 11:56, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no consensus to remove the clarity in the title, so sly tricks like that won't work. Tony (talk) 12:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a "sly trick", it's long-standing practice. Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Determining consensus clearly states: "However, sometimes a requested move is filed in response to a recent move from a long existing name that cannot be undone without administrative help. Therefore, if the closer feels that no consensus has been reached, they may move the article back to the most recent stable name." Powers ^T 13:41, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's better to let the discussion run its course and let us determine with great clarity where consensus lies, than to ask for a procedural close and leave the truth of consensus feeling in doubt. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not asking for a procedural close; I'm reminding the closer -- since it wasn't clear in my original nomination -- that the longstanding title of this article was different than the current title. Powers ^T 17:15, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's good. I hope the consensus is clear enough for that fact not to matter, but you're all good. I mean, a consensus for the long-standing title is great, and a strong enough consensus against one means that we abandon the long-standing title, per consensus. We'll see what happens. :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. There is no other article with the title and nothing to disambiguate within the context of Wikipedia. When there is another article (or even a redirect to a section of another article with content relevant to the title), then and only then will it be necessary to use a parenthetical disambiguator. For the concern that other stuff might exist, write the article first. older ≠ wiser 12:16, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have stubbed in Central Provident Fund (South Africa); there may be others. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That article is a borderline A7 speedy, as there's no assertion of importance. Powers ^T 17:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(after ec) That's a start. We'll see if it has sufficient notability to sustain a standalone article. I'm not aware of many articles about specific individual investment funds, especially where there is little or no third party coverage of the fund. older ≠ wiser

Support. The fact of the matter is that we don't preemptively disambiguate. Dick has created a South African article (currently up for A7 speedy deletion, I see), but even if it survives, it is still obvious that Singapore Central Provident Fund is the primary topic. To Tony and Noetica, I can see where you're coming from, but you are going against a common practice that is site-wide. My suggestion would be that if you truly want to alter the practice of only using parens for disambiguation, then it would be better to go top-down (i.e. getting community consensus via RfC of somesuch), rather than constantly fighting uphill battles on obscure articles. Jenks24 (talk) 06:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Why is the Singapore one the "primary" topic? Clearly, a generic topic about the phenomenon of central provident funds would be a primary topic, but why is Singapore suddenly better than South Africa? Tony (talk) 06:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Singapore usage is the primary topic per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (with my emphases):

"There is no single criterion for defining a primary topic. However, there are two major aspects that are commonly discussed in connection with primary topics:

A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely — much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined — to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
A topic is primary for a term, with respect to importance, if it is has significantly greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term."

That no other article on any other Central Provident Funds even existed until this week means the Singapore usage is primary topic res ipsa loquitur. — AjaxSmack 00:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All of that is out of context, Ajax. Here is the context set by what precedes your excerpt of the guideline (with my underlining):

Is there a primary topic?
Although a word, name or phrase may refer to more than one topic, it is sometimes the case that one of these topics is the primary topic. If a primary topic exists, then that term should be the title of the article on that topic (or should redirect to an article on that topic that uses a different, more appropriate title). If there is no primary topic, the term should be the title of a disambiguation page (or should redirect to a disambiguation page where more than one term is disambiguated on one page). The primary topic might be a broad-concept article [linked] as mentioned above.

Your conclusion that the topic of the present article is a primary topic not well supported; you would need to show first that there exists a primary topic associated with the expression "central provident fund". For that, usage and familiarity are not sufficient; and indeed, the expression has the form of a generic expression like "the queen" (which we do not take as having a primary topic – certainly not any particular queen).

Res ipsa tacet.

Noetica^Tea? 00:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand your point or your queen analogy. Are you saying that CPF has a generic meaning? If so, what is it? Is there any reference that support this? — AjaxSmack 02:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised that you don't understand. The structure of "central provident fund" shows that it has analysable semantic content comparable to that of, say, "peripheral nervous system". We don't need a reference to show that! It's more like "peripheral nervous system" than "Australia", or "Burkina Faso", right? We are not surprised or affronted if someone calls a new but similar entity, somewhere other than Singapore, a "central provident fund". They have done so, more than once. We would be surprised and affronted if someone called a new country "Australia". Same with "queen". That starts as a generic term, like "peripheral nervous system". "The queen" has greater specificity: it refers in a contextually determined way to a particular person. Capitalising to "the Queen" lends even more specificity, tending to fix the reference more durably but still according to context. The fact that people in Britain refer rather consistently to one particular person when they say "the Queen" does not render the expression incapable of referring differently. Now, suppose that all the queens in the world abdicated, except for their Queen Elizabeth. "The queen", and "queen" by itself, would still be general terms that anyone can use generally or specifically. So with "central provident fund", whether capped or not. Noetica^Tea? 03:16, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I understand how the three words "central provident fund" could be a lexeme. I could take your word for it that they are but it would be nice to have outside input or evidence. "Peripheral nervous system has verifiable, established usage and a substantial article at Wikipedia, as does "queen". A cursory internet search of CPF -Singapore yields no coherent usage. Am I missing something? — AjaxSmack 03:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know for lexeme, but this book discusses a National Provident Fund (a title translated from a similar French term), and WP has a disambig page Provident fund; some are employee's, some central, some national, etc. I can see how one might be confused if not aware the provident is an English adjective meaning "Making or indicative of timely preparation for the future." Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And here's one that discusses the "central provident fund model implanted by the British in Malaysia and Singapore." Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And again, for those claiming there is some other encyclopedic sense of the term, write the article first, please. older ≠ wiser 10:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The articles exist; see the disambig page I linked. Dicklyon (talk) 19:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I don't see any disambiguation page for this topic. Central Provident Fund (South Africa) is linked in a hatnote, and as I mentioned earlier, if it satisfies notability criteria and is not deleted, then there is perhaps something to disambiguate. The previous comment was in response to a hypothetical proposition that an article on the concept of provident funds might be written. Oh wait, I see, you may mean the Provident fund dab page. I think it's fine to add links there, though some might challenge entries as partial title matches. But seeing as that page started out as a redirect to Central Provident Fund (as this page was then named) I don't see any problem with including them there. In fact, If the SA fund article survives, there might be a basis for redirecting "Central Provident Fund" to the "Provident Fund" disambiguation page. older ≠ wiser 21:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Next they'll be claiming that Yellowstone National Park must be disambiguated because there might be other national parks with yellow stones in them somewhere. Powers ^T 12:50, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't imagine anyone making such an argument; stick to the point. Dicklyon (talk) 19:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I admit it was a bit of an exaggeration, but the arguments for and against such a move closely parallel the ones for and against this proposal. Powers ^T 23:02, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I'm persuaded that Singapore's CPF is the primary one, at least in the wikiworld. That no other article existed with that title until last week is good evidence of that. And I have to say that I don't understand the argument that because the title sounds generic, or could be generic, that we need to disambiguate. We have innumerable nondisambiguated articles at titles that could be generic. There are at least a dozen royal navies; but we have an article on the Royal Navy. Lots of countries have a national park service; but we have an article on the National Park Service. Using an example with even more generic words, we could describe the concept of a Federal information processing standard; but we have an article on Federal Information Processing Standards. So what's different about Central Provident Fund? Dohn joe (talk) 20:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"National Park Service" is a real problem. Someone stop this whole project becoming US-centric, please. Tony (talk) 06:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that the current discussion is over a Singaporean agency should be evidence enough that this is not a U.S.-versus-everyone-else issue. Please try to stop making it one. Are there any other National Park Services that we have articles for? No. So if the American one is the only one notable enough for an article, then there's no problem at all. Powers ^T 12:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh but it is so much easier to bolster a weak argument by roiling the anti-American forces. older ≠ wiser 13:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may have noticed that I cited Royal Navy as another example of an article at a potentially generic title. I don't believe the U.S. has one of those. Dohn joe (talk) 15:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, Dick and Noetica... would any of you support the move of Royal Navy to Royal Navy (United Kingdom) (or something like that) and leaving Royal Navy as a redirect to it? If so, I applaud your consistency and thank you in advance for clarifying. If not, please explain why the argument you're presenting here would not apply to the case of Royal Navy. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support As far as I know, the argument in opposition to this move presented and advocated by Tony, Noetica and Dick is novel. I agree with most of what Jenks24 says above, except the suggestion that such novel arguments need to be made top-down, and, until and unless they achieve consensus at the top, they should be dismissed simply for not having support of broad community consensus. That would create a Catch-22 situation, making change contrary to policy and guidelines at the article level, and to policy and guidelines in general, practically impossible, as explained at Change guideline first of my FAQ. So, we should be deciding whether WP would be improved by this move or not, including possibly accepting that it would contradict what policy/guidelines say (at least for now), to see whether or not there is at least consensus support for this idea among a small group of us as applied to only this one particular case. So, I applaud them for trying.
With all that in mind, I simply see nothing persuasive about the argument to keep this article at the unnecessarily disambiguated name. I think the concepts of primary topic and avoiding over-precision are good ones. As has been noted, even any other Central Provident Fund is clearly much less important (or it would have had an article before this week).
I would like to say that the idea that "Central Provident Fund" cannot be a primary topic for anything because "there exists a primary topic associated with the expression 'central provident fund'" is particularly far-fetched. I'm glad that the example of National Park Service was raised, and it was confirmed that per their argument it's problematic too. What this argument amounts to at its essence is that only entities with names that are obviously names should even be considered for primary topic treatment (no parenthetic disambiguation). Well, that, frankly, is a radical idea in the realm of WP article titles, and one for which I believe the reasons to oppose far outweigh the reasons to support. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Repost From Gov.sg Facebook Wall

Dear Gov.sg, sorry that we are hearing about the case of Amos Yee; especially when he is being photographed again as smiling happily as he arrives at the court this afternoon, PM Lee and the Cabinet has spoken substantially about the Sandwich Class during Budget 2015 and it also makes me suffer as well when I saw Amos' father with his head lowered suggesting that he is apologizing to PM Lee as well possibly during the April news conference or earlier.

I will again say sorry because Amos had spoken of karma in concluding his discourse about the late Mr Lee and Jesus Christ, as some may be aware karma has its said origins in Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and many Central Asian belief systems. Jesus was once reported by BBC as having historically schooled about karmic beliefs in Northern parts of India too.

I will again say sorry because while the Shakyamuni Buddha preached about perfecting one's karmic tendencies, I too suffer just as the Buddha reportedly had His own karmic debtors or samsaric nemeses like His cousin Devadatta that wanted His life, I am neither a fully enlightened Buddha nor am I any wiser than your average Joe. I suffer because I suffer.

I will again say sorry because since last year when Roy Ngerng and his kakis appeared in the news, I have been doing what I can to defend my CPF system that got me through university and corporate life while completing a said scholarship bond, in fact till today because I still owe my mother around S$2,000 in terms of outstanding CPF Education Loan I'm still pinching pennies and living on allowances, in my ordinariness I neither have the ability in earning five-figure salaries per month or even year, nor does my said father have a habit of paying $20,000 in bail or S$29,000 in damages; when we are poor we declare that we are poor and as I have said I am sorry because there's no because, on the contrary, I thank you Gov.sg that news of the first round of 2015 GST vouchers are being announced today.

In Buddhist speak, Gov.sg are my family's karmic, emotional, and financial benefactors. Thank you Budget 2015, thank you GST Vouchers, and yes I still owe my mother S$2,000 in CPF Education Loan, with my own said regrets.

_/\_ Namaste rongxiang S8134028E