Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore

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 keep. No policy based reasons for deletion. If there are inaccuracies, they can be fixed by editing. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 17:31, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore[edit]

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Request by the Parish Priest... OTRS2016022510001865 ... Our church serves about 3000 parishioners every weekend, the misinformation and inaccuracies that the writer had insisted to put in despite our editing efforts, has brought about confusion to our visitors. The inaccuracies on the services that our provides also cause undue inconveniences to our day-to-day running.

The first para of the article reads: "The Church of the Sacred Heart (Chinese: 圣心堂) is a Roman Catholic church in Singapore. It was founded in 1910 by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, and is one of the oldest parishes in the Archdiocese. "

Our church is NOT founded by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. In fact, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was founded in Singapore only in 1951.

Under the section titled "Present" were these three paragraphs:

"On the first Sunday of each month, the Church's cafeteria gives out free food to the parishioners. This day is referred to by parishioners as agape (ἀγάπη), a Greek word defined in the English language as "love" or "charity", which is one of the three Theological virtues. There is also sometimes a band which plays country music.

Every weekend Mass, except for the Masses conducted in the first week of each month, there is a second collection for the Church Community Building Fund, on top of the collection of alms, which goes towards the monetary foundation of the community building. Every first Sunday of each month, the church money collected from the second collection goes towards the Society of St Vincent De Paul.

Recently, the church began serving meals to the poor daily, as part of a programme entitled DOULOS (δοῦλος), which means "servant" in Greek. Those who go to the church for food are also each given a loaf of bread after their meals. The location at which the religious bookshop used to be also has two beds to allow for the administration of ChineseAcupuncture, as the majority of the poor who visit the church are elderly and suffer from body pains. The bookshop has since relocated to the Community Building."

These three paragraphs are not accurate. Presently, we do not give out free food to parishioners, there is no band that plays music. We do not have a second collection for the Church Community Building Fund at every weekend Mass. In addition, we do not serve meals to the poor daily. The programme "Doulos" was discontinued in December 2014. There is also no Chinese Acupuncture services in the Church.

Under the section titled "Masses and Services"

The timing the writer has insisted on are not updated timing. This cause frustration to visitors who want to come in time for services only to realise the times given are wrong.

As you can see, these misinformation and inaccuracies which the writer had put in causes confusion and even distress in some cases. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 19:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Some of the items above may have changed a bit - the priest was a very long time coming back to me to authorise the use of an e-mail, as a "reason". As a totally unsourced article, I personally see little benefit in keeping, unless someone wants to adopt the page and do a proper job. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 19:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: User:Fr Stephen Yim attempted to make multiple edits to this page in February, with the notation of "correcting several inaccuries"; these were promptly reverted by another, User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao, with no explanation. Given the latter's industrious history on WP, and assuming the former really is the minister for this church - a presumption bolstered by the fact this is the only article ever edited by the user - the reverts likely were in error. Either the article needs deleted due to lack of verified sources, or the February edits restored. Jtrevor99 (talk) 20:17, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you will please note, I am not the first to have reverted his edits. Two other editors did so before me. The information which I reverted was unsourced and not well formatted; I saw it as no improvement over what was there before. As to whether or not to keep the article, I make no judgment at this time. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 21:00, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While it is true that the information you reverted was unsourced, the information you reverted back to also was unsourced. So, while unsourced information normally is a reason for reversion, in this case I do not think it is. As for formatting: I would consider (presumably) accurate information that is poorly formatted to be superior to well-formatted, (presumably) inaccurate information. Of course, without sourcing in either version of the article, it is not possible to establish what is factual here. Jtrevor99 (talk) 13:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Singapore-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The church is notable. But the information is unsourced and I understand that. I will clean it up later. This is a major problem with many article in Singapore - a lot of content but no citations. In addition, please inform the editors to discuss issues on the talk page. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 02:54, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- If it is possible to establish valid sources then my vote also would be keep. If not, delete. Per the conversation above with User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao, you may also wish to look at the alternate, but also unsourced, information that was added by User:Fr Stephen Yim before reversion. It is presumably more accurate, but without sources in either version of the article, we cannot be certain. Jtrevor99 (talk) 14:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - There are probably sources for this and the information added by User:Fr Stephen Yim seems to be correct. As far as I know (from my personal knowledge), this Church is over a hundred years old and it is significant for being the first Chinese Roman Catholic Church in Singapore. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 14:13, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Clearly notable church. If there are inaccuracies then the parish priest would be better off editing the article than requesting its deletion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- If there are errors, the answer is to correct them, not to delete the article. Being the first Chinese Catholic Church may be sufficient to make it notable, but my initial reaction was that it was yet another local church, most of which are routinely declared NN: I wish it was otherwise. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:22, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. http://history.catholic.sg/church-of-the-sacred-heart/ is a site providing history of the church, including that it was damaged 15 February 1942 by Japanese shelling of Singapore. --do ncr am 00:00, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I note with some concern that there is List of Roman Catholic churches in Singapore with about 1/2 bluelinks, and 1/2 redlinks calling for creation of new articles on marginal or non-notable churches. It would be better to develop the list article...make a table with photos and descriptions and such...and to redirect all the redlinks to the list-article row on each of those churches. It would be an option to merge/redirect this article to that list-article, too.

By the way I dropped assertion in the article that it was founded by Society of Saint Vincent de Paul given the priest's assertion above, but even if the Singapore "chapter" or whatever of the organization was not founded until 1951, this church could still easily have been started as a project of the world-wide organization or one of its parts. --do ncr am 00:15, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: By no means a model article, by that is no criteria or reason for deletion in itself. Indeoendant, secondary sources have been identified by people above. WP:GEOFEAT shows us that it is possible for this to be notable, and sorces have been shown. All of that satisfies me that it does pass the GNG. TheMagikCow (talk) 12:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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.