Template talk:Singapore legislation

Ministry or Agency Name

Based on the issues I faced at the FAC for Flag of Singapore, would it be possible to add a parameter that allows users to put in the name of the Ministry, Agency or just Government of Singapore when it comes to who authored this legislation? Or, better yet, we could change it to where cap might be option so this template can be used for all sorts of regulations issued by the SG government. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 08:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Generally, the legal citation practice in Singapore is not to indicate "Government of Singapore" as the "author" of legislation. Strictly speaking, legislation is enacted by the Parliament of Singapore, although it may be published by the Government. Also, making |cap= (or |no= and |year=, following the recent updates to the template) optional is not possible at the moment because the chapter number of a statute must be stated in order to create an external link to the Singapore Statutes Online website. It sounds like you are suggesting that this template be expanded to allow it to be used for subsidiary legislation in addition to statutes. Will have to think about whether this is a good idea, or whether a separate template should be developed. It is not very accurate to call subsidiary legislation "statutes". However, I guess this template could be renamed {{Singapore legislation}}. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:47, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Enhancements

This template is due for a round of enhancements:

• Switch display between Cap. and Act depending on the chapter number. Some recent new statutes are given Act x of 20yy instead of Cap. x
• Enhance lookup table to encompass all possible links to SSO and wikipedia on all past, present and upcoming statutes.
• Auto display titles.

Feasibility and approach, pending checks on existing usage to see:

* How editors are using the template?

* Whether additional parameters or a bot/semi-automated tasks required to updating existing usage.

• Write script to extract and format links from SSO site into lookup table, and documentation on how to run the script for future updates.

robertsky (talk) 19:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the first suggestion. A statute that has not yet been assigned a chapter number should be cited by its act number and year using {{Singapore legislation|title=|titlelink=|cap=new|no=|year=}}. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed that you have amended "Template:Singapore legislation/index". As mentioned, the |cap= parameter is not intended for statutes with an act number and year. You're supposed to add such statutes to the "cap=new" section at the end of the page. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:42, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Sgconlaw: Ah. If that's that, I will shift the X of 20YY entries later when I am home. Have struck out the first suggestion as well. A question, is it reasonable to assume that there will not be any changes the text of the statute when it gets eventually assigned a chapter number? robertsky (talk) 04:28, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Robertsky: thanks. As to your question, generally no, I believe, but the Attorney-General of Singapore does have power to make minor edits to legislation when they are published as revised editions and assigned chapter numbers so it is possible that some alterations are made. For example, if a particular section of an Act has expired the Attorney-General may just leave it out and add a note stating this fact. (Incidentally, I heard that the Attorney-General is considering doing away with the chapter number system, which means that all legislation would just be referred to by act number and year. No official announcement yet, though.) — SGconlaw (talk) 04:35, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

By the way, I like the idea of the template being able to display the name of a statute automatically if the chapter number, or act number and year, are specified. We'd have to create a lookup table separate from this one. The table should also link to Wikipedia articles about specific statutes, if these exist. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:39, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Sgconlaw I thought so too, hence my edit to the index. I had extracted the titles from the SSO together with the links. But before doing so, I want to check to see what is the best possible way to take into account current usage patterns and the want to automatically display the name of the statutes. The last thing I want to be accused of is being disruptive to articles that are currently using the template. robertsky (talk) 06:42, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. There may be cases where an editor simply wants to create a link to the chapter number and revised edition year, or the act number and year, without indicating the statute title because this has already been stated earlier. Of course the template can be modified so that an express use of |title= will override the automatic display of a title. However, editors would also have to specifically indicate |title=no or something like that to suppress the automatic display, so this would be a fundamental change in the way the template works. — SGconlaw (talk) 06:55, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• With the 2020 Revised Edition of Acts , acts are now referred by its name and the year it was enacted. There are no more chapter numbers and citing the year of revised edition is also not necessary, unless an older version of the Act is cited. Currently the reference to Singapore statues still infringe on the older format. Are there going to be changes to reflect this? Successor 17:00, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Addition

• Have a wrapper for CS1 citation as well in the form of {{Cite Singapore legislation}} or a shorter template name. robertsky (talk) 04:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Not sure if that's very useful. The citation style for Singapore legislation is quite different. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:56, 13 September 2019 (UTC)