Talk:Bukit Brown Cemetery

Good articleBukit Brown Cemetery has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 18, 2024Good article nomineeNot listed
June 5, 2025Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on June 25, 2025.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Bukit Brown Cemetery is believed to be the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China, with over 100,000 burials?
Current status: Good article

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bukit Brown Cemetery/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Actuall7 (talk · contribs) 12:24, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Chipmunkdavis (talk · contribs) 09:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Starting this review. There is one FA cemetery article and a couple of GA articles which I will be looking at as potential examples. As initial notes, the lead will need some editing, it has some puffery language ("lush vegetation and diverse wildlife") and a few areas where the text jumps around a bit or isn't clear. The lead also currently doesn't cover the Traditional practices section. At a quick look through the body, the sourcing appears comprehensive, aside from two notes. There are other areas copyediting could be used for flow. "Bukit Brown Cemetery" does not need to be in every caption. Looks to be a decent selection of images. CMD (talk) 09:19, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, thanks for taking this up. Actuall7 (talk) 09:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis, I've edited the lead to include the Traditional practices section and changed some captions. Actuall7 (talk) 01:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As noted above, the prose on this article needs work to meet GACR1a. Some examples:

  • "Originally owned by George Henry Brown, he purchased the land on hilly terrain and it became known as Brown's Hill, translated locally to Bukit Brown." This is joining together a few different ideas, and they have mixed a bit confusingly. It must have originally been owned by someone else. The terrain is a separate point to the purchase. The language could be specified instead of just saying "locally".
  • "After ownership for the land was passed around" is quite informal language.
  • "In 2011, the government designated the area for residential development which was met with backlash from activists and, in 2012, exhumed 3,700 graves to build an 8-lane highway" should be broken up into multiple fuller sentences.
  • "These are the main reasons by activists of why Bukit Brown Cemetery should be conserved" is missing some words.
  • Etymology has a similar run-on sentence about the initial purchase.
  • "Bukit Brown was also the first official location in Singapore to have an English and Malay name." Unclear what an "official location" is here, and the source describes it as a "hybrid Malay and English name", which has a very different meaning.
  • Some of the George Henry Brown information is duplicated across Etymology and History.
  • "He was known for his interest in music and played the organ at St. Andrew's Cathedral along with purchasing multiple plots of land" is another sentence grouping multiple unrelated ideas together.
  • "One such plot was land on a hill, which he called Mount Pleasant and built a cottage on it called Fern Cottage" is run-on sentence which should be split up.
  • "Brown sold the land to Mootapa Chitty, a Chettiar, and Lim Chu Yi who later sold the land to three Hokkien Seh Ong Kongsi clan members – Ong Hew Ko, Ong Ewe Hai, and Ong Chong Chew – who, in the 1870s, turned the land into a private cemetery for Chinese people of the Ong clan and became known as the Seh Ong Cemetery, managed by the Seh Ong Kongsi" is a very long sentence that should be broken up.

These are just examples, there is a need to go through the rest of the article as well. I have noticed an overuse of the word "also". The source I checked above for the English/Malay names also suggests that there may need to be further checking here. I am concerned rewriting and checking might take more than the weekish usually expected at GAN, and I do think it might be worth asking for a WP:GOCE check. Would you have thoughts on the timeline? CMD (talk) 09:34, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback, regarding the timeline, I'm not too worried about how long it'll take. If you're busy, you can take your time, I'm not in a rush. Regarding the prose, I'll fix the problems addressed. Actuall7 (talk) 10:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am not planning to review the entire article in this way, the prose should ideally be fixed prior to review. CMD (talk) 10:49, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was unaware that there were so many issues with the prose, don't hesitate to fail the article currently so that I can fix the issues regarding the prose. For what it's worth, I have edited the issues previously mentioned. If possible, do you have any other comments about the article so that I know what I should focus on? Actuall7 (talk) 11:17, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the response, and good luck with the article. Overall it looks quite decent and has a lot of interesting information. There is only one cemetery FA, Oakwood Cemetery (Troy, New York). Currently, this article seems broadly to cover the same topics as that article, and in some cases has a bit more, except for Geography. This could be a section explaining in more detail where the cemetery is, any internal structure to the way the graves are laid out, what is nearby to the cemetery on Mount Pleasant, and how the cemetery intersects with the MRT and road systems which caused parts of it to be damaged. Perhaps File:Aerial photography of Bukit Brown Cemetery.png would help in such a section. Aside from that I like the images. You may be able to ask the kind people at WP:Graphics lab if they can assist with the watermark on File:Chinese temple at Bukit Brown Cemetery.jpg. Best, CMD (talk) 11:48, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, I'll make sure to fix these issues before I decide to submit it for GA again. Actuall7 (talk) 11:55, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

Passed. —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:58, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bukit Brown Cemetery/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Actuall7 (talk · contribs) 03:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Ganesha811 (talk · contribs) 00:05, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]


Hi! I'll be reviewing this article using the template below. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask them here. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:05, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't have time to work on this over the weekend, but your responses on sources look sensible, so really there's just prose left to check - we'll be done pretty soon! —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:30, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for reviewing this article for me, please feel free to take your time. actuall7 (talk | contrib) 03:54, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article now meets the GA standard. Congrats to Actuall7 and any other editors who worked on it. —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:56, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.
  • I note that prose issues were a barrier in the last GA review, but I see that the article has undergone a copyedit since then and other improvements, so hopefully it will not be an issue this time. Hold for my own review.
  • As is my usual practice, I've gone through and made smaller tweaks myself to save us both time. If there are any you object to, just let me know.
  • "highest and most beautiful"... "low swampy ground" - who are these quotes from? They should be attributed in text.
  • Was the plan to exhume 3700 graves or 5000?
  • After further tweaks, pass on prose. It's not at FA standard, but it's sufficient for GA.
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
  • Pass, no issues.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
  • What's the citation for the list of plant species?
  • Issues addressed, pass.
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
  • Overall, well sourced. Generally reliable historic and academic books and well-regarded newspapers. A few historic, defunct papers.
  • What's the case for Mothership being a reliable source? The incidents on their Wiki page don't give me confidence.
  • Mothership's reliability is currently mixed, though leaning unreliable (see this talk for more info). I have removed one of the refs, the other two have supporting sources with them.
  • If the information is also provided in other, more reliable sources, no reason not to remove the Mothership cites entirely.
  • In general it would be great to add archive links where possible, though not required for GA. You can use the InternetArchiveBot.
  • Will work on this.
  • Claire Leow - what are her credentials/expertise? Her piece looks fairly reliable but would be good to hear more.
  • She appears to be the founder and a member of All Things Bukit Brown, an activist group for the cemetery. I would say this makes her a subject-matter expert on Bukit Brown.
  • For the information given, that's fine, though probably I would consider her a partisan source and statements should be attributed, but it's non-controversial information used from her article.
  • Is Channel News Asia reliable on this topic, considering its ties to the Singaporean government?
  • While yes, CNA could be considered unreliable due to being related to the government, I personally believe CNA to be highly reliable, more so than The Straits Times or other SG newspapers.
  • Could you expand on this further? And can you double-check that the sentences cited to CNA are not biased in any way by that affiliation?
  • Refs [56] and [57] are about the government's plans to build Lornie Highway and conservation. I personally think that there isn't any controversial/pro-government content in the refs, and it seems quite neutral. Ref [70] is a typical news report on residential developments. Ref [86] is simply about families visiting the cemetery during Qing Ming. In my opinion, I find no issue with their current uses in the article. However, you are still free to address anything you consider controversial. actuall7 (talk | contrib) 01:16, 3 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Today is sometimes given as Today and sometimes as TODAY - please align for consistency.
  • Fixed.
  • Is The New Paper reliable, as a tabloid?
  • I suppose since tabloids are generally unreliable that The New Paper wouldn't be either, especially since it is partly related to The Straits Times. I've decided to remove the TNP sources.
  • Sounds good.
  • The full Bukit Brown Wayfinder cite from the heritage society is given both in the Citations and in the Bibliography - should be just in the Bibliography with cites to it in the citations.
  • Done.
  • Newspaper article titles which are all-caps can be changed to title case.
  • Done.
  • Do you have any more information on the Sunday Standard or the Straits Budget? I just want to confirm they're reliable.
  • The Straits Budget was a Malaysian spin-off of The Straits Times that was published weekly in Malaysia. Sunday Standard appears to have been a spin-off of the Singapore Tiger Standard that was published on weekends; Singapore Tiger Standard and Sunday Standard were owned by the Aw family. Both newspapers are currently defunct as far as I know.
  • All fair enough.
  • Issues addressed, pass.
2c. it contains no original research.
  • Pass, no issues.
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
  • This looks like a clear copyvio, particularly around There was sufficient land... short of burial grounds. Please fix this ASAP as it could lead to a failed review. Other borrowed phrases (such as the bit around 'general' and 'pauper' sections should also be rephrased.
  • Thought I should clarify, but the "There was sufficient land... short of burial grounds" is a quote. I have additionally removed other copyvio phrases, and I hope you'll agree that the rest are common phrases.
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
  • Nothing else notable I can find worth covering.
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  • No major areas of overdetail. Any minor tweaks can be handled in prose review.
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  • No significant issues (see source discussion above). Minor tweaks can be handled in prose review.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  • No edit wars or unresolved issues on talk - no issues of stability. Pass.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
  • Although File:George Henry Brown.png is certainly PD, I note that Jo Prudence is the source, not the author, as listed on the Commons page, so that should be fixed. I presume the actual photographer is unknown, but if there is any information available about them, that would be great.
  • All the images should also be tagged with US public domain templates as well as the Singaporean ones, since Wikipedia servers are based in the US.
  • This is out of scope for a GA review, so totally optional, but some of the photos are also uncategorized on Commons; adding categories would be welcome.
  • Have done the above points, feel free to double check. Put US-PD-expired on most except for the Jacklee photos, as those are own work.
  • Issues addressed, pass.
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
  • In general, well-illustrated and with good captions. Any minor tweaks can be handled in prose review.
7. Overall assessment.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by DimensionalFusion talk 11:02, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Improved to Good Article status by Actuall7 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

actuall7 (talk | contrib) 11:33, 6 June 2025 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
QPQ: None required.
Overall: Article is new enough, long enough. No close paraphrasing found. Both hook facts are cited, and personally I prefer Hook 1.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:21, 9 June 2025 (UTC)  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:21, 9 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review

Bukit Brown Cemetery

Hello, I'm listing this article for PR as I am interested in a future FA nom for it. This has been a passion project of mine for a while, and after passing a GAN in June, I would like extra eyes on it before committing to an FA nom. Thanks, – actuall7 (talk | contrib) 13:00, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Icepinner

Glad to see this up on PR, Actuall7! Some comments from me:

  • Is there an ISBN for Song 1923? At least for the book you've used.
  • I'm using this one from the Internet Archive, which doesn't seem to include an ISBN.
  • I think its Infopedia and Roots article can be put in the "External links" section
  • I've never been a fan of putting Infopedia links in the "External links" section as it's basically the Singaporean government's Wikipedia, along with the fact that the information in this particular Infopedia article is dated to 2013. Have added the Roots link.
  • This seems to be a good source.
  • Ah yes, I also found that source in my research, but I actually couldn't find any use of it in this article. I will probably add it in the future if I can think of a way to incorporate it.
  • Although not strictly required, ALT text for images is very much expected at FAC.
  •  Done
  • It seems like you're missing some ISSNs for ST (WP:CITEUNSEEN helps, though you still have to manually do it)
  •  Done
  • I wonder why Channel NewsAsia isn't italicised. It's a proper publication, no?
  • Personally, I tend to not italicise news websites such as CNA, unless you think it should be?

That's all I have for sourcing and images. Icepinner 11:32, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments Icepinner, have responded to them above. – actuall7 (talk | contrib) 02:39, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Actuall. Regarding the italiscisation, I have italicised CNA in List of Singapore LRT stations, but idk, I don't think it's that big of an issue. Icepinner 11:20, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

CMD

Have made copyedits, please check.

  • "Kongsi" is a bit of jargon, ideally it can be clarified.
  • Added note.
  • It should also be clarified what a "municipal cemetery" is, I think footnote [a] does this but it has space to be a bit more lengthy with a couple of sources, and perhaps added to other mentions of municipal cemetery.
  • "Municipal cemetery" in this context refers to a government/public cemetery, however I'm not sure how I would source or explain this.
  • "arrived in the Straits Settlements (present-day Singapore)", if it is known he arrived in Singapore specifically this can be reworded as "arrived in Singapore (then part of the Straits Settlements)", or if it is not known then it should be changed to "arrived in the Straits Settlements (which included present-day Singapore)"
  • Fixed, he arrived in Singapore.
  • "built a house he called Fern Cottage at Mount Pleasant", perhaps "on" Mount Pleasant if the source supports this
  • Source isn't clear if he specifically built the cottage on Mount Pleasant.
  • Was the site ever specifically known as Brown's Hill in English?
  • Yup, but I assume the local translation was more popular, leading to "Bukit Brown" being more common.
  • Someone with a good understanding of MOS:ITALIC will have to look at this page and the various discussions of names.
  • Was Mootapa Chitty a Chitty or is that a coincidence?
  • I assume it's a coincidence.
  • Are there dates or vague timeframes for when the transfers of title occurred?
  • The estimated timeframes given in various sources is painfully inconsistent. For example, Siew 2013 states the Ongs bought over the land in the mid 1800s, page 92 of this source states Mootapa Chitty and Lim Chu Yi acquired Brown's land after his death, and Huang 2014 says that the Kongsis got the land in the 1870s.
  • Honestly, it is unclear whether the Chinese members of the Ong clan refer to Chinese nationals or native Chinese, but I assume it could have been mixed? Have rewritten this either way to remove the link.
  • "Hew Ko, Ewe Hai, and Chong Chew were buried at Bukit Brown Cemetery after their deaths". This sentence should be further developed to be clear if they are Seh Ong or Huay Kuan, and other further details which appear to be in that source.
  • Have decided to remove this instead. Sources are too conflicting on their actual burial locations.
  • "expansion efforts in Singapore", expansion of what?
  • Clarified.
  • "many suitable pieces of land", suitable for what?
  • Clarified.
  • "it was considered controversial by the Chinese community". Better to explain what this means more directly.
  • Expanded.
  • "The control of burial grounds were given to the Commission, as the Chinese community's views were considered more represented on that body than on the Council." The first part as currently written is a little redundant, but rewriting should clarify whose understanding it is/was that the Chinese community's views were more heard by the Commission than the Council (the previous paragraph includes what sounds like an effective veto within the council).
  • The Commission was simply more local than the Council, as they dealt with more internal affairs while the Council focused on the larger colony. They were basically the local government. I have expanded as much as the source explains this.
  • "These restrictions led to private Chinese cemeteries becoming more prevalent, with a lack of public cemeteries for poorer Chinese labourers, who resorted to illegally dumping their dead, or non-Christian Chinese, as they could not bury at Christian cemeteries or private clan cemeteries." This could perhaps be broken down and elaborated upon a bit more.
  • I have decided to remove the non-Christian Chinese half as the source was too vague on actual details. I did expand on the poorer Chinese labourers half though.
  • "managed on the lines of the Christian Cemetery", is this quote referring to a specific Christian cemetery?
  • Probably, but due to the lack of detail, it is unknown what cemetery he is referring to.
  • What happened to the 1904 proposal?
  • "Tan asked" where and who?
  • Added.
  • "he would manage", is "he" Tan or Song?
  • Clarified.
  • Seems to jump backwards a bit chronologically to go from Tan asking if Bukit Brown was ready to assessing what site would suit the cemetery.
  • Moved.
  • "Due to the limited plot sizes, families tended to use two burial plots for one burial. Another complaint was the Commission's inconsistency in enforcing the layout rules; some graves took up two or more plots despite the fact that the by-laws required one grave per plot." A bit of redundancy here?
  • I admit I also found this confusing, but the source seems to name them as separate issues? First issue is about plot size while the second is about the layout rules.
  • The "These changes..." paragraph has a few bits of what read like redundancy of some kind.
  • Trimmed some.
  • Not immediately clear in Geography whether the borders being referred to are of Greater Bukit Brown or of Bukit Brown cemetery. Is Bukit Brown still a place name outside of the cemetery?
  • Amended that the borders refer to Bukit Brown. "Bukit Brown" can be used to refer to the cemeteries as a collection, though "Bukit Brown" was used in the first place because it is the most well known of all the cemeteries there.
  • Did the Pan Island Expressway go between Mount Pleasant cemetery and the rest of Bukit Brown cemetery? "Despite the fact that Mount Pleasant Cemetery is the same as Bukit Brown Cemetery" doesn't read quite right.
  • Have trimmed it.
  • The "In November 2021..." sentence needs reworking.
  • Added source and rewrote.
  • What happened to the Mount Pleasant planning area?
  • Have clarified that it currently exists, just that the expansion plans into the cemetery were halted for the time being.
  • What is the relation of Seh Ong Cemetery to the rest of Bukit Brown cemetery?
  • Seh Ong Cemetery is the original cemetery run by the Seh Ong Kongsi occupying the space where Bukit Brown currently stands.
  • I'm not sure if the MacRitchie mentioned here is the same as the MacRitchie Reservoir. It would be better if there was an article about the MacRitchie area.
  • "Graves at Bukit Brown Cemetery were built with a variety of materials from Europe and East Asia using traditional building techniques from the 1920s and 1930s." If they were built in the 1920s and 1930s, the techniques were not traditional from that time. They may have been traditional at that time.
  • Fixed, good catch.

CMD (talk) 11:51, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bukit_Brown_Cemetery