Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 January 12

= January 12 =

How do I contact you with more 'info' about an incorrect entry?
Dear Sir, how do I contact you to tell you there is a mistake in an article? This is what I found on the Koh Chang Thailand page and what is incorrect. Dear Sir, Koh Chang is the 2nd largest island in Thailand not Koh Samui. This is land mass. Probably not in any economic pr population just land mass as this article quotes a dispute of land mass of Koh Chang. Both sizes are much larger than Koh Samui. Please check the measurements and re quote your quotation. Thanks Ian Wilton That is the letter I would like to send to you, how as I can't find an email address to bring this information to you. Thanks for your help Ian Wilton — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.192.241 (talk) 12:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure which article you are talking about. Is it Ko Chang District? In any case, you seem to be under a misapprehension about how Wikipedia works.  There is no-one at the other end of an email address waiting to correct articles on the basis of emails such as yours.  If you see an error in an article and want it to be corrected, you have to correct it yourself.  All articles can be edited.  However, any changes you make would have to be taken from reliable third party independent sources such as newspapers, journals and books.  You can't just make your own statement about which island is bigger without such a reliable source.  If the article you're talking about is indeed the one I have linked above, there is something about this issue of which island is bigger in the third paragraph of the article. --Viennese Waltz 13:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Koh Chang isn’t Thailand’s Second Largest island. It is the Third. "Many of websites and travel articles begin their information about Koh Chang by stating that is is the second largest island in Thailand and the area is 429 square kilometers. They’re wrong.  In reality, Phuket is the largest island in Thailand; Samui is the second and Koh Chang is the third". Apparently it's all down to an early error in Wikipedia.  Alansplodge (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That is used in our article although frankly since it seems to be measuring the size of the island using Google Maps and 'free tools' and 'the internet' probably isn't an RS. I'm sure the basic point is right, but our article could do with some work. Our article actually has a government figure for the size of Ko Chang, so if some RS could be found for the size of Ko Samui and Ko Phuket, arguably WP:CALC will at least be enough to establish their sizes relative to each other. BTW Ko Samui included the confusing claim it was the second largest after Ko Chang and Ko Phuket after this edit [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ko_Samui&diff=930457163&oldid=928363847] but I've corrected that and added the non RS. (As the RS there didn't say anything about relative size.) Edit: Actually considering that the same government page says that Ko Chang is the 2nd largest, well ..... Nil Einne (talk) 10:02, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ian Wilton: Assuming Viennese Waltz is right about which article you're referring to, I think you're misreading it. It does give 2 sizes "419 km2" and "650 km2" which are much larger than Ko Samui, but neither of these are the size of the island as the text seems to make clear to me. They are the size of the district the island is in, and the national park the island is part of. The size of the island proper is given earlier as "212.947 km2" and since it's from a government source I'd like to assume it's accurate. Although as said above, considering the same government site says it's the 2nd largest I'm not so sure. In any case, we don't have a reliable source for the size of Ko Samui. But I'm also not seeing anything to suggest the info we have is incorrect, and especially nothing that suggests Ko Chang is much larger than Ko Samui. I think you must be confusing the size of the district or national park with the size of the island. Nil Einne (talk) 10:21, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually the 212 figure doesn't seem to have come from the TAT website. I think it may have been someone's OR. I've updated it to the figure of 217 which is what the TAT gives. They don't seem to have a figure for Ko Samui [//www.tourismthailand.org/Destinations/Provinces/ko-samui/360], and again they do repeat the claim it's the third largest. Still, I haven't seen anything to dispute the claim this is simply wrong due to confusion over the sizes. If you do have some source to establish the different sizes this would help a great deal. Nil Einne (talk) 10:47, 13 January 2020 (UTC)


 * To raise an issue about a particular article, the best place is that article's Talk page. On the article's page click the tab called "Talk" and you're now at the Talk page. Then click "Edit this page", scroll to the bottom, and add a new topic with your concerns spelt out. Then click "Publish changes", and you're done. Someone will see it soon enough and respond there.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:06, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually I disagree with that. Obviously it depends on how prominent the article is and how many people have it on their watchlists, but in my experience article talk pages are not a good place to raise issues about articles. I've raised issues about articles on their talk pages which have not received a reply months or even years later. In my opinion the best way to raise issues is to do what the OP has done and highlight them here on the RD, or (as I said to the OP) just be bold and make the chane (appropriately sourced, of course) yourself. --Viennese Waltz 11:18, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Another place is the appropriate WikiProject talk page, so I have put a brief note at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Thailand to give them a "heads up". Alansplodge (talk) 13:56, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Arriving here via Alansplodge's WikiProject notification. I've added a reliable source to the Ko Chang article. As a further aside to the question, here's a tip for interested editors, in response to Viennese Waltz's comment: If your area of interest falls within a WikiProject's scope, you can check the RecentChangesLinked special page for the project's main category (e.g. Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:WikiProject Thailand articles for WikiProject Thailand) to monitor the talk pages of all articles under the project. This will help keep more eyes on article talk pages, even if not many people are directly watching the individual articles. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:16, 16 January 2020 (UTC)