Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Thailand/Archives/2020

Thailand question at the Reference Desk
We have a query at Reference_desk/Miscellaneous about the relative size of Ko Chang Island, which is included in our article Ko Chang District. Any help appreciated. Alansplodge (talk) 13:53, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
 * So is the size of the district unknown then? It seems a little weird we have a size for the island but not the district in the article on the district even of the island is the most significant part of the district. BTW there's no reliable source for the size of Ko Samui. I don't understand Thai so I have no idea if the government gazetteer source has it. Nil Einne (talk) 03:22, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I was unable to identify any central registry of district land areas. Some local government websites list theirs', but these figures often seem of questionable reliability (I imagine lazy government officials might just copy what they find on the web), and in any case, Ko Chang District is covered by two Subdistrict Administration Organisations, only one of which has a website. User:Ahoerstemeier is more knowledgeable about this stuff. He's not very active nowadays, but you could drop him an email.
 * Personally, I think the theory that the 419 figure was a confusion stemming from the district area is quite unlikely, as I have never seen documents specifying sea boundaries for districts, so even if an official figure existed for the district area it would probably only include land. (The figure was added to Enwiki by User:Borndistinction, who edits on behalf of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, so it does appear that the erroneous figure stems comes tourism sources.)
 * As for Ko Samui, the Gazetteer lists the island's area as 253 square kilometres (maximum elevation 635 metres). These figures are quite dated, however, so it's possible that the 228.7 figure might be an official figure from a more recent survey. Though as mentioned, I'd take anything found in online articles with a grain of salt. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:08, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I am still there, though moved over to Wikidata :-) There are many different values floating around for the areas of the districts, its difficult to find which value is really correct. Especially for the coastal district, sometimes its only the land area, sometimes maritime area is included.
 * For Ko Chang district, my best guess is 154.8 km² as of Census 2000 report, which seem only the land area. Sadly that PDF I once downloaded is no longer online. The same value is found in the 2003 Local Directory as well as in the 2012 Local Directory (link to photo cannot be inserted because of blacklist :-(. amphoe.com lists 650 km² (probably including maritime), but even though its semi-official, that website isn't fully reliable. The two local governments websites list 47.35 km² (Ko Chang) and 93.24 km² (Ko Chang Tai), which is close to the census number. Thus the claim that the island has an area of 210 km² must be bogus.
 * For Ko Samui, the official value for district area seems to be 227.25 km² (from Local Directory), and since the district includes many smaller islands, 253 km² for the main island must also be wrong. andy (talk) 09:28, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Look carefully—the Ko Chang with 47.35 km2 is Tambon Ko Chang in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai, not the Trat island. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * PS For convenience, the original query is now archived here. Among other things, it identified this blog post, which, while not RS, strongly suggests that the Gazetteer's 210 figure for Ko Chang is accurate (the blog author got 210 from plotting points on Google Maps), but contradicts the value for Ko Samui (he got 238). 154.8 km2 for Ko Chang is way off, so that seems to cast doubt on the accuracy of the Local Directory in this aspect. The 650 figure was found in the original discussion to belong to the national park, so Amphoe.com can't be believed either. I guess we can regard the correct value as unknown. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Oups, yes, you're right. Ko Chang municipality is at 172.30 km², which would fit with the 210km² for the island then. Samui city claims 252 km² for the district, and 227 for the island itself. I hate it when even cannot believe official government publications like Census reports or books by the Ministry of Interior. andy (talk) 11:20, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Prince/princess categories
The following comments were posted by Seligne at Category talk:Thai female Phra Ong Chao and Category talk:Chao Fa. I've copied them here so there may be a single centralised discussion. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

What does phra ong chao mean in English translation? As this is the English WP, I think this should be recast in English. Seligne (talk) 09:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I vote that we not use transliterated Thai as category names. Who knows what they mean? This category should be split into "Thai princes" and 'Thai princesses", e.g. Seligne (talk) 10:03, 19 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Chao fa, phra ong chao and mom chao are royal ranks, in decreasing order of seniority, all of which are translated as prince/princess. Wikipedia's coverage says that chao fa and phra ong chao are styled as His/Her Royal Highness, while mom chao are styled His/Her Serene Highness. I don't think it's really possible to name these categories using only English words. We could make the names descriptive, which might help reduce confusion, e.g. Category:Thai princes ranked chao fa, but it would be very clunky. Personally, I don't really think this is a problem that needs to be avoided that badly. For Japan articles, for example, we have Category:Shōguns and Category:Daimyo, terms which unfamiliar readers would no doubt also find confusing. But this can be alleviated by providing descriptions on the category page. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * FYI, the relevant categories are Category:Chao Fa, Category:Thai male Chao Fa, Category:Thai female Chao Fa, Category:Phra Ong Chao, Category:Thai male Phra Ong Chao, Category:Thai female Phra Ong Chao, Category:Mom Chao, Category:Thai male Mom Chao, and Category:Thai female Mom Chao. Also the non-princely titles Category:Mom Rajawongse and Category:Mom Luang And, come to think of it, the concern would also apply to the noble titles Category:Chaophraya, Category:Phraya, Category:Phra (nobility), Category:Luang (nobility)‎ and Category:Khun (nobility)‎. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Should all past ranks be included in categorisation?
I've noticed that User:Armonthap has recently been categorising royalty articles so that an article would carry categories for all the ranks the subject ever held, e.g. a prince born as a mom chao and later elevated to the rank of phra ong chao would now be categorised under both. I'm not quite sure this is a good idea. Similarly to military officers, a person will likely be most widely known by the highest and latest rank they attained, and that would be the defining characteristic to follow per the categorisation guideline. I think categorising by all past ranks would lead to unnecessary clutter (this would also apply to the nobility). --Paul_012 (talk) 13:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

50,000 Destubbing Challenge Focus of the Week
Hello there. This is an invitation to join the 50,000 Destubbing Challenge Focus of the Week. £250 (c. $310) is being given away in May, June and July with £20 worth of prizes to give away every week for most articles destubbed. Each week there is a different region of focus, including one week dedicated to South-South East Asia, which includes Thailand, though half the prize will still be rewarded for articles on any subject. There's a potential £120 to be won in total for destubbing on any subject or region of your choice. Sign up if you want to contribute at least one of the weeks or support the idea! † Encyclopædius  11:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Name changes
A user, Rasmi Ki, is changing monarch article title names/links to articles over a series of articles ( examples  ). I have no idea what the correct titles should be but I assume the current ones reflect common names/consensus. Editors should look into the changes. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Practice of use of Facebook pages as official pages in Thailand
Looked back over the last few years of postings here and didn't see any discussion of external links to Facebook in specific regards to Thailand. There has been a trend over the past many years in Thailand for organizations to either abandon traditional 'official webpages' and just setup a Facebook page or, with new organizations, only setup a Facebook page with no real 'official website'. This coincides with the rather quick rise of Facebook use in Thailand to where in 2017 Bangkok has 'most Facebook users' in world. The point of discussion specifically are the rules for 'adding links to Facebook pages in external links'. The general guidance is here External_links which says don't use links to Facebook. Can or should WikiProject Thailand pages have a cultural exception to this rule? Should I discuss this somewhere else on Wikipedia and, if so, then where should this be discussed? Is there already a policy that I am unaware of? I would prefer feedback from members of this project first. --Ian Korman (talk) 09:06, 24 June 2020 (UTC)


 * WP:External links already mentions under WP:ELOFFICIAL that official links are "normally exempt from the links normally to be avoided". Official Facebook pages should easily fall under those guidelines, and it should be perfectly fine to link to them as official sites. --Paul_012 (talk) 11:06, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Assistance with new articles on organizations under the Ministry of Industry
Articles for several organizations under the Ministry of Industry (Thailand) were submitted by me. I have been working as well as working on expanding several government related existing articles. Fairly extensive researching for citations about the organizations was done and several secondary and tertiary sources were used. Not clear if the reviewers are counting sources from the Ministry itself as primary or not. Regardless, if anyone could add some Thai sources to the articles then I have been told in the Teahouse that those may get the articles to pass their notable bar. The only article so far that has been rejected is Draft:Thai-German Institute. The names of the others will be added to this section as they get reviewed if they fail. --Ian Korman (talk) 14:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: Plastics Institute of Thailand article passed AfS. Draft:Thai-German Institute AfS review failed a second time. I note that there is a request in this project to create an article about Thai-German cooperation/relations and this article 100% supports the creation of that (Thai-German Institute was created under UN treaty between the two countries). --Ian Korman (talk) 01:08, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: Thailand Textile Institute also passed AfS. --Ian Korman (talk) 07:15, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: Thailand Automotive Institute and Iron and Steel Institute of Thailand also passed AfS. --Ian Korman (talk) 02:17, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: Thai-German Institute passed AfS on resubmission. --Ian Korman (talk) 03:08, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * IanKorman, while these institutes are fairly familiar names, locating in-depth sources that are about the orgnanisations themselves seems harder than I originally expected. This might indicate that though their work may be influential in their respective industries, there's not much about them that is of much interest to the general public. I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to consolidate the coverage in a single article, probably dedicated to the Foundation for Industrial Development, with which almost all these institutes are affiliated. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


 * , yes, I am starting to feel that way too. However, there is even less source data in English for the FID (although I have some). I don't think there is a lot of public data available in Thai for the FID either. If you look in the talk page of my so far AfS rejected article Draft_Talk:Thai-German Institute, I explain I was hoping there was an SNG for official government entities (at least for ones at the national level). I think there are plenty enough references to show that these are all national level entities (in fact, I reference the official UN treaty for the TGI article). If you can see a procedural way forward to helping consolidate all of the FID organizations into one article I will support the quality work on that (I have never done a consolidation of approved articles before). I already have drafts for all of the institutes. If each one doesn't need to reach notability on their own then they don't need much more work. Regards. --Ian Korman (talk) 07:15, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

See How They Run (2006 film)
Can an editor who can read Thai please check the references on this film article? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * All of them are reputable online sources. The first and last are basic listing information, the second a passing mention, and the third coverage of its box office performance. The film caused a bit of controversy back then, and there are plenty of other news source covering it in-depth. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you, User:Paul_012. I have marked the page as reviewed.  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Zotero translator for Bangkok Post articles
If you use the Cite tool in the Visual Editor to insert a Bangkok Post link into an article, it doesn't work very well. So I have attempted to follow the instructions at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Citoid/Creating_Zotero_translators to create a "translator" which will allow the publisher, author and publication date to be parsed correctly. On the off-chance that anyone else has attempted to write a Zotero translator before I'd appreciate any feedback on https://github.com/zotero/translators/pull/2234 Matthewmayer (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Women in Red Asian women contest
From 1 October to 31 December, Women in Red is running a virtual contest on Asian women. In November, this will coincide with Wikipedia Asian Month. We look forward to strong participation from all those interested in improving coverage of Thai women.--Ipigott (talk) 16:29, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Provincial capitals article naming
The long-standing convention for naming of articles about towns and cities which share their name with the province has been to have the town/city at the plain name, with a disambiguating hatnote to other relevant entities (the province, mueang district, etc). However, it has been observed since early on (e.g. by Ahoerstemeier, who created most of the early articles, here and here) that this doesn't reflect common practice in Thailand, where the plain name often refers primarily to the province. This was recently revisited at Talk:Trang, Thailand, where consensus was lacking to bring the page in accordance with the current convention. This might be a sign that the practice should be changed, and that it may be better to redirect the plain name redirect to the province by default, at least in some cases.

Most of the city municipalities are probably a major enough topic of interest to warrant them using the plain name, so I'll just look at the towns for now (Trang is actually a city, but probably best left for later). The towns that share their names with their provinces are:


 * Amnat Charoen

Ang Thong

Buriram

Chachoengsao

Chai Nat

Chaiyaphum

Chanthaburi

Chonburi

Chumphon

Kalasin

Kamphaeng Phet

Kanchanaburi

Krabi

Lamphun

Loei

Lopburi

Mae Hong Son

Maha Sarakham

Mukdahan

Nakhon Nayok

Nakhon Phanom

Nan, Thailand

Narathiwat

Nong Bua Lamphu

Nong Khai

Pathum Thani

Pattani, Thailand

Phang Nga

Phatthalung

Phayao

Phetchabun

Phetchaburi

Phichit

Phrae

Prachinburi

Prachuap Khiri Khan

Ranong

Ratchaburi

Roi Et

Sa Kaeo

Samut Songkhram

Saraburi

Satun

Sing Buri

Sisaket

Sukhothai Thani

Suphan Buri

Surin, Thailand

Tak, Thailand

Trat

Uthai Thani

Uttaradit

Yasothon

Most of these are probably of less interest to the general reader than their corresponding province, and could be moved to Placename (town). However, some (e.g. Lamphun and Lop Buri) are quite historically significant, though I'm not sure whether it'd be better to make exceptions or to prioritise consistency.

What are your thoughts? If the general sentiment is for renaming, I can carry out the mass RM this will require. Pinging also Ans from the Trang discussion. --Paul_012 (talk) 22:10, 3 October 2020 (UTC)


 * It looks to me that the names more commonly refer to the province than the city. If the city is meant, in Thai the word 'Mueang' is added.&minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:08, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've begun a mass RM at Talk:Amnat Charoen. Cc: Woodstone. (Note that I suggested using the (town) disambiguator, since it's more in line with WP:USEENGLISH. Using mueang in the name could also cause confusion with the amphoe mueang districts, which are separate entities.) --Paul_012 (talk) 14:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Romanization of Lisa (rapper)'s full name
You are invited to join the discussion about whether to romanize the Thai singer's surname, "มโนบาล", as "Manoban" or "Manobal".—Bagumba (talk) 02:42, 4 November 2020 (UTC)