Whole story: http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php
- The Wiki Mission for Thailand will attempt to involve travellers in improving and editing all of the information about Thailand on Wikipedia.org and Wikitravel.org.The TAT also aims to help members of the local travel and tourism http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php# industry by allowing them to post details of their travel products, deals and related information online. More details are available at the TAT's main online portal, http://www.tourismthailand.org
In other words, we're going to have to patrol Thai geography articles for promotional language and how-to sections. Great.
On Feb 6, 2008 7:13 AM, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th wrote:
Whole story: http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php
- The Wiki Mission for Thailand will attempt to involve travellers in
improving and editing all of the information about Thailand on Wikipedia.org and Wikitravel.org.The TAT also aims to help members of the local travel and tourism http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php# industry by allowing them to post details of their travel products, deals and related information online. More details are available at the TAT's main online portal, http://www.tourismthailand.org _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hmm. In other words, we'll be happy that the content improve in Thai related articles :-)
Ant
Steven Walling wrote:
In other words, we're going to have to patrol Thai geography articles for promotional language and how-to sections. Great.
On Feb 6, 2008 7:13 AM, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th wrote:
Whole story: http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php
- The Wiki Mission for Thailand will attempt to involve travellers in
improving and editing all of the information about Thailand on Wikipedia.org and Wikitravel.org.The TAT also aims to help members of the local travel and tourism http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php# industry by allowing them to post details of their travel products, deals and related information online. More details are available at the TAT's main online portal, http://www.tourismthailand.org _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Knowing a little bit about TAT practices I do not know how happy we would be ;)
Waerth
Hmm. In other words, we'll be happy that the content improve in Thai related articles :-)
Ant
Steven Walling wrote:
In other words, we're going to have to patrol Thai geography articles for promotional language and how-to sections. Great.
On Feb 6, 2008 7:13 AM, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th wrote:
Whole story: http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php
- The Wiki Mission for Thailand will attempt to involve travellers in
improving and editing all of the information about Thailand on Wikipedia.org and Wikitravel.org.The TAT also aims to help members of the local travel and tourism http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php# industry by allowing them to post details of their travel products, deals and related information online. More details are available at the TAT's main online portal, http://www.tourismthailand.org _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
From what I've seen on Geography articles on the English Wikipedia, it's common practice for Chambers of Commerces or Tourism Authorities to modify towns, cities, provinces, states, national parks to meet their POV needs. Generally we don't get advance notice! We should be grateful for the warning.
Cary
Waerth wrote:
Knowing a little bit about TAT practices I do not know how happy we would be ;)
Waerth
Hmm. In other words, we'll be happy that the content improve in Thai related articles :-)
Ant
Steven Walling wrote:
In other words, we're going to have to patrol Thai geography articles for promotional language and how-to sections. Great.
On Feb 6, 2008 7:13 AM, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th wrote:
Whole story: http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php
- The Wiki Mission for Thailand will attempt to involve travellers in
improving and editing all of the information about Thailand on Wikipedia.org and Wikitravel.org.The TAT also aims to help members of the local travel and tourism http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/06Feb2008_biz51.php# industry by allowing them to post details of their travel products, deals and related information online. More details are available at the TAT's main online portal, http://www.tourismthailand.org _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Florence Devouard wrote:
Hmm. In other words, we'll be happy that the content improve in Thai related articles :-)
That what I would call the optimistic view. But I have seen the first edits yesterday - three out of four editing the wrong article, the one about the town instead of the province which they planned to do, and all the text sounds like it comes from a tourist brochure, with very POV statements. So I had to reword (and thereby shorten) the text completely, work it into the existing text to remove duplicates, as they did not care at all that there was other text before. I am talking about [[Petchabun Province]], the other three misguided edits went to [[Pathum Thani]], [[Narathiwat]] and [[Songkhla]]. Also, many of the photos uploaded seem to be copyright violations, or at least uploaded without understanding the license stuff at all.
The worst - I have tried to talk with each of the new contributors, and they all seem to either not understand at all what that yellow bar "you have new messages" means, as they just continued despite my revert and notification.
BTW - they did hire students for doing the edits, it is not done by TAT employees directly, though I wonder if anyone at TAT ever tried to edit before making this press release, or they are ignorant on how Wikipedia works and just know that "everyone can edit" and thought that'd be a good idea for spreading their brochure texts.
I have sent an email to the contact listed on the TAT announcement page http://www.tourismthailand.org/news/release-content-466.html yesterday to offer my help in making them edit without disrupting, cleanwashing articles or turning encyclopedic articles into tourist brochures, so far I did not get a reply yet. But I still hope that if handled correctly the TAT could really help to contribute on the articles.
Andreas Hoerstemeier --- [[User:Ahoerstemeier]] http://tambon.blogspot.com
Improve, don't remove. Unless the paragraphs they add are unsalvagable, rewrite them. They are indirectly countering systemic bias.
2008/2/7, Andreas Hoerstemeier ahoerstemeier@spamcop.net:
Florence Devouard wrote:
Hmm. In other words, we'll be happy that the content improve in Thai related articles :-)
That what I would call the optimistic view. But I have seen the first edits yesterday - three out of four editing the wrong article, the one about the town instead of the province which they planned to do, and all the text sounds like it comes from a tourist brochure, with very POV statements. So I had to reword (and thereby shorten) the text completely, work it into the existing text to remove duplicates, as they did not care at all that there was other text before. I am talking about [[Petchabun Province]], the other three misguided edits went to [[Pathum Thani]], [[Narathiwat]] and [[Songkhla]]. Also, many of the photos uploaded seem to be copyright violations, or at least uploaded without understanding the license stuff at all.
The worst - I have tried to talk with each of the new contributors, and they all seem to either not understand at all what that yellow bar "you have new messages" means, as they just continued despite my revert and notification.
BTW - they did hire students for doing the edits, it is not done by TAT employees directly, though I wonder if anyone at TAT ever tried to edit before making this press release, or they are ignorant on how Wikipedia works and just know that "everyone can edit" and thought that'd be a good idea for spreading their brochure texts.
I have sent an email to the contact listed on the TAT announcement page http://www.tourismthailand.org/news/release-content-466.html yesterday to offer my help in making them edit without disrupting, cleanwashing articles or turning encyclopedic articles into tourist brochures, so far I did not get a reply yet. But I still hope that if handled correctly the TAT could really help to contribute on the articles.
Andreas Hoerstemeier
[[User:Ahoerstemeier]] http://tambon.blogspot.com
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
Improve, don't remove. Unless the paragraphs they add are unsalvagable, rewrite them. They are indirectly countering systemic bias.
Of course I try to work them into what we already have. But if I add something into the article on New York City about a place in upstate New York, which is already covered in that article, then it can be simply removed - which is what I did for the three town articles. For those texts about the national parks in Phetchabun, I rewrote them completely as they are IMHO salvageable in the way they were added. I guess it'd help if you first look into the editing histories before just giving the standard answer. I worked on the articles on Thai topics for several years already, so I think I know what I am writing about...
Andreas Hoerstemeier --- [[User:Ahoerstemeier]] http://tambon.blogspot.com
Andreas Hoerstemeier wrote:
J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
Improve, don't remove. Unless the paragraphs they add are unsalvagable, rewrite them. They are indirectly countering systemic bias.
Of course I try to work them into what we already have. But if I add something into the article on New York City about a place in upstate New York, which is already covered in that article, then it can be simply removed - which is what I did for the three town articles. For those texts about the national parks in Phetchabun, I rewrote them completely as they are IMHO salvageable in the way they were added. I guess it'd help if you first look into the editing histories before just giving the standard answer. I worked on the articles on Thai topics for several years already, so I think I know what I am writing about...
Andreas Hoerstemeier
Yes Andreas you certainly do :)
Waerth
According to an internetforum I am on Thai politician's articles were sanitized in the last year ....
Somebody fiddled with a lot of Thai entries last year. e.g. All the negative information about Thaksin's son suddenly disappeared, among other things. Also, a certain less than popular national figure had his entry sort of sanitised.
http://www.thai360.com/fbb/showtopic.php?fid/8/tid/525412/pid/659489/post/la...
According to a poster whom I know quite well and is reliable.
Waerth
Andreas Hoerstemeier wrote:
BTW - they did hire students for doing the edits, it is not done by TAT employees directly, though I wonder if anyone at TAT ever tried to edit before making this press release, or they are ignorant on how Wikipedia works and just know that "everyone can edit" and thought that'd be a good idea for spreading their brochure texts.
I have sent an email to the contact listed on the TAT announcement page http://www.tourismthailand.org/news/release-content-466.html yesterday to offer my help in making them edit without disrupting, cleanwashing articles or turning encyclopedic articles into tourist brochures, so far I did not get a reply yet. But I still hope that if handled correctly the TAT could really help to contribute on the articles.
Andreas Hoerstemeier
Andreas,
You know Thailand a bit just as I. To be honest I do not expect to much of your trying to contact the TAT. They will most probably ignore it. I have dealt with TAT for a television project of a friend of mine. They are literally around the corner from my apartment. But after 9 years I have given up on dealing with officialdom in this country. Just look at our new government in Thailand. 111 politicians were banned from politics last year by the election commission. What is their answer .... the new government for a large part consists of the fathers, brothers, sisters, children, nephews and nieces of these banned politicians. This really illustrates Thai officialdom well.
I hope you get an answer, but do not wait ....
Waerth
Waerth wrote:
You know Thailand a bit just as I. To be honest I do not expect to much of your trying to contact the TAT. They will most probably ignore it. I
I wasn't expecting much, but apparently this time they are more aware, because I received a reply from the person in charge. He is also editing on Wikipedia as [[User:Borndistinction]].
Those edits I suspected to be the beginning of this WIkiMission are in fact not from TAT, it was just a coincidence that at the same time they did that press release something like a school project starts. But I'd need quite some help to sort out the mess from that project - most photos uploaded are probably copyright violations, the new texts have to be completely reworded, duplications removed, etc.
But back to the TAT WikiMission. They plan to add stuff about the tourism-related topics only, they don't plan to delete criticism (which was the most serious worry) or insert any commercial things. The whole project is just in its beginnings, they are still gathering the information and anyone who would like to help them "doing the right thing" is invited to contact the above mentioned user - I certainly volunteered already to give my input. It seems to me that the press release from TAT was somewhat premature, maybe it would have been better to contact Wikipedia before and then make sure the press release deals with the anticipated points of concern. I am now much more optimistic this can become something which will help both the Wikipedia coverage on Thai topics as well as TAT's mission to have Thailand well-presented on the web.
[[User:Ahoerstemeier]]
Ah that is good news ...... since I am almost around the corner from them I might contact him also.
Waerth
Waerth wrote:
You know Thailand a bit just as I. To be honest I do not expect to much of your trying to contact the TAT. They will most probably ignore it. I
I wasn't expecting much, but apparently this time they are more aware, because I received a reply from the person in charge. He is also editing on Wikipedia as [[User:Borndistinction]].
Those edits I suspected to be the beginning of this WIkiMission are in fact not from TAT, it was just a coincidence that at the same time they did that press release something like a school project starts. But I'd need quite some help to sort out the mess from that project - most photos uploaded are probably copyright violations, the new texts have to be completely reworded, duplications removed, etc.
But back to the TAT WikiMission. They plan to add stuff about the tourism-related topics only, they don't plan to delete criticism (which was the most serious worry) or insert any commercial things. The whole project is just in its beginnings, they are still gathering the information and anyone who would like to help them "doing the right thing" is invited to contact the above mentioned user - I certainly volunteered already to give my input. It seems to me that the press release from TAT was somewhat premature, maybe it would have been better to contact Wikipedia before and then make sure the press release deals with the anticipated points of concern. I am now much more optimistic this can become something which will help both the Wikipedia coverage on Thai topics as well as TAT's mission to have Thailand well-presented on the web.
[[User:Ahoerstemeier]]
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Steven Walling wrote:
In other words, we're going to have to patrol Thai geography articles for promotional language and how-to sections. Great.
And what is the difference, compared to yesterday? This sort of initiative is something we must expect at all times from tourist agencies, marketing bureuas, political think-tanks, religious cults, ... from everywhere. That hasn't changed one bit.
The real difference from yesterday is that the TAT *annouced* their initiative so that *we can know* about it.
That is an opportunity for us to bring out information about how one can work smoothly with Wikipedia, educating marketing people about our licenses, guidelines, policies and ethics. If there is a Thai chapter of the WMF (is there?) they can now ask for funding from TAT for bringing out this sort of knowledge.
they can now ask for funding from TAT for bringing out this sort of knowledge.
You're saying it's okay for local chapters to take funds from promotional agencies for improvement of specific articles? Not okay. Donations are fine. But with paid contributions we lost any credibility we had with the public.
On Feb 6, 2008 12:46 PM, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Steven Walling wrote:
In other words, we're going to have to patrol Thai geography articles for promotional language and how-to sections. Great.
And what is the difference, compared to yesterday? This sort of initiative is something we must expect at all times from tourist agencies, marketing bureuas, political think-tanks, religious cults, ... from everywhere. That hasn't changed one bit.
The real difference from yesterday is that the TAT *annouced* their initiative so that *we can know* about it.
That is an opportunity for us to bring out information about how one can work smoothly with Wikipedia, educating marketing people about our licenses, guidelines, policies and ethics. If there is a Thai chapter of the WMF (is there?) they can now ask for funding from TAT for bringing out this sort of knowledge.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Steven Walling wrote:
You're saying it's okay for local chapters to take funds from promotional agencies for improvement of specific articles?
No, I did not use these words, and neither did TAT.
I'm not based in Thailand and have no knowledge about local circumstances, so I will avoid further discussion.
On 07/02/2008, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
they can now ask for funding from TAT for bringing out this sort of knowledge.
You're saying it's okay for local chapters to take funds from promotional agencies for improvement of specific articles? Not okay. Donations are fine. But with paid contributions we lost any credibility we had with the public.
I don't have any problem with people being paid to make NPOV, *non-conflicted*, improvements to subject areas. There have been cases of this in the past, e.g. in linguistics, or paying someone to generally improve a given language's small Wikipedia or the [[m:Philip Greenspun illustration project]].
If they take care not to [[:en:Ghostbusters|cross the streams]], that's absolutely not a problem. Finding and furthering ways to sponsor creation of good content is *good*.
- d.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org