Tell us about Thai Wikipedia

This page belongs to the project Tell us about your Wikipedia.

Questionnaire

Contributors

• Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interpret. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?
  • May be about 50. Just a guess. --Lerdsuwa 15:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I guess there are about 50-100 users edit Thai WP everyday or every week (registered users, not count some IP addresses, such as 203.147.0.44, 202.28.27.3/.6). In my opinion, most of ~50000 user accounts are not edit or write anything in Thai Wikipedia, or they are registering for fun (or playing). I found 6 usernames registered in a same time (8 September 2008)! --Love Krittaya 08:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
  • For users who logged in, just check the stat. For users who don't, estimation from IP log could be possible. I personally feel inconvenience to log in (technical problems and others), but regularly edit things. Logged-in-only-for-page-creation restriction in English Wikipedia pushed me away from starting new articles -- 58.64.121.124 19:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Are your contributors mostly native speakers?
  • Yes. Nearly all of them are Thai native speakers and those who are studying in foreign countries, e.g. USA. Some of contributors other than Thais, which is significant enough to notice, are some German contributors. Else speakers are mostly bots. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I feel this question a bit irrelevant, since Thai language is not much used in other part of the world anyway. So there are basically Thai speakers (who are mostly native) and non-Thai speakers ... non-native Thai speakers are not that much, our language is not like English -- 58.64.121.124 19:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?
  • Nearly all of our contributors are Thais, so most of them live in Bangkok and every other regions of Thailand. Some of them live in Germany and USA for those who are studying. Some live in Vietnam as well.--Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • and other European countries like UK and France, and Japan.. it's the Internet. Thai Wikipedia never have any kind of demographic survey anyway, to my little knowledge -- 58.64.121.124 19:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?
  • Never. Only in Instant messaging - for the main contributors. For insignificant contributors - I don't really know. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • If I didn't mistake, there were at least 3 meetings in small groups. One of them was for book authoring about wiki system. ISBN 9789749560136 The others were for thesis research. --Octahedron80 13:54, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I found that there are few small meetings here are there, interview or group interview for research purpose. Not actually contributors-meet-contributors meeting in that sense, they're more like contributors-meet-the-others -- 58.64.121.124 19:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Other Wikipedias

• Do you have special contacts with other Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?
  • Related languages would be Laos Wikipedia as a very close languages, and is in same language family. We also have contacts with German and Dutch Wikipedia a lot, from many German and Dutch helpers at the beginning of Thai Wikipedia. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Some Thai Wikipedian also contributes in English Wikipedia and have contacts there. --Lerdsuwa 15:42, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
• Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?
  • Most of us either write on our Thai sources or translate from English Wikipedias. There are some that are translate from French and Italian Wikipedias, which these are mostly beautiful and useful templates. Some we found are better than the English one. There are, though, quite a lot of contributors, including myself, translates a lot from English Wikipedia and is a sanctuary for technical problems or with policies. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Some are also from Japanese, those articles about Japanese actors/singers. --Lerdsuwa 15:58, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Organization and support

• Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?
  • Unfortunately, there is none of them. It is still nearly impossible to meet other contributors. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
• Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?
  • In Thailand, there is currently none of them. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

• Is there a language institution for your language, like an Academy, or a club of people interested in your language? Do you have contact with them?
  • We have Royal Institute of Thailand which works on Thai language. We usually rely to them for the correct spellings and foreign languages transliteration, e.g. French and German. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
• Who (else) supports you?
  • I'm not totally sure. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • To my knowledge, none. --Lerdsuwa 15:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
• What does the public outreach for your edition look like? Do you have fliers, give lectures, training etc.?
  • Public outreach is rare. Perhaps as sessions in some IT-related conferences. But there are lots of word of mouth in various discussion forums. Several newspaper articles cited Wikipedia as source of information. --Lerdsuwa 15:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
• Do you get feedback from readers?
  • Sometimes, yes. But we don't have proper chat rooms, e-mails or places where readers could give us feedback, though there are some pages you can feedback, but no one really looking forward to answer it. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • There are occasional feedbacks posted in article talk pages. --Lerdsuwa 15:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
• What other encyclopedias exist in your language?
  • Thai Junior Encyclopedia is the most famous ones with multiple editions. It has an online version but the material is greatly shortened at http://kanchanapisek.or.th/kp6/GENERAL/encyclopedia/saranugrom.htm --Lerdsuwa 15:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • There are 4 regional encyclopedias for each 4 regions of Thailand. I often use it as references when I want to write something about history and folklore. --58.64.43.234 18:28, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Content

• Does your edition concentrate on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?
  • We do not really concentrate on certain topics, it depends on what topics the contributors like. Currently there are some concentrated topics from certain users: Thailand, Buddhism, Forensic Science, Animals, Biology, Manga, France, London and wars for example. But if you look at numbers of articles, I must accept Thailand and Buddhism comes first. --Passawuth 13:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • The articles about politics and politician are the most active issues on Thai Wikipedia. --Octahedron80 14:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • According to Passawuth, I think Japanese (mostly JP manga/animation) comes second. --Love Krittaya 08:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
  • In Thailand, there are many automobile magazines, but in thwiki, there are very few articles about automobiles. --Love Krittaya 09:48, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
• Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?
  • There were some donations like some Thai musical instruments articles where the original author stated in his website that the work is public domain but they are rare. --Lerdsuwa 15:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • ThaiGoodView.com allow Wikipedia to use their content under GFDL -- 58.64.121.124 19:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Language

• Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronunciation)?
  • Royal Institute of Thailand. --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Any official proclamation from Thai government also. --Octahedron80 18:14, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
  • New words and concepts, like in science and technology, may got a disagreement in article naming from time to time. Royal Institute of Thailand did coinages in many cases, but their coinage are not widely use yet... so the resistance. -- 58.64.121.124 19:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?
  • We have many dialects, but we have single writing. Everyone who speaks different dialects write the same writings. There is no problem about words like British and American. However, there are currently some disputed foreign transliterations and misunderstand spellings (of which can be single spelling sourced from Royal Institute of Thailand). --Passawuth 14:31, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Sometimes one meaning can be referred by many words. The problem is to choose which one for the title of the articles. --Octahedron80 03:22, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

See also

• Tell us about your Wikipedia