Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Thailand/Style guide

February 2009

Please see discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Thailand#Updating the Manual of Style (part 2). --Paul_012 ^(talk) 18:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Ban pictures of royalty?

Should Wikipedia ban usage of images of Thai royalty, lest some user use them in such a way as to create "misunderstanding of the royal institution" that "misunderestimates" Thai lèse majesté laws? If so, what should the blanked image used as a substitute say? Pawyilee (talk) 10:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Not sure a ban is reasonable, given WP:NOTCENSORED, and that such material would be covered under Wikipedia:Content disclaimer, regarding "representations of people or events which may be protected by some cultures". Dl2000 (talk) 00:39, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

"Representations" are NOT banned. The problem is that closed tribunals may consider evidence presented in secret to try, convict, and sentence to up to 20 years in prison persons thought to have used "representations of the royal institution" in such a manner as to cause "misunderstanding" of same. The whole process is so murky that I don't see any possibility of Wikimedia or Wikipedia clarifying it. The risk is not to Wikimedia etc., per se, but to users who up or download the representations. Pawyilee (talk)

January 2010

So this has been left standing still for quite a while. I'd like us to finally get somewhere with this proposal, though, so am asking for another round of feedback before posting an RFC in a few days. Some raised concerns haven't been addressed yet, and I'm hoping for further input on most issues. I'm not sure if we have a consensus on the naming conventions for royals, which seem to be de the facto standard right now; the nobility's need input other than mine, and the status quo for settlements, which has been replicated here, have been objected to in the past but without clear consensus on how to proceed. Your input is greatly appreciated. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 11:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Great New Year's resolution! So far, my contribution is limited to comments at Template talk:History of Thailand. I think a good addition would be a section on applicable templates, even something simple like clarifying that ({{lang-th|เรื่อง Text}}) gives (Thai: เรื่อง Text) with "Thai" as link to Thai language; changing the hyphen (-) to a pipe (|) as in {{lang|th|เรื่อง text}} omits the "Thai" link (and parenthesis, which you might want to include,) giving: เรื่อง text. Link en/th articles under Languages or ภาษาอื่น by inserting, preferably at bottom: [[en:Article]] on Thai pages, [[th:เรื่อง]] on English and others. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

There is already mention of the use of both templates in the proposal, with links to the template pages. Editor may follow the links to look up the templates' documentation in detail; I'm not sure how we could provide more detail here without cluttering the page. Interwiki linking to me is a basic feature applicable to most articles, and doesn't seem to have Thailand-specific aspects in need of mentioning. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 11:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Lots of work still. The article names for the nobility needs clarification: Phraya Phahon Phonphayuhasena, Luang Pibulsonggram and Luang Praditmanutham (Phot Phahonyothin, Chom Phon Po and Pridi, respectfully), despite possessing noble titles, their article names are base their birth (or in the case of Pibulsonggram, chosen) names. Don't get me wrong I support the status quo and realized that the names are based on how they are mostly known in English. A process in which these names are chosen or agreed upon, however still needs clarification. The royal titles are fine, but another sentence should be used to clarify the different Princes and Princess. High ranking Princes and Princesses are given additional titles or Kroms, which is the source of the most confusion in English. e.g. Damrong Rajanubhab's full title is (สมเด็จพระเจ้าบรมวงศ์เธอ พระองค์เจ้าดิศวรกุมาร กรมพระยาดำรงราชานุภาพ or Somdet Phra Chao Boromawong Ther (HRH) Phra Ong Chao Disuankumaan (The Prince Disuankumaan), Krom Phraya Damrong Rajanubhab (Prince of Damrong Rajanubhab)). This as oppose to Chakrabongse Bhuvanadh (สมเด็จพระอนุชาธิราช เจ้าฟ้าจักรพงษ์ภูวนาถ กรมหลวงพิษณุโลกประชานาถ or Somdet Phra Anuchathirat (HRH the Royal Brother) Chaofa Chakrabongse Bhuvanadh (Prince Chakrabongse...) Krom Luang Phitsanulok Prachanat (Prince of Phitsanulok)). It is the equivalent of HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the difference between name and title is important. I support the status quo as it stands, but no other royal names are as much of a problem as these, again more explanation is needed. Names of queens and consorts also needs attention: royal wives (e.g. Princesses in their own right) (Savang Vadhana) use their given names while commoners use their granted royal names (Srinagarindra), please make a note of this. The settlements at present seems fine to me though. Sodacan (talk) 03:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I've edited the examples for royalty a bit, and the Princess Mother is already mentioned. I'm not sure if giving a more detailed explanation will unnecessarily clutter the page. As for noble names, this is a pretty tricky issue. There doesn't seem to be a general rule applicable to all. Somdet Chaophraya Borom Maha Si Suriyawong (Chuang Bunnag) is usually referred to either by his title (without rank), Si Suriyawong, or his name, Chuang Bunnag (probably because the length of his full rank). Chaophraya Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni) is almost always referred to in full, while Phraya Manopakorn Nititada is usually known as such according to his rank & title, and I have presumed this pattern most often applies. The article on Phraya Phahon Phonphayuhasena should probably be moved to his rank & title, since his given name & surname aren't that well known. Most other persons after 1932 used their personal names in lieu of their noble titles. Perhaps the proposed rank & title scheme could apply universally to persons living before 1932, while the rest could be decided on a case-by-case basis, (defaulting to personal name)? The naming of settlements still needs discussion, which I'll continue below. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 11:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the changes made and the 1932 line is fair since that was when all the male titles of nobility were abolished. Sodacan (talk) 14:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Has problems

1. Loads of unclear things. I've flagged the ones that stood out for me, with {{Clarify me}}, each with a |reason= describing the issue.
2. Per WP:NCP and WP:DAB, we do not use ridiculously long disambiguations like the example given, but the shortest disambiguator we can.
3. Per WP:EN and WP:NC more generally, we do not use foreign terms for "district", "province", etc. Placenames including Thai words for such things are permissible as redirects to plain-English article titles, because English-speaking readers may encounter them in this form and thus search for them under those names in WP. But they cannot be the real article title per our clear guidelines (actually, NC is a policy).

I am beginning to wonder if all of these things cannot be merged into one Wikipedia:Manual of Style (regional) or something, as they all repeat a lot of the same things (e.g., don't italicize stuff in the non-Roman script, use the most common spelling in English not the native name, if a common English version exists like it does with Bangkok, and so on). The special stuff like human name order can just be handled in an embedded list:

• Thai: Article text: Given-name Surname (Thai: Thai script version, Given-name Surname exacting transliteration), and Given-name on subsequent occurrences; {{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Given-name}}; [[:Category:Thai category|Given-name Surname]]
• Japanese: Article text: Given-name Surname (Japanese: Kanji version, Surname Given-name exacting transliteration), and Surname on subsequent occurrences; {{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Given-name}} always
• Chinese: Article text: Givenname-Middlename Surname (Chinese: Chinese version, Surname Givenname-Middlename exacting transliterations in Wade-Giles and others, labeled), and Surname on subsequent occurrences; {{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Givenname-Middlename}} always
• Vietnamese: Article text: Surname Middlename Givenname (Vietnamese: Vietnamese diacritics version), and Givenname on subsequent occurrences; {{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Middlename Givenname}} always
• (etc.)

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed some of the issues. The potential length of some article titles is problematic, but I'm not sure how we should address this. The name in parentheses is not an overly long disambiguation phrase, but actually how the name is indeed most commonly and recognisably used. Chaophraya Dharmasakmontri mightn't have been a very realistic example, but "Chaophraya Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni)" is almost always referred to as such (the personal name in parentheses included) because there were simply many Chaophraya Bodindechas.

As for native administrative terms not being used "for any other languages or countries", I do recall that oblast is used in Russian articles. I agree, however, that Thai place articles should convert to district and subdistrict, although a firm consensus is needed for such an undertaking. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 14:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Corrections required. (copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style#Proposed MoS for Thailand-related articles)

• "This page attempts to provide guidelines on ...". Cringy opening. Please remove "attempts to". Either it provides the guidelines or it shouldn't be admitted as part of the MoS.
• Try: "Thailand has no national ties ...".
• There are more varieties than AmEng and BrEng, and many people will object to the assumption that the language is merely binary. "So any standard variety may be used consistently ...".
• "noted", then "explicitly noted". Two levesl of urgency?
• MOSHYPHEN: no hyphen after "-ly". No hyphen in "most-recent".
• Other than as described above. Actually, that bit is a mess, so I've done it myself.
• Not telegram language, please: "The capitalization of ...".
• MOS: avoid "Note that ...". Just remove it.

This is generally written to a high standard. Well done. If these points and other advice here are implemented, I see no reason the page cannot become part of the MoS. Tony (talk) 21:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I've implemented the suggested edits (and changed explicitly noted to used). --Paul_012 ^(talk) 09:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Naming of settlements

The proposal currently follows the status quo, which has seen objections in the past as well as by SMcCandlish above. I think we can summarise the issue into two points:

1. Should districts and subdistricts us their English terms instead of amphoe/khet and tambon/khwaeng? This would require a huge wave of page migration, but with the proper tools that shouldn't be as hard as it sounds.
2. In the case of province names, which may refer either to the province, central district (amphoe mueang) and municipality, should the plain title be the article for the municipality (which is usually less notable than the province) or a disambiguation page, with the municipality at Name (city) or Name City?

I'm leaning toward change to English for #1, but am not sure for #2. An individual move discussion for Ayutthaya resulted in having the plain name be a disambiguation, but other provinces don't also have kingdoms sharing their names, so that may not apply. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 11:28, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no strong preference for #1, the only problem I see is the fact that the English names are not that clearly defined, especially for the subdistrict. While the terms used are the recommended translations, one quite often sees subdistrict to mean "King Amphoe" (minor district). And for tambon one sees commune often as well, that's why I originally chose that term in the articles as well, only changing once I found the recommended translations.

For #2 there's also the third option, used for example for Phuket - a redirect to the province article as the most common meaning, and a disambiguation hint at the start of the article. I think we don't have to do it uniform for each province - at least from the tourist POV Chiang Mai usually means the city, whereas Phuket the island, and for most other cases there's hardly any preference. The disambiguation page has the big advantage that links to the plain name without making clear whether it means the town or the province are much easier to spot. In principle the same discussion could be done for many districts, where it often has a same-named subdistrict and/or a town or subdistrict municipality with the same name. andy (talk) 12:19, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

King Amphoe is the most confusing term used, as

(1) King is easily confused with the English word, with the implication that it has something to do with the king; and

(2) the Thai word means branch, not minor, and is initially established as a branch office of the main Amphoe with the idea of upgrading to full status at some later time.

As for Tambon, I always thing of it as township. --Pawyilee (talk) 09:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment - implementation as guideline

I'm listing an RfC so that consensus for this proposal may be determined. Input has previously been solicited from WikiProject Manual of Style and WikiProject Thailand, and most concerns have been addressed, with the exception of the naming of settlements, of which consensus is still unclear, as noted under #Naming of settlements above. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 13:39, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Retagged under style and naming, seems more appropriate. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 12:39, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• I just saw this on VP. My first question with all of these regional guidelines is the most obvious one: why is this needed as a separate entity? Doing this makes maintenance that much more difficult, so I hold a rather strong opinion that all such cases should have a very compelling rational for their existence.
  — V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 15:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
  • The same concerns were also noted by User:SMcCandlish above, to which I responded at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style#Proposed MoS for Thailand-related articles. The point about required maintenance is valid, but I believe it is balanced by the convenience provided to editors, who would otherwise have to pursue all the relevant guidelines, which may not include specific examples relevant to the region. Another main reason of having this page is the article title guidelines, as the main guidelines do not provide such culture-specific detail. --Paul_012 ^(talk) 07:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject advice page

Since this is exactly what's described by WP:ADVICEPAGE, I've moved it under WikiProject Thailand and tagged it as such. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:52, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Naming of settlements (2020)

Continued from #Naming of settlements above. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:34, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

For #2, [[Placename (city)]] or [[Placename (town)]] is preferred over [[Placename, Thailand]] or [[Placename, Provincename]], as the latter form is still ambiguous with province of the same name ([[Trang, Thailand]] is often be recognized as the province, while [[Trang, Trang]] is logically not ambiguous, but for the reader, it is very confusing, as they are stunned by the duplication of the name), and city/town is more generic term than place name like Thailand (as does prefer highest level entity for Thailand vs. Provincename, so generic term is also preferred over place name). If the former form is still ambiguous with city/town in other country/place, then [[Placename, Thailand (city)]] or [[Placename, Thailand (town)]] can be used in that rare case. --Ans (talk) 20:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

New York seem to use preferred form suggested by me (in case the state and city has the same name --> "New York City" vs. "New York (state)" rather than "New York, New York" vs. "New York, United States", so does the case province and city has the same name --> "Nan (city)" vs. "Nan Province", rather than "Nan, Thailand") --Ans (talk) 21:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted your move of Nan and Tak for now, since it'd be best to iron out the details first. I think we need to first answer whether the naming system for all provincial centres should be changed, as some have raised at the Trang RM discussion. If Nan (town) is preferable over Nan, Thailand, why not also Uttaradit (town) instead of Uttaradit, etc.? If we move toward renaming the cities/towns this way, the question over Nan and Tak becomes unnecessary. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The de facto style is to use [[Townname]] as the article title for town/city, but when Townname is ambiguous with other entity which more deserve to get that title like Tak and Nan, then the suffix "(town)" "(city)" is needed. That's why Tak, Nan need suffix, but Uttaradit not need. I really wonder why you forgot this concept? From your past discussion, I've thought that you already have very good understanding of this concept (I've also learned much about this concept from you). Hmm, it may be my fault that not clearly state in the above comment that I'm mentioning the case "If disambiguation from other places is needed" in the #Places section of style guide. But I've thought that, it could be implicitly inferred that I'm mentioning that case, since the form [[Placename, Thailand]] is mentioned only in that section in this style guide.

I don't understand your last sentence. What way in "this way" you mean? And what is "the question over Nan and Tak" you mean?

--Ans (talk) 12:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not forgetting. I mentioned the possibility of changing the entire convention to show recognition that it's not set in stone, since this was questioned at the RM. But if you only mean to discuss the part about non-unique names, the way I see it is this: There are two different cases where a name needs further qualifying: (1) the name is shared with another entity, e.g. Phuket (city), which is named as such because "Phuket" usually refers to the entire island/province; and (2) the name is shared with another place, e.g. Surin, Thailand, since there are other places called Surin in France and Iran. You're proposing that both cases should use the same format, while the current advice (written by me) suggests they be done differently. My reason is that, for (2), using only Thailand as a qualifier should be adequate, since the convention already assumes that the plain name refers to the city/town. If there weren't places called Surin in France and Iran, we would have the article about the town at "Surin". So there shouldn't be confusion that "Surin, Thailand" is about the town and not the province. And "Surin (town)" is probably not specific enough, since it's possible that the places in France Iran may also be referred to as towns. Combining both to have "Surin, Thailand (town)" is unnecessarily clunky, IMO, and I agree that "Surin, Surin" is awkward and should be avoided. Nan and Tak, like Surin, also fall under case (2), since there aren't other things in Thailand that need disambiguating against. (Well, there's the Nan River, but that's unlikely to cause confusion.) --Paul_012 (talk) 14:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)