WineOh

At the current rate of the VAX rollout (2 doses) my best estimate is that everyone in country will be fully vaccinated within two years from now.

So normality shall resume immediately after the last man or woman has had their shot.

6 hours ago, grain said:

I also wonder how long before some of these sandbox tourists are taken to the local hospitals after having their heads kicked in by taxi mafia for refusing to pay ridiculously inflated fares.

Those taxi mafia are the scum of the earth mate. 
 

nothing but a bunch of two bit thugs with small willy’s.

12 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

The Phuket Provincial Government and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will together hold a month-long festival in Patong and Phuket Town under the banner “Colourful Phuket” to welcome tourists to Phuket under the Phuket Sandbox scheme. 

This sounds absolutely horrible.

3 minutes ago, ArcticFox said:

There are 7,89 billion bananas sitting around waiting for the next order.

Not me.

I'm an apple.

chuck um all in the sea!

had enough of these hypocrites.

Just now, Liverpool Lou said:

"Imagine Facebook suddenly changing their name to FaceBase or something like that, without any prior warning. They would lose millions of members in a single day and rightly so! "

Garbage.   Why would a change of name, and nothing else, cause that happen?

 

"I think its a very poor decision by whomever now owns this place and very disrespectful to its current members".

How is it "disrespectful", in any way, to the members who are only here for free entertainment and, ocassionally, free advice?    

Calm down, calm down..

I think you need to relax a bit, Lou.

You seem to take everything to heart!

9 minutes ago, ballpoint said:

and Singapore is even more restrictive of speech than Thailand is.

Freedom House would suggest otherwise:

1 minute ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

 

   Immigration previously asked us to list all our social media user names when applying for a Visa extension 

....and were you one of the simpletons who actually filled that section in???

3 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Yes, the Thai authorities have already attempted to get people to reveal their social media (which includes T.V) user names when applying for visa extensions . 

what are you on about?

I can imagine the IO at my next extension..

'is your name WineOh?'

'Excuse me, what??'

'Oh, sorry my friend'.

1 minute ago, chalawaan said:

Here we go, the name has changed, the aggro hasnt. Go have another drink mate.

Eh?

It was a genuine question.

and I will have another drink of (tea) shortly....

Just now, chalawaan said:

Phillippine Immigration is a bit of a cash cow, but it is a walk in the park by comparison. You get an ID card as part of the deal too, and the visa stickers are tiny, saving your passport pages.  I used to go in, fill ourt a few details, NO photocopies!!! then hand over my passport, go shopping at the ajacent supermarket, come back a few hours later, sign for my updated passport, and all done! No confusion there.

what are you doing here then?

why didnt you stay there?

4 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

Dear Lord, please don't let the commie's buy Thai Friendly. 

you not into ladies in red mate??

1 minute ago, CharlieH said:

Forum rules still apply, no changes other than the name ,as already posted.

Ok, so by this definition ASEAN now will act differently on different sections of the site?

As some countries in ASEAN respect free speech (Japan, Singapore & South Korea for example), will more open discussion be permitted in those sections of the site where free speech is condoned? or does everything still come under the umbrella of Thai law, regardless of where you are posting from?

Confusing to say the least!

Now I have had some time to digest this new site I have a few questions I would like to ask.

1. Now that the site is seemingly registered outside of Thailand, does that mean that 'Thai law' no longer applies to it and we no longer have to self censor our posts?

2. Will our data be shared with 3rd parties overseas, and if so will we be notified of this, if and when it occurs?

3. Has the site been sold by the previous owners? and if so, who is the new benefactor?
4. Will there be any updates to the forum rules and regulations going forward?

5. Will there be any changes to the way the site is moderated?

(btw, I like the new color code, much better than the previous one!).

Thank you!

Thaivisa member.

8 minutes ago, Poet said:

From a website economics point-of-view, setting fire to a strong, memorable brand, established over two decades, is insane.

From a Chinese perspective, however, Thailand is a tiny market, whether we are talking commercial potential or political influence. Barely even worth controlling.

Collectively, the ten ASEAN member states represent a market just about big enough to be worth cultivating. The dream here is that the existing traffic and link juice of ThaiVisa will act as an anchor to provide this larger project with the necessary momentum to make all ten country sections viable.

It makes a lot of sense in theory, but absolutely won't work. I have watched so many websites try to transform themselves into a broader portal, not realising that a large part of Google's favor is that you specialize in a particular region or subject niche.

On the other hand, why not?

Despite the TAT-style claims about how well the forum has been doing, we all know the reality, and we all know why it has happened, no point going into that. Suffice to say that the turnover of good contributors has been high, while the dregs and loonies tend to accumulate.

So, at this point, emergency surgery may be justified, especially in terms of possibly delivering a potential market that Chinese owners would consider worth bothering with.

My prediction is that the activity in the Thailand section will drop but remain viable. The existing Cambodia, Vietnam, and Philippines sections will remain about as active as they have been, which is not very. The other sections will feature the occassional post from regulars in the Thailand section, but will never attract expats established in those countries and already well-served by dedicated forums and Facebook groups. There is no way they are going to swap that for the perculiarly user-hostile environment here.

I predict that the Thailand section will be ported back to the ThaiVisa brand and domain within one year, with fewer active users and damaged Google rankings. The remaining AseanNow forum will continue for another year before folding due to lack of interest and too broad a focus.

 

Very well put mate. I agree with all of what you said above, especially the slashing and burning of a brand that has taken decades to build!

Absolute madness IMO.

So is the Cheese man no longer at the helm???

Now this is a Chinese owned site???

How long before Xi Jinping signs up to become a member?