Recent Actions Of The Forum Moderators

[phazey]

Fellow forum members,

We've seen some drastic things happen yesterday/today with bannings/suspensions and the like. I posted a reply to a thread hoping to put it in perspective - that got nuked. hope this one does not go that way also. I'd just appreciate you lot listening and understanding my angle.

First of all, i am making no accusations here. Just putting 2 + 2 together and coming up with 42.

Now, I make no secret to the fact i work in Burma, and i work for the only commercial ISP int he country. Cutting to the chase - content filtering is quite high on the agenda. This is how i think right now with this situation.

Now, some posts here could be seen as unsavoury - crudeness, rudeness etc. I think we are all aware now Thailand has some stringent content filtering in place (yup - not everything is footloose and fancy free in LOS)....

I'd think it would be a great loss to the ex-pat & thai community as a whole if all of a sudden - this site was not viewable from within Thailand. Maybe it's been tagged and the moderators are just trying to clean things up a little. There are 9700 odd members out there apart from you - may i ask that you think before you post?

Please understand i am NOT pointing fingers at anyone here - including the people who have been suspended - i'm not in it for that. I'm in it because Thaivisa.com has been a great wealth of information and advice for me, and i in turn have offered advice to those who lack the knowledge i have learnt over the past few years.

We cannot control what content Thailand and it's regulators deem as unsavoury to the users of it's internet services. But individually, we can work together to keep Thaivisa.com & it's forums viewable to all.

I'd request that people with negative views to the actions of the moderators, to thailands content laws, to my oppinion and for the sake of keeping this thread open, you create another thread and moan in there - i believe what i have said makes sence - and thus should be viewable to the general member's

With Regards

Karl - Thaivisa.com Forum member.

[bigwetpatch]

Sounds like you make some fairly valid points in your thread.

look - no flame!!

cheers,

BWP

[mandl]

No flames from me Phazey.

Been saying the same thing for a while. Was starting to think I was talking to myself.

Now that there is a crackdown, maybe people will stick to the topic at hand and save the unnecessary remarks for PM's.

Agree that this is a great forum but too many threads are hijacked by the same few individuals.

Perhaps some changes in the software upgrade George spoke of will help.

mandl

[penzman]

AGREE!

A few members discussed this on the chat a few days ago, too many useless threads and posts for a while now...

Would be a sad day indeed if this site was to be banned from within LOS...

[bigwetpatch]

i dont know the in's and out's of what has been happening. I take it by the leisurely growth of many of the threads today that there are number of "players" absent. Are they taking a breather?

What is really needed is a middle way --- I sound like blair now!! seriously though; obviously alot of the outrageous flaming needs to go, but at the same time you dont want the place to be completely sterile. Vigorous debate is Ok in my book, providing it is on topic and not abusive...well maybe a little subtle abuse is ok.

Look , no flame again.

[Yohan]

Fellow forum members,

.....

Now, I make no secret to the fact i work in Burma, and i work for the only commercial ISP int he country. Cutting to the chase - content filtering is quite high on the agenda. This is how i think right now with this situation.

Now, some posts here could be seen as unsavoury - crudeness, rudeness etc. I think we are all aware now Thailand has some stringent content filtering in place (yup - not everything is footloose and fancy free in LOS)....

.....

I'd think it would be a great loss to the ex-pat & thai community as a whole if all of a sudden - this site was not viewable from within Thailand. Maybe it's been tagged and the moderators are just trying to clean things up a little. There are 9700 odd members out there apart from you - may i ask that you think before you post?

.....

We cannot control what content Thailand and it's regulators deem as unsavoury to the users of it's internet services. But individually, we can work together to keep Thaivisa.com & it's forums viewable to all.

I do not see any reason, why I should not post my opinion in this thread.

It is a big difference if you are in Burma or in Thailand, maybe the same difference if you are in China or in Japan.

Thaivisa was not operating or was disconnected or datalines had problems during the last days, even here in Japan....I could not connect with many sites, and in Japan is no content filtering....reason was related to spam-mails due to virus attacks and poor antivirus software by many users...

Thaivisa is not operating inside Thailand (it is located in Hongkong), but I do not see any reason, why it should not be allowed to operate inside Thailand.

This site does not contain anything, what I would call a wild and uncontrolled www-site (much more the opposite).

It is operating more like a collection of general information, and there is nothing there, what you cannot find somewhere else...

Content filtering mostly tries to capture newsgroups and chat-rooms and to ban websites with porno links, filtering span-mail...virus and so on....

Most content filtering is done by private companies to prevent misuse of their employees, and not by ISP itself (or it is a payable service for the user if requested)

I have been in Thailand 14 days ago, and helped the hotel staff to remove plenty of such crazy links out of their business computers....a left-over of an unknown visitor.... for sure no content filter running at their ISP in Bangkok...

There are not 9700 users at Thaiforum, people are signing up, and often never come back anymore. I recommend the moderator to remove all user accounts, which are idle since over 3 years...

I noticed that the administrator already did some steps in this direction regarding contents, by removing old and unused threads - I would call this re-organisation, and it is necessary from time to time.

We cannot control what content Thailand and it's regulators deem as unsavoury to the users of it's internet services.

Datas running throught the internet are considered as over 80 percent data garbage....hoax-mail, spam-mail, sex-mail, advertisers, pornolinks, idiot-mail and so on....

I do not see any reason to be worried about Thaivisa....a tiny site, comparing the internet as a whole, and for sure Thaivisa is promoting Thailand, it is not against Thailand....

Johann

[Boon Mee]

I haven't been paying all that much attention to what's been posted that may arouse the ire of the moderators. Saw a thread couple days ago started by tutsiwarrior that mentioned some unsavory stuff but what else?

Totally agree that personal vendettas belong elsewhere...

[thaimee]

There are not 9700 users at Thaiforum, people are signing up, and often never come back anymore. I recommend the moderator to remove all user accounts, which are idle since over 3 years...

Probably not as many as 9700 users at thaivisa dot com but the content, quality and selection of topics is vast, interesting and informative.

Keep up the good work Admin.

Thaimee.

[gisele]

Been saying the same thing for a while. Was starting to think I was talking to myself.

Now that there is a crackdown, maybe people will stick to the topic at hand and save the unnecessary remarks for PM's.

Agree that this is a great forum but too many threads are hijacked by the same few individuals.

mandl

Totally agree, and actually lately I have not felt comfortable posting, and even less reading many postings.

Threads going on a tangent is one thing, this often offers witty comments and is quite entertaining, but that has not been the case for many postings of late.

Thank you George for wanting this forum to be enjoyable for all.

[taxexile]

control the hijackers and some of the insulting and out of context swearing and childish slagging off, but dont stop the humour. there are some funny posters here who may be off topic, but they lighten things up. even some of the trolls are funny and get good responses.

like most conversations, the threads are bound to get a life of their own and wander off topic, and a bit of provocation can be good too.

please dont sterilise it too much, but keep it tasteful for sure.

i,like many others enjoy my time spent on thai visa,and big thanks to all the people in the background who keep it going, (and to those admins who answer all our( same) questions... over and over again.)

[dr_Pat_Pong]

control the hijackers and some of the insulting and out of context swearing and childish slagging off, but dont stop the humour. there are some funny posters here who may be off topic, but they lighten things up. even some of the trolls are funny and get good responses.

like most conversations, the threads are bound to get a life of their own and wander off topic, and a bit of provocation can be good too.

please dont sterilise it too much, but keep it tasteful for sure.

i,like many others enjoy my time spent on thai visa,and big thanks to all the people in the background who keep it going, (and to those admins who answer all our( same) questions... over and over again.)

Good upon you Tax And I am still abroad so I am not guilty of any sins at all ( since Wednesday last )

[Padkapow Guy]

control the hijackers and some of the insulting and out of context swearing and childish slagging off, but dont stop the humour. there are some funny posters here who may be off topic, but they lighten things up. even some of the trolls are funny and get good responses.

like most conversations, the threads are bound to get a life of their own and wander off topic, and a bit of provocation can be good too.

please dont sterilise it too much, but keep it tasteful for sure.

i,like many others enjoy my time spent on thai visa,and big thanks to all the people in the background who keep it going, (and to those admins who answer all our( same) questions... over and over again.)

I agree with Tax.

[thaimee]

...or friday last? Do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help you god dr_pat_pong? ...555...

Thaimee.

[camerata]

Now, some posts here could be seen as unsavoury - crudeness, rudeness etc. I think we are all aware now Thailand has some stringent content filtering in place (yup - not everything is footloose and fancy free in LOS)....

I wouldn't exactly call it "stringent," but it's pretty arbitrary at times. Just to set the record straight, the Internet censorship in Thailand at present is done by web site/page blocking. The "Cyber Inspectors" at the ICT Ministry (now paid schoolkids, according to the Bangkok Post) regularly create a new list of urls (which can be either a whole site or just one page) which must be blocked.

ISPs have been given a specific site where they must log in with a special username and password to download the block lists. The blocks are then applied in the ISPs' proxy cache. If your site is put on a block list, theoretically you can clean it up and petition the ministry after 6 months to have it removed. But in reality, forget it. And the cyber inspectors don't review the lists, so they just keep getting bigger and bigger, which obviously slows down the ISP's cache.

Soon after the system was set up (before the schoolkids) I surveyed the first list. The majority of blocked urls were porno sites that Thais would be likely to visit, i.e. Thai-language sites, Thai chat-room sites, sites owned by Thais or catering to Thais. No farang porno sites. One site was a sports site with just some links to a soft porn site - a pretty frivolous and arbitrary choice, I'd say. A couple of sites were of the lese majeste type and a couple related to separist organizations.

More recently it was announced the lists would include hacker sites and spammer sites, as well as porno and lese majeste sites, and sites "affecting national security." ISPs aren't happy about the idea of blocking "hacker" sites because it's essential to monitor those sites to know what the bad guys are up to. But it's not up for discussion.

I don't know how the inspectors find these sites, but I'll bet they hang out in chat rooms to find the Thai-oriented porno sites. For the other stuff, they probably just search for it with Google. And some may be the result of public complaints. One page banned in the last lot was simply a history of a Thai separist movement (I'm deliberately avoiding spelling out the name), so obviously there isn't much value judgment going on. I'm sure there are a few blocked sites which really shouldn't have been blocked in the first place, even using the ministry's rather broad criteria.

So, if I were a site owner (which I am) or a moderator, I think I'd be a bit cautious. It's better not to come up on the radar at all than to rely on a 17-year-old kid to make the correct decision about whether the site is somehow detrimental to social order and decency or not.

[Snark]

Wishing to thank camerata for his explanation and to offer a little more info.

Some time ago the raging battle was internet privacy. There was a huge mountain of stupidity generated regarding this. We had public encryption, and we had the US Government wanting it standardized with them having a 'back door key'.

This was a very ugly mess by all accounts. The US Gov. brought criminal charges on individuals which in turn infringed on intellectual property rights.

And then the US Gov went on another tangent. An elite group wanted to be the absolute supreme authority over net content and censorship. Admins and hackers from all over the world were up in arms about the freedom of speech. The basic arguement is it exists or it doesn't. There cannot be halfway measures, especially when it comes to such an international forum as the internet. It boiled down to personal responsibility vs some authority taking charge over all.

Which brings us to the present day. We have, on the whole, freedom of speech on the internet. We are also up to our eyeballs in porn, and have an ever increasing number of groups, organizations and governments trying to censor the net once more. Thailand is no exception.

The problem lies in the fact that with blocking and other forms of censorship, many of the real problems are also the real pros. They can and most likely will manage to get through while the legit user will get blocked for arbitrary and very possibly unintentional supposed violations.

The whole bottom line is trying to maintain a middle way. Not let powers from on high rule and regulate your net traffic by imposing ones own rules and guildelines. Trying to keep a reasonable venue and self censoring before someone does it for you.

Ultimately, the very best form of censorship is no censorship. It is replaced by personal responsibility born of respect for your fellow beings on the planet. With the internet, that boils down to you do it, or ultimately someone will do it for you.

An awful lot of people have worked very hard for the freedom of speech we have on the internet. It now rests on your shoulders, the internet users, to assure this continues.