The Nation And Thaivisa.com Sign Internet Forum Deal

[mrtoad]

It's certainly a sell out, considering the fact that The Nation's political leanings are hardly foreigner friendly.

I guess business is business, but surely they could have found a better newspaper than The Nation? At least the Pattaya newspaper is funny.

[Spudger]

Will there be offers on yearly subscriptions etc?

[Micke]

A bad move, just my 2 cents.

[dinthailand]

From my understanding, The Nation will have no control over forum rules or moderator behavior whatsoever. Posts get snipped for breaking the rules, if you have difficulty being civil then you will find your posts deleted

so we can disagree with the nation's political views if they are raised??

i think posters are concerned about censorship snipping posts not lack of civility, which most posters would accept moderator action - at least i would

[Mobi]

Wooow. this is awesome, I see where admin is headed with this, and it is great, TV is already great and will just pick up more great posters along the way!

Well done to thai-visa. (again)

The awesomest forum in Thailand.

Yes ChillyWilly I agree, please dont delete anymore of my posts Mr Moderwaiter, I'll behave I promise.

I thought Mr willy was being sarcastic - maybe he was?

Jingthing I hear what you are saying - of course ThaiVisa is a business - a very successful one, and this tie up with the Nation will, in theory make it even more successful if they garner a large number of extra members from the Nation.

I know the owners disagree with me on this, but I have always believed that a business such as ThaiVisa should have a social and moral responsibility as well as a need to make money. There is no reason why it cannot be just as successful, if not more so, by getting a reputation as a politically independent and caring entity. God knows we are need of such things in LOS.

I have grave reservations about this tie up, but am prepared to see how it goes before passing judgement.

[george]

From my understanding, The Nation will have no control over forum rules or moderator behavior whatsoever. Posts get snipped for breaking the rules, if you have difficulty being civil then you will find your posts deleted

so we can disagree with the nation's political views if they are raised??

i think posters are concerned about censorship snipping posts not lack of civility, which most posters would accept moderator action - at least i would

Yes you can disagree with every political opinion. As I have said, The Nation has not, and does not want, to have any influence of the content of this forum. Period.

This is a joint venture / win-win situation for both parties.

[Jingthing]

I think people are being a little paranoid. The Nation is a newspaper with an editorial point of view. How you go from that to being afraid that disagreements with their slant on this forum or even a forum directly owned by them would be censored, I don't get your concern. Controversy and discussion means more eyes on the media, which means more potential ad sales.

[dinthailand]

This has the potential to cause problems, and having a newspaper working in collaberation with an open forum means that there could be a number of conflicts of interest. It'll will take a lot more convincing from Admin on this. At the moment, it just doesn't sit right.

See my reply above. It will be no difference in content or policies.

George, thank you for your assurances., which are well intentioned. I will continue to remain sceptical about the link up with The Nation until it has been proven to be otherwise. I am sure you can understand why.

Agreed, you have summed up the views of many Mr Toad, and civilly and succinctly

[mrtoad]

From my understanding, The Nation will have no control over forum rules or moderator behavior whatsoever. Posts get snipped for breaking the rules, if you have difficulty being civil then you will find your posts deleted

so we can disagree with the nation's political views if they are raised??

i think posters are concerned about censorship snipping posts not lack of civility, which most posters would accept moderator action - at least i would

I think this is the point that people are making, and I for one am not comfortable with a politcal tool like The Nation hanging around in the forums.

Looks like there is some influence already going on in here.

Edited January 29, 2009 by mrtoad

[coconutmonkey]

I've read this forum for many years; never post! Great to read.

It doesn't look hopeful for some members on this forum to stick around at this news!

In this case Thaivisa will win more forum readers, to greatly offset the ones they're losing now.... not to mention the benefits and contacts....

I don't like it; it's a bad idea and could be pocked with hidden agendas.

However, I would have made the same decision!

I still would now! $ $ Competition catches up quickly!

but MOST importantly; WAS every other newspaper closed??

[Diphallasparatus]

Well done George another feather in your cap and great news.

Could you just clarify one thing.

Have you joined up with "The Nation" or "Not the Nation" ?

[Plus]

"The Nation's political leanings are hardly foreigner friendly."

Huh?

How do you come up with such stuff?

The Nation is a newspaper FOR foreigners.

It also provides lots of space to anti-establishment, anti-PAd, anti-military points of view, regardless of their editorial direction.

[jasreeve17]

This might be considered a good deal by the forum management, however some members may feel that a link up with an entity that is considered by some to be a pure propaganda tool for an undemocratic minority of powermongers, is bad news.

I wonder if any info of mine / other members is now available to the nation people in a way that it wasn't previously? Maybe a link between Thaivisa servers & the 'Nation's servers' with some nice tracking sowtware running in the background...

I think this may be my last post, which will please some folk that agree with censorship and monitoring.

(Of course, I may be over reacting, but I spend too much time wasting away on here anyways, maybe I'll go jogging, or write a book.)

[Jingthing]

"The Nation's political leanings are hardly foreigner friendly."

Huh?

How do you come up with such stuff?

The Nation is a newspaper FOR foreigners.

It also provides lots of space to anti-establishment, anti-PAd, anti-military points of view, regardless of their editorial direction.

I remember reading in the past that the Bangkok Post had mostly Thai readers. That surprised me because it is an English newspaper. One reason they dumped the old Trink column. I don't know how the Nation compares in Thai readership but if you think the Nation is for foreigners mainly just because it is English, perhaps not true.

Edited January 29, 2009 by Jingthing

[Journalist]

A win-win tie-in solution for both publications. Nice.

Please include weblinks to their reproduced stories. (Or even better still, quote the first ten lines, and say 'for the rest of the story, click on...)

Edited January 29, 2009 by Journalist

[basjke]

I think people are being a little paranoid. The Nation is a newspaper with an editorial point of view. How you go from that to being afraid that disagreements with their slant on this forum or even a forum directly owned by them would be censored, I don't get your concern. Controversy and discussion means more eyes on the media, which means more potential ad sales.

Well to make it easy to understand.The Nation is no sponsor but will be treated the same if it comes to criticism.

And secondly,do you consider The Nation as political impartial?

[cclub75]

This is a joint venture / win-win situation for both parties.

What does it mean ? The press release is totally opaque.

"joint venture" ?

-you have created a joint venture with Nation ?

-you sold a stake to Nation ?

-Nation sold you a stake ?

In other words : what is the nature of this agreement, and the effects ?

"The Nation Multimedia Group has signed a joint venture partnership with thaivisa.com , to provide an English language internet community forum."

-to create a new forum ? But ThaiVisa/forum is not enough ?

Nothing is clear. The confidence is not far of being broken. Again Nation is not "any" private company, you could do business with.

It's a very specific one, a thai media, with special capitalistic links, political views and bias.

Edited January 29, 2009 by cclub75

[Kan Win]

A suggestion to all members to read the rules before posting.

I hope this is clear enough .

Thank you "sbk".

Re the following rules:-

13) English language is the only acceptable language on thaivisa.com, except of course in the Thai Language Forum where Thai is encouraged.

18) URL links from public to private forums are not permitted.

Will these be changed due to "The Nation And Thaivisa.com Sign Internet Forum Deal"?

********

Good Luck to "ThaiVisaDotCom" and "The Nation" on this new venture

Looking forward to reading The Nation Forum? Can anyone point me in that direction please?

Yours truly,

Kan Win

[kingwillly]

I think people are being a little paranoid. The Nation is a newspaper with an editorial point of view. How you go from that to being afraid that disagreements with their slant on this forum or even a forum directly owned by them would be censored, I don't get your concern. Controversy and discussion means more eyes on the media, which means more potential ad sales.

I agree. i think too many peeps are kneejerk reacting here, they need to look at the bigger picture, which TV admin obviously has.

I'm surprised it hadnt been thought of before, a wealth of possiblities awaits.

[A_Traveller]

If The Nation [group?] is treated as a sponsor or advertiser, then rules 7 & 8 are of note.

7. ... Our contracts with our advertisers prohibit comments with regard to advertisements which appear on our forums. Such comments should not be posted and will be removed.

8. ... it is not permitted to either steer, or promote, or solicit people to go to locations or businesses in which it is necessary to pay for services or assistance with the exception of thaivisa.com sponsors, who may reasonably promote themselves.

8. answers the link question, but 7. as always raises the risks of a discussion, say on a question of perceived bias, becoming problematic.

Regards

Edited January 29, 2009 by A_Traveller

[Ricardo]

The greatest falang web community in Thailand speads it temtacles into print media.

Still prefer the Post.

So the next logical step would be Thaivisa.Television, perhaps ?

[Plus]

I don't think it would make a slightest difference to us as users.

I believe the majority of Nation's readers are Thais and in many ways the paper is geared towards their tastes, but, in principle, it's a media outlet for foreigners. Nationgroup has a bunch of Thai publications for Thais.

Regardless, I don't know how you can describe their Thai readership as anti-foreigner either. Are they some sort of masochists torturing themselves by reading news in English?

[toptuan]

Not good.

The Nation is a joke...

I have to sadly agree.

On January 8, I wrote the following letter to The Nation which went unanswered (not surprisingly):

"I teach journalism at one of your Thai universities. I used to use your newspaper and website as a good example of high journalistic standards. However, the horrible grammatical and spelling errors that have crept into your paper over the last six months require me to discontinue using it.

"Now, I give them your newspaper (or print out of a website), and have the students circle the errors. They seem to do a much better job than your editors!

"I hope emails like this will not discourage you, but will help you to upgrade your quality to the standard good English you once had.

Sincerely,

..........."

In addition to the multitude of technical errors, The Nation has become a journalistic poster-child for Yellow Journalism--biased editorial writing disguised as news writing. It's a shame to the entire journalism industry.

In my wildest hopes, I wish that ThaiVisa.com might help pull up The Nation, rather than the Nation pull this well-respected forum the other direction.

TT

[bruceboy]

I see nothing but positive coming out of this business deal. Well done!

[george]

The greatest falang web community in Thailand speads it temtacles into print media.

Still prefer the Post.

So the next logical step would be Thaivisa.Television, perhaps ?

Yeah, now we are talking

http://www.nationchannel.com

[Journalist]

^As far as i'm aware - Nation television has no farangs employed in it , even backstage (or at least never used to - may have changed now). Even their english language script subbies were Thai.

I liked TV's first foray into broadcast, i.e the radio station.

[Jingthing]

I am looking forward to The Nation/Thavisa/Oishi/MK chain of burrito shops.

[Camelot]

I sincerely hope this won't affect the input of news stories and comment from the Bangkok Post, but I fear it might given the obvious conflict of interest.

[Considered Opinion]

Just out of interest, but given that thaivisa is what it is becuase of the users(all 70,000 of us). <<snip>>

Doesn't that include those who have been banned, have 30 nicks or who left in a snoot?

[MJo]

Let's wait and see, i believe the forum will still be valuable source of information regarding visas and every day issues most foreigners encounter in thailand and therefore usefull to most of us.

Those who can not live with this can look into setting up their own forums and try to run it without any sponsors etc from the site paying bills from their own pockets. Dot th dot co seems to be still available... wink wink...