Very Foul Language On The Nation Forum

[Cool Water Palace]

Such forums are all over the place. Try newzimbabwe.com and zimdaily.com. The language is ripe there between zanoids (Mugabe's quislings) and others, but often used as a form of baiting.

[limbos]

cdnvic,

Getting rid of some posters?

You just sign up under a new name and continue, there's no registration whatsoever, how can they get rid of posters???

Edited February 1, 2006 by limbos

[simon43]

I sent an email complaint to The Nation. They replied, apologised to me and stated that they had/were deleting the foul language.

Simon (aka Taksin...)

[penzman]

Still no reply to the email I ve sent them...

By the way, it sure looks as they don't care as the posts I first saw are still there...

"Please start deporting all this scum farang - they pollute our society

We need ethnic cleansing

There are farang chromosomes poisoning our clean gene pool"

Now... let's see who replies first to my email, The Nation or The Bangkok Post postbag.

[Highwayman]

I just recieved a reply from The Nation thanking me for pointing out the problem and saying that they have gotten rid of some of the posters. Anyone else get this?

Just took a look at that link again, there are still comments from a few days ago deserving of deletion that haven't been touched as well as more added today. Can't understand why The Nation allows such rubbish on a site they control. I find it impossible to believe that anyone with any authority at The Nation has even looked at their own forum. If anyone is checking that forum it must be some junior staffer with little or no English skills as it is inconceivable that any of the western staff at The Nation could read that stuff and not be aware of just how badly it reflects on them.

I sent an e-mail about it myself including my subscriber number but no reply. I've sent them emails a few times in the past, all without acknowledgement but l know they must receive them as a couple of times l've seen my letters make it to print. The only reply to a question l've ever received from any Bangkok newspaper has been from Wanda Sloan of The Bangkok Post Database section, not surprisingly is it the best supplement to be found in any Bangkok paper.

You can find other Asian forums that degenerate into juvenile abuse but the ones l've seen have been mainly gaming forums. All forums can have abuse occur but any decently administered one will respond to complaints quickly, some thing that is not happening here.

As a subscriber I am very, very disappointed in The Nation.

[Plus]

IT'S NOT THE NATION'S FORUM.

It's a simple script letting anyone to add comments to the poll. There was time when they had it with every article on their website, it was interesting for a while but then it degenerated into similar vulgarity and the comment option was removed. Apparently it's still there with poll questions. Cleaning it up is the job of a person who put the poll on the website, not the actual forum moderators. Like Thaivisa - I don't think every moderator even reads the main site, let alone has powers to remove anything from there.

Give them some slack - they are amateurs, really. Someone has to write them in Thai with detailed explanations of what the problem is and step by step instructions what to do, and also who should be doing it.

[Highwayman]

IT'S NOT THE NATION'S FORUM.

Cleaning it up is the job of a person who put the poll on the website, not the actual forum moderators. Like Thaivisa - I don't think every moderator even reads the main site, let alone has powers to remove anything from there.

Give them some slack - they are amateurs, really. Someone has to write them in Thai with detailed explanations of what the problem is and step by step instructions what to do, and also who should be doing it.

A website with the url http://www.nationmultimedia.com/ using The Nation's masthead and you're saying it's not their forum. You cannot be serious.

Did you not see cdnvic post before that he " recieved a reply from The Nation thanking me for pointing out the problem and saying that they have gotten rid of some of the posters.

If it takes someone to write to them in Thai to explain how to sort out their website then l'm amazed they can even publish a newspaper daily.

[TAWP]

Highwayman>> I think you are lacking the technical knowhow to realise that the comments in the poll-page has nothing to do with the forum itself, they are stored in two different databases.

Most likely the script is _very_ crude (like old guest-book-scripts people tended to use in the old days) and as such most likely have lacking mod-abilities.

//TAWP - programmer of 15 years.

[JXXXL]

Highwayman>> I think you are lacking the technical knowhow to realise that the comments in the poll-page has nothing to do with the forum itself, they are stored in two different databases.

Most likely the script is _very_ crude (like old guest-book-scripts people tended to use in the old days) and as such most likely have lacking mod-abilities.

//TAWP - programmer of 15 years.

TWAP,

I believe what Highwayman is saying is it doesn't matter how the result is acheived technically, the fact that filth like that appears under The Nation's URL and with their masthead means their name is associated with it. Technically, I'm sure they could remove access to the message board if they can't control it. I would think any professional media orgainzation would never want to be associated with the kind of crap appearing on their website.

[TAWP]

Yes, but it's still not IN the forum, hence if you send complsints about something IN the forum, they are going to look at the wrong place.

As was stated by another posted above, that he opposed, probably since he didn't have the technical knowledge to realise that no-one said it wasn't The Nations site, not just IN their forum.

[Highwayman]

Yes, but it's still not IN the forum, hence if you send complsints about something IN the forum, they are going to look at the wrong place.

As was stated by another posted above, that he opposed, probably since he didn't have the technical knowledge to realise that no-one said it wasn't The Nations site, not just IN their forum.

When l emailed them l included a url directly linking to the page concerned, and somehow l don't think l was the only one to do that.

Again, cdnvic received a reply saying they had removed some posters so they must know about it. Why else would he get such a reply? TAWP, next you'll be telling me they don't have an internet connection at The Nation so they couldn't click on my link to see what l was talking about.

Do you think everything is so uneditable that if someone was to post a derogatory remark about the most respected person in Thailand there that they still wouldn't be able to do anything about it?

[dantilley]

Yes, but it's still not IN the forum, hence if you send complsints about something IN the forum, they are going to look at the wrong place.

As was stated by another posted above, that he opposed, probably since he didn't have the technical knowledge to realise that no-one said it wasn't The Nations site, not just IN their forum.

When l emailed them l included a url directly linking to the page concerned, and somehow l don't think l was the only one to do that.

Again, cdnvic received a reply saying they had removed some posters so they must know about it. Why else would he get such a reply? TAWP, next you'll be telling me they don't have an internet connection at The Nation so they couldn't click on my link to see what l was talking about.

Do you think everything is so uneditable that if someone was to post a derogatory remark about the most respected person in Thailand there that they still wouldn't be able to do anything about it?

If they received links directing them to specific examples then they would know which parts are causing concern and hence be able to remove them, even if it meant manually going in and deleting the rows from the database. If the system is as basic as TAWP suspects then the database is also likely to be simple: as long as they have access to the database, or can contact someone who can access it, any really offensive material could be deleted very easily, or at least the offending parts could be censored.

[TAWP]

Highwayman>> I opposed that you jumped, in a derogatory way, on Plus, that was stating that the polls clearly wasn't in the forum.

And you wrote, and I quote:

"A website with the url http://www.nationmultimedia.com/ using The Nation's masthead and you're saying it's not their forum. You cannot be serious."

Indication that you missed the point Plus was making.

Everything is understood now? Everything is alright?

[Highwayman]

derogatory

You cannot be serious.

[cdnvic]

Ok lets move on. Be silly if we got in a protracted arguement here talking about their lack of decorum there. Lets drop the term "forum" and just say that the garbage is showing up on their "website". Which regardless of scripts, or whatever, is still their responsibility.

cv

[Plus]

News articles on their main website are a serious stuff - they are read by any news agency covering Thailand, The Nation can get sued if anything is wrong on their website - like people's names that are not in the paper edition.

Very few trusted persons with security clearance can change any content there. But even these people, editors or whoever, probably can't change the website design and scripts. That's webmasters domain.

In order to edit that offensive page the editors have to instruct webmasters, who, in turn, aren't probably qualified to edit the content of posters comments - they can just delete the whole thing.

It's a teamwork, you see, nothing gets done unless agreed to by the whole team. Give them a couple of weeks, if they don't forget the whole affair.

I had this kind of comments on my website a few years ago - there's no database at all, just a two-three lines long script that updates the html page itself. You need to open and edit the html page and upload it to the server again. Nothing like moderating proper forums.

[JXXXL]

News articles on their main website are a serious stuff - they are read by any news agency covering Thailand, The Nation can get sued if anything is wrong on their website - like people's names that are not in the paper edition.

Very few trusted persons with security clearance can change any content there. But even these people, editors or whoever, probably can't change the website design and scripts. That's webmasters domain.

In order to edit that offensive page the editors have to instruct webmasters, who, in turn, aren't probably qualified to edit the content of posters comments - they can just delete the whole thing.

It's a teamwork, you see, nothing gets done unless agreed to by the whole team. Give them a couple of weeks, if they don't forget the whole affair.

I had this kind of comments on my website a few years ago - there's no database at all, just a two-three lines long script that updates the html page itself. You need to open and edit the html page and upload it to the server again. Nothing like moderating proper forums.

Sounds like a convenient excuse. However, if The Nation's website is "serious stuff" as you say, why would they allow this filth to get there in the first place. I'm sure it's not the first this this has happened.

If you run a reputable news orgainzation, credibility and professionalism should be key considerations. Why would they allow individuals to post messages that couldn't be moderated or edited? That's just stupidity.

Typical Thai amateurism. Shame on The Nation.

[gurkle]

Typical Thai amateurism. Shame on The Nation.

There's really no need to insult all Thai people just because of one newspaper.

Anyways, in the US, if a company moderates ANY material or content posted by others, the company becomes legally responsible for ALL content. That is why AOL and Yahoo do not moderate chat rooms on their own - it would make them legally responsible for anything obscene or illegal that was discussed. So this could be why the Nation doesn't do anything.

Edited February 2, 2006 by gurkle

[penzman]

Yes, but it's still not IN the forum, hence if you send complsints about something IN the forum, they are going to look at the wrong place.

As was stated by another posted above, that he opposed, probably since he didn't have the technical knowledge to realise that no-one said it wasn't The Nations site, not just IN their forum.

I did paste the link to these pages when I emailed them...

Comments I refered to earlier are still there and have slid down to page 5 now.

[TAWP]

Great that you did, but the reply wasn't directed to you.

And I still very much doubt anyone that recieves the email has any technical knowhow on what to do or how.

[h90]

there are some strange effects, I am from Austria, and about 90 % of the Austrians I see in Thailand I must say that I never saw such (low) people in Austria. Might be that we already exported all our human junk to other countries.

While my wife (Thai) is telling that she never saw such low class Thai people like she found in Austria (maybe Thailand is sending us their junk in exchange.....).

in case of complaining, I am not only complaining about Thailand as well about my own country and most other countries........

So any complains should not be seen as specific Anti-Thailand, it is instead anti politics in generell and not meant negative, it is more meant to push people forward to think about their corrupt leaders (not only Thaksin).

wow, no holding back on that forum

if the thai posters are for real, then i think the attitude towards falangs is very alarming to say the least.

As a Thai who has lived in America I have nothing against farangs and have quite a few Caucasian friends back in the U.S.

However, in the case of Thailand, I have never seen so many immigrants (farang in this case) complain so much about a country they willingly (and sometimes even desperately) choose to move to. In contrast, the immigrants in the US for example usually talk about how great the US is compared to their old country. It's even more annoying when farang complain about Thai people specifically (and even more so when it comes from someone who wasn't too successful either here or in their home countries).

I think if Thailand made it more difficult for immigrants to move here, they would appreciate it more. For example, in the US immigrants generally need to have a specialized skill that the US is in need of in order to move there, and the available number of H1-B visas is very limited. Also, I have nothing against complaining persay; but if you complain, it would help to provide realistic solutions to the problem.