Hi,
i am looking for a place where i can post questions regarding my mapping activities in Thailand. I would prefer to post in english, so i am not sure, a thai-forum would be the proper place for me. But there is definitly a need for a place where mappers in thailand can discuss and coordinate. But many mappers in thailand are no thai natives at this time (April 2010). How about creating a thai-forum, where people can post in Thai and/or English? If a thread starts in thai, the answers should be in thai too, of course.
I would be able to contribute a welcome post in both languages, if wanted. I would also add a link to the page “WikiProject Thailand” at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Thailand pointing to this new forum.
Hello,
I am living in Thailand and I am mapping here now since one year, see my Wiki http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Willi2006. At the beginning in March of last year I added a section to the page “WikiProject Thailand” at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_Thailand with a table to list and possibly coordinate the activities. But there was no demand. I deleted the section in February this year. Accidently I deleted also the contained links to the projects Bangkok and Phang Nga. Today I have restored them again. Sorry for that. As I saw on your Wiki page you are mapping in Bangkok. The Bangkok project page http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bangkok might be interesting for you.
Based on the above experience, on the number of users at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Users_in_Thailand and the number of changesets I have seen, I think there is not much activity in Thailand and the demand to discuss and coordinate is low. Thus the above mentioned project and the accompanying discussion pages might be sufficient. If a discussion requires local knowledge there will hardly be a second person knowing the area. If local knowledge is not required then there are a lot of experienced, knowledgeable and helpful persons in another forum e.g. in “Questions and Answers” or in “users: Germany” (convenient because in our mother language).
But anyhow I think it is worth a trial. There are other forums with low activity, e.g. Turkey 0, Italy 10, Canada 16 posts. I assume it is not much effort for an admin to establish a forum “users: Thailand” and not much additional load for the server.
The language should not be a problem. Until now I have seen only non OSM Thai users. Imho contributing to OSM requires a level of computer knowledge which comes with some knowledge of English in reading and writing, may be not in speaking. The language can be up to the poster. A welcome post in English, Thai and German would be great.
Willi
Hi Willi,
thanks for your reply. I already noticed your good work in thailand. And of course i know the wiki pages, where there is already a lot of useful information available. As you mentioned, there are not much other active users in thailand. I totally agree in that the demand to discuss and coordinate is low. And this is great! Working on OSM should be mostly fun for all and i do not want to spent much time in heated debates.
But i would prefer asking and discussing in a forum. It’s much easier to do. The discussions on the wiki pages are hard to read, hard to understand and so not really effective, i think. Sure, most questions are allready answered somewhere, and many questions are similar to other asian countries, but its very hard to find answers. And there are some very thai specific things we should clarify and add to the wiki in the long term.
Hello administrators,
we kindly ask you to create a subforum “users: Thailand”.
Would the offer from WanTan “I would be able to contribute a welcome post in both languages” qualify as “a nice start post” as asked for by Lambertus in his post at http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=398. 
Willi
Comming up!
Yes, I like new people to have a nice post available with some quick links to often asked questions and such.
Hi Lambertus,
hi Willi,
many thanks for opening the thai-forum. Let’s see how it will grow.
I wrote a welcome-post with some basic information in thai and in english. Please tell me if there is something you would like to add.
I not added german because i think two languages will be hard enough to read. It’s better we stick to the two most important languages in thailand. Then most people in Thailand can read the posts and we will get more results. Not sure, but i hope it will work like this.
Great startpost. It’s stickied.
If there are any problems (e.g. spam, political debates) just email me.