ThaiVisa.com is a great source to find out what subjects in Thailand are news. It's a terrible place however to find out any details about those subjects. Thailand's largest open reader forum is rife and riddled with posts rampant in speculation, rumors, and just out and out fabrications. Hundreds of people come along and read the lies that hundreds of other people put up (usually done unknowingly, with a genuine belief that their knowledge is correct), and the readers believe this information is fact... and pass it along as fact.
The open forum regarding the subject of the recent change in visa regulations is by and away the largest area of ThaiVisa.com in which you'll find the culprits. For a website that names itself "thaivisa.com", you would think that they would pride themselves on the truth of their Thai visa information. Not so in the forum. This is a place where truthiness seems to have taken charge.
In the forum, their wiki of incorrect knowledge is not self-correcting, but instead is a self-perpetuating metastasis. A rumor posted once is accepted as truth elsewhere. Postulating posted once becomes calculation elsewhere. Fear-mongering posted once becomes fair warning elsewhere. Poor readers driven to ThaiVisa.com by its sheer heft and bulk looking for the truth instead wind up only more confused.
Fact of the matter is, for those of you who read, or might read, ThaiVisa.com — or any other of the dozens of reader-fueled bulletin-board-style websites on Thailand — remember to use common sense when reading up on subjects that interest you: If what you are reading isn't sourced, doesn't provide a link to a reference, or back up what is said with any data or at least thoughtful insight, DO NOT BELIEVE IT. Any poster can come along and write anything in these forums, true or false, and many times that information will go unchallenged.
The principle problem with ThaiVisa.com is that their open forum has come to be a source of information on Thailand for many people, when really all it is is a puke funnel for scuttlebutt, supposition and speculation. The administrators of this website should really find a way to keep fact and fiction separate before more people wind up confused and possibly somehow harmed by relyling on false information posted by people in the forum at ThaiVisa.com... especially on the most important subjects like, for instance, Thai Visas.
p.s. For the straight poop on the new visa rules... not the rumors and guesses that ThaiVisa.com readers continue to spread in open forum, click here.
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1 comment:
Very well said Jil, I agree on every point!
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