Talk:Squatting in Thailand

WP:SQUAT

There are over one billion squatters worldwide and the phenomenon is under-represented on Wikipedia. Join Wikipedia:WikiProject_Squatting to help write articles about squatting in every country, or drop a message on the talkpage about something else you'd like to see covered. This is just one of many ways to counter systemic bias on Wikipedia! Mujinga (talk) 15:06, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

GA nom

This isn't a GA review, but I'd like to point out that the article is no where close to GA quality. The discussion of the legal aspects is shallow and woefully confusing, and the article as a whole doesn't provide a clear overview of the topic. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

You are welcome to your personal opinion. If you have access to reliable sources backing your view it would great if you wanted to put them here or even add them to the article. We are here to improve the article right? I've already done a pretty exhaustive sweep of the english language sources. Mujinga (talk) 11:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Squatting in Thailand/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cerebellum (talk · contribs) 10:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Hey there, I'll be reviewing this article. --Cerebellum (talk) 10:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

All done! I'll place the article on hold for 7 days so you can respond to the comments below, let me know if you disagree with anything. --Cerebellum (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: Thanks for the review and careful comments, I've answered everything except for the one about 1970s peasant revolts in Thailand because I couldn't find the reference. The article is much improved, I've rejigged the lead and will have another look at it tomorrow with fresh eyes, suggestions of course welcome. Mujinga (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: Whoops! I meant page 326 in Suehiro, section "The Peasant Movement and the Land Reform." The last paragraph on that page suggests that the peasant uprising was the "immediate stimulus" for land reform. I'm good with everything else, thank you for expanding the article so much. --Cerebellum (talk) 23:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

@Cerebellum: thanks for the ref, that's great to be able to link this article to the 1970s events with a decent ref. i've edited the lead and i'm happier with it now, yesterday's effort was a bit stunted. i hope i've now covered everything Mujinga (talk) 11:42, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Looks great :) Pass. --Cerebellum (talk) 12:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Criteria

• Prose: Prose is good, need to italicize foreign words for MOS compliance.
• References: Some issues, see below.
• Coverage: Some issues with depth of coverage, my comments are below.
• Neutral: Yes.
• Stable: Yes.
• Illustrated: Yes, images are present and appropriately captioned and licensed.

Comments

• Ref #1: What makes Thailand Law Online a reliable source?
  • I take it as a reliable legal source for what it's saying here, plus it's used as a reference on Law of Thailand and an academic article. But I'm happy to see if I can replace it with another source as I go through things again. So I'll come back on this Mujinga (talk) 19:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC) - yup found a better source in Bangkok Post Mujinga (talk) 11:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• References: Some of the reference info is in all caps, is there a reason for that?
  • That's an oversight, thanks for spotting, fixed! Mujinga (talk) 19:36, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• References: The references include the overall page numbers for the articles, but they don't specify what specific page the cited info comes from.
  • I believe that's standard to give the pages (but not cited page refs) for articles. Please let me know if you have probs finding something. Mujinga (talk) 19:37, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Legal: Per ref #3 I think the limit of the 1954 law was 50 rai, not one rai.
  • good spot! fixed with 1 rai left as being 0.16 hectares Mujinga (talk) 19:44, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Prose: It was then cancelled by Prime Minister of Thailand Sarit Thanarat with Proclamation 49 after he had seized power in 1957. Passive voice, I recommend rephrasing to something like After he seized power in 1957, Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat repealed the 1954 law with Proclomation 49.
  • done Mujinga (talk) 20:10, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• MOS: Per MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, I think you need to italicize latti-thamniam.
  • done Mujinga (talk) 19:56, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Legal: In 1981, farmers occupying land in forest reserves were offered land rights for up to 5 rai or 2.4 hectares. I think this should be in the history section, and should be expanded. Per [1], pages 9-10, this program was called STK and was replaced in 1993 by another program in which the STK titles were replaced with Sor Por Kor 4.01 titles.
  • moved, and added a bit Mujinga (talk) 21:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Coverage: Source #3, Starting on page 26, describes a peasant movement which led to the 1975 law, I think you should cover that peasant movement in this article.
  • Seems like source3 was suehiro, but I'm not seeing much on page 26 (339) about the 1970s peasant revolts in Thailand ? Mujinga (talk) 21:15, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
    • cool so it was page 326 thanks for the tip, now added Mujinga (talk) 11:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• History: In 1986, 5,000 people were evicted from Khlong Hai What is Khlong Hai?
  • it's a place, added "in Kamphaeng Phet province", source doesn't go into more detail than that Mujinga (talk) 19:55, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Sor Por Kor: I think there is a bit more to say here, about the issues with implementing the program. Sources: [2], [3], [4]. --Cerebellum (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
  • I'd come across the Bangkok Post piece you linked, but not the 'Tourism Encroachment' article, thanks that pulls things together nicely. I've expanded the section. Mujinga (talk) 22:53, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments from other editors

Sorry for not elaborating on my earlier talk page comments sooner. I still strongly disagree that the quality of the prose and the depth of coverage is close to meeting the GA criteria. The article as written is extremely confusing, as the Legal and History sections are just disjointed factoids strung together without presenting a coherent main idea. The article fails to properly explain the relevant legal framework, including the Land Code (which covers land ownership) the Civil and Commercial Code (which covers adverse posession), the Criminal Code (which covers tresspassing) and the Agricultural Land Reform Act (which covers the Agricultural Land Reform aka Sor Por Kor programme). It mixes up traditional government-sanctioned claim staking (จับจอง, RTGS: chapchong) and the modern legal concept of adverse posession (ครอบครองปรปักษ์, khropkhrong porapak), and fails to recognise that the latter only applies to private property. Of actual squatter communities, only a few examples are given, without proper delineation of the different issues (tresspassers on state-enterprise property vs ethnic minority communities lacking land titles, etc.) and the wildly different problems concerning each. No mention is made of the various corruption scandals and implementation issues surrounding the Sor Por Kor programme, which is probably the aspect the public is most familiar with.

This is mostly basic general knowledge, so I'm sorry that I'm not yet able to provide convenient overview sources or actively help with the article. I don't mean to belittle the main contributor's work, which is appreciated for addressing an under-represented topic, but for it to meet GA quality would require a major rewrite IMO. --Paul_012 (talk) 12:58, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

PS Sorry, I didn't notice that Cerebellum had closed the review during the time I took typing up the above. Please conser my comments suggestions for improvement of the article. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@Paul 012: Thank you for sharing your expertise and suggestions for the article, obviously you know way more about this topic than I do. I still think the article is a GA but if you'd like to dispute that feel free to start a good article reassessment. --Cerebellum (talk) 14:02, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Paul_012, thanks for your comments. First off like Cerebellum I'd like to acknowledge that you have by far the most knowledge about Thailand. My expertise is on the topic of squatting and so our interests intersect on this article. A good article needs to meet the six criteria and I believe it does. (As the article creator) I think it is well-written, I have written other good articles in a similar style such as Squatting in the Philippines and Squatting in the Netherlands, in which I summarise the academic literature on the specific topic. That might indeed make it read jerkily for you at points; please feel free to improve the prose - there's no timelimit on that. As to what it's lacking, well most of what you list is in the article, perhaps you didn't see the latest version since there have been additions during the review. For example, Cerebellum also asked for more information on the Sor Por Kor scandals, which I personally didn't think so relevant to an article about squatting, but there is something there now and more could be added. I'd be happy to see the article improved further - Squatting in the Philippines was certainly improved by some additions from a user with local knowledge. Right now I don't feel like I can find much more in english language sources, having just done another sweep for the review. Mujinga (talk) 14:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)