Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Thaiger: Difference between revisions

The_Thaiger (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Looks to violate both WP:V and WP:NEXIST and WP:NOR just like the prior article that this article duplicated… Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Phuket_Gazette. Plmoin2514 (talk) 12:59, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The previous AfD seems to have ended with minimal participation and did not make a strong decision. I also see that Thai editors did not appear interested in voting in the previous AfD, and there was no proper research in Thai language done on the topic.

As of now, after doing my own research about the Phuket Gazette (the former one), I would point out that it is clearly notable. Btw I’m not Thai but Burmese, so I cannot search deeply in Thai-language sources, but I still found significant sources for this media outlet in English. I am not sure whether the current rebrand Thaiger is notable (no cmt on this), but the predecessor PG is not the same, and the newspaper was once the largest English-language newspaper in Thailand’s major tourist city.

Here is an example: [1] … Phuket Gazette, also a weekly, is the island of Phuket’s largest English-language newspaper with a circulation of 25,000–35,000 depending on the season, and more than 80% of the local newspaper readership market.

So there is no notability problem for the predecessor, and I would even suggest changing the current article name from Thaiger to Phuket Gazette if needed, with The Thaiger mentioned only as the rebrand.

I also sense that the nominator may hold a WP:IDONTLIKE. According to The Thaiger’s talk page, they seem overly sensitive about allowing this media outlet to have a Wikipedia page and even accused the media of operating a visa scam. If you have a source showing that this media outlet is running a visa scam, please provide the link to support this claim…& I will add the scam information to the article. However, I do agree that The Thaiger appears to have past lawsuits for content stealing, and this seems to have already been added to the article, which is appropriate.

Editing on Wikipedia should not be based on personal dislike, and please keep in mind WP:NPOV.

I hope the article creator adds some points to this AfD by researching more in Thai-language sources. Thanks. KhantWiki (talk) 18:14, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@KhantWiki Thanks for finding the source and for your comment. Sorry, I’m not interested in voting on this now. The nominator accused me of COI on this and PA on the talk page, so I will let other editors decide and remain silent. If needed, I will give my vote later. ManoiCMU (talk) 09:15, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the Thai Ministry of Tourism calling the Thaiger’s TDAC website tdac.agents.co.th (along with any other fake sites) a scam a few weeks ago. Their business partners, Thai Visa Centre, have been attempting to vandalize the TDAC article for months, trying to get backlinks. Their new strategy appears to be putting indirect backlinks on the The Thaiger’s website, which they link to various Wikipedia articles for SEO, so they can ultimately dupe tourists into paying them for the airport arrival card that is free on the Thai government website. The author ManoiCMU already admits he links to The Thaiger on as many Wikipedia articles as possible. As The Thaiger is an English-language blog that plagiarizes other Thai newspapers, there are few Thai-language sources that mention them. Plmoin2514 (talk) 06:28, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Plmoin2514 After checking the article you mentioned above, I found no statement saying that the government has called tdac.agents.co.th (Thaiger) a scam. I checked this carefully because, if such a claim were actually mentioned, I would be willing to add that scam information to the article. What’s strange is this: The Thaiger is a legally registered media company in Thailand. If it were operating a visa scam, why hasn’t the police arrested anyone or at least issued an official statement? Thailand is very sensitive about visa-related scams, so why would the authorities not warn the public or take action against The Thaiger if it were running a fake TDAC site?

By the way, I am not Thai but I am Burmese, from a country bordering Thailand. I am very happy to visit Bangkok many times, and I am aware that there are many TDAC scam sites circulating. However, Wikipedia is a reliable, media coverage based platform. If you want to add this kind of information, it must be supported by reliable media sources. Without that, we cannot add or accept it. It also seems that you are very sensitive about this visa-related topic, which you are currently interested in and editing on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, without reliable source coverage supporting your claim, I cannot buy it here. Hteiktinhein (talk) 17:25, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to pretend like you don’t understand the Khaosod article in which the Thai Ministry of Tourism and Prime Minister’s office called out TDAC scam websites, that’s your choice, but it casts suspicion on your opinions here. You wrote “If it were operating a visa scam, why hasn’t the police arrested anyone”… are you sure you understand how Thailand works? Btw, they were arrested previously for scamming people, and 5 years later they are still not in prison. Getting a bit off topic here, but I find it interesting that a few Thai and “Burmese” editors showed up immediately to defend this article just 2 weeks after the previous article was removed from Wikipedia for being spammy and lacking sufficient references. And that’s after several years of editors voting not to allow Phuket_Gazette to be moved to The_Thaiger for the same reasons mentioned… Plmoin2514 (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Don’t cry. I have many active argument discussions like this right now. Of course, I have been active in countless AfDs and have saved and deleted countless articles. I am an AfD fighter and happy to make problem and question….see my AfD work in my recent contributions. You messed with the wrong guy. You are clearly WP:IDONTLIKE and are attacking others without evidence. I am not like the other editors you can bite, as you did above. Your edit count is very low…only around 100 and you became active again only after a recent incident…it very interesting. No matter what, this topic is notable according to my analysis. I have no time for this now. If you want to add a visa scam case, please find reliable sources for it. If not, I can’t help you. Hteiktinhein (talk) 16:12, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The same snarky, threatening, condescending tone is being used by multiple “Thai” and “Burmese” editors and they are all intent on linking The Thaiger articles from various places on Wikipedia. I think it’s becoming quite clear that there are undisclosed relationships and/or sock puppets working together to boost SEO for The Thaiger. Personal attacks, insults, and an unexplained obsession with an English-language blog known for scams and plagiarism while claiming they are native Thai and Burmese citizens to avoid betraying their real identities imo. Plmoin2514 (talk) 08:44, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wtf… I’m a respected Burmese editor on Wikipedia and a pillar of the Myanmar project. I have no connection with Thailand or even The Thaiger. I did not only vote in this AfD, and I have made many arguments like this in AfD discussions across various countries. I voted here because I saw my junior editor vote on this case, and I also felt that there was a WP:IDONTLIKEIT issue, so I am defending that position here. If you believe we are related to The Thaiger or are sockpuppets, please report us through Wikipedia rather than making personal attacks here. Hteiktinhein (talk) 09:44, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep … No matter whether The Thaiger (the new name of the Phuket Gazette) is notable or not, the Phuket Gazette is clearly notable. See the sources and analysis below.

The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (a major German think tank) analyzed the Phuket media landscape and explicitly named the Phuket Gazette as the “main weekly newspaper”, describing it as the dominant media market leader. This academic source discusses the newspaper at length.

This article from The Phuket News significantly covered the history and profile of the paper.

This primary source report states that their Phuket Gazette won the “Best Newspaper in South Thailand Award” see.

Researchers have cited Phuket Gazette reports to model economic collapse, such as in Cowan, H., et al. (2005). Survey of impacts on the Andaman coast, southern Thailand following the great Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, 38(3).

The newspaper also has an entry in the Gale Directory of Publications and Broadcast Media.

The Nation wrote “Marketers gone digital already know the power of the Gazette Online, the island’s top-rated English-language web and mobi platforms for both traffic and page views. They also know that our stories aboard these platforms appear in our Facebook, the island’s largest by far for English language, with 168,000 followers.“

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to justify this page existing on Wikipedia, even if someone opposes it simply due to WP:IDONTLIKE. If the article is kept, I will restore content about the media’s former name Phuket Gazette, since the current version is not enough to represent their earlier identity. Notability is not temporary, even if the organization rebrands. That’s all. Hteiktinhein (talk) 08:26, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This argument belongs over at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Phuket_Gazette and not here, imo. Plmoin2514 (talk) 06:30, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Most of the WP:SIGCOV coverage in multiple reliable sources, as demonstrated above, appears sufficient to establish notability. Therefore, there is enough, and I don’t need to find additional sources to prove it. The notability of a media/organization is determined by being the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources and by what it has achieved over time. This media is one of the largest and most widely viewed newspapers in Southern Thailand, and it has also received awards. ManoiCMU (talk) 03:44, 17 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I’m re-posting this comment from above, since you appear to have multiple accounts: The same snarky, threatening, condescending tone is being used by multiple “Thai” and “Burmese” editors and they are all intent on linking The Thaiger articles from various places on Wikipedia. I think it’s becoming quite clear that there are undisclosed relationships and/or sock puppets working together to boost SEO for The Thaiger. Personal attacks, insults, and an unexplained obsession with an English-language blog known for scams and plagiarism while claiming they are native Thai and Burmese citizens to avoid betraying their real identities imo. Plmoin2514 (talk) 08:45, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Btw these scammers are known for using anti-detection browsers to avoid fingerprinting. They have a large number of sock puppets across Reddit, Facebook, and Tripadvisor to astroturf travelers into using their scam websites for Thailand:

  https://archive.ph/https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/1nsoipi/the_thaiger_is_promoting_unofficial_tdac_websites/

  https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/1ouygdk/aggressive_reddit_manipulation_by_thai_visa_agents/

  So it would be entirely expected that they have sock puppets on Wikipedia too in order to link The Thaiger articles from various pages and even abuse the Afd voting process here. Plmoin2514 (talk) 09:27, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Pinging BhikhariInformer who supported redirect in the previous discussion. Kelob2678 (talk) 10:59, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: The nominator is really sensitive about this topic and has accused several editors of being paid editors and of operating sockpuppets for Tahiger in past and present. This is a very serious charge, and the user has been warned many times for making accusations and personal attacks against others without evidence. See User talk:Plmoin2514#July_2025, Talk:The Thaiger, and Talk:Thailand Digital Arrival Card. I think Plmoin2514 needs action taken regarding this behavior, and someone needs to file an ANI report, but I am busy with my trip. So @KhantWiki: @ManoiCMU:, could you please do this? Hteiktinhein (talk) 12:09, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Mass media in Thailand#Newspapers, where it is mentioned, under WP:ATD-R. OR Redirect/Merge significant info to “Phuket Gazette”, after restoring the article. Going over all the sources cited in this AFD and as per the source analysis presented, I am changing my opinion that I had casted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phuket Gazette. “Phuket Gazette” clearly does have substantial coverage for having a separate article. But “The Thaiger” doesn’t have enough SIGCOV to warrant a separate article. So, I would request any concerned editor to restore the article on “Phuket Gazette”…..and merge info regarding “The Thaiger” there, if others agree with my second suggestion. BhikhariInformer (talk) 12:31, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]