Talk:Siam

Redirect where?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

A clear majority of editors favor redirecting to Thailand. Especially given that this has proven controversial, further action on this redirect should follow discussion at WP:RFD. --BDD (talk) 19:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

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Where should Siam redirect? To Thailand, Thailand#Etymology, History of Thailand (as it does now), or somewhere else? I feel that dropping readers off at History of Thailand is a little abrupt. Although the name "Siam" is covered in the intro, that intro is really weak and the name is not discussed later in the article. Might it not be better to deposit them at Thailand#Etymology? —  AjaxSmack  02:54, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

• First, I agree with AjaxSmack's arguments against History of Thailand, and wish to add that the primary meaning of the name "Siam" is not "historical Thailand", but "Thailand" itself, albeit an outdated name. So I think we ought to head straight for the article about Thailand. I would prefer to redirect straight to the top of the article, not the etymology section. The lede very quickly says "formerly Siam", establishing quickly why the reader got there. The etymology section has a bit of a weak start, in my view, since it says "The country's official name..." and doesn't actually name the country until the end of the sentence. (If that seems a bit of a nitpick, fair enough, but since the question here is between redirecting to two places that are two PgDns apart, I think nitpicking is somewhat inevitable.) I also just generally think it's better to redirect to the lede if there's no compelling reason not to (for example, if the lede says nothing about the term named in the redirect, but that's not the case here). So my preference is Thailand, with Thailand#Etymology as a second choice. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
• Redirect to Thailand, per the least surprise principle. Siam is simply an old name for Thailand; no need to belabor the point. --Trovatore (talk) 03:36, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
• Redirect to Thailand, agreed with all the above. Sodacan (talk) 03:47, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
• Redirect to Thailand, no more to add. −Woodstone (talk) 08:12, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
• Redirect to Thailand per obvious logic, and everyone else.Skookum1 (talk) 12:35, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

*Redirect as is' per historical usage. "Siam" was always an exonym and never an endonym until the reign of Mongkut. I've been too busy straightening out misinformation on Nangklao to add references for Mongkut's change, and I still haven't established what was the endonym for Siam in Chakri reign I (Rama I.) The Three Seals Code of 1805 allegedly refers to the "realm of Yutiya" and Roberts wrote that for 70 years before his arrival it was Si-ya Yutiya. Having no idea how "Yutiya" might be written in Thai, I rammed into Rattanakosin: กรุงเทพมหานครอมรรัตนโกสินทร์ นพรัตน์บุรีรมย์ and กรุงเทพมหานคร บวรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรา อยุธยา มหาดิลกภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดม. Please note logic has nothing to do with it.—Pawyilee (talk) 17:27, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

• • Comment It doesn't matter that it's an exonym. This is the English Wikipedia and we follow English(-language) usage, whether it is faithful to the language of the place described or not. In very very close cases, usage in the other language might constitute a tiebreaker. --Trovatore (talk) 20:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

• Don't redirect to Thailand, though open to other options. I was the one who redirected the page to History of Thailand. Checking Special:WhatLinksHere, I'm not convinced that History of Thailand is inappropriate as a target. Almost all incoming links are referring to Thailand in a historical context rather than a modern/current sense. Checking just the first few articles, the link in Foreign relations of France and Phnom Penh are actually referring to the Ayutthaya Kingdom; the ones in Salute and Anna Leonowens mean Rattanakosin Kingdom; the links from Penang include both; 13th century means Sukhothai Kingdom; the mention in History of Bangladesh probably actually predates any of the Siamese kingdoms; Risk (game) uses the name in a popular culture sense and is non-specific; Jacques Vergès, who was born in Siam in 1925, seems like the only case where linking to Thailand may be appropriate (and this is the most trivial link among the examples). The problem with the name Siam is that it is doesn't refer to any specific period, so none of those specific articles would be good as a redirect target. Siam (disambiguation) may be an alternative, though I still think History of Thailand is better. Compare Chinese Empire, which redirects to History of China, since there were loads of Chinese dynastic empires. --Paul_012 (talk) 23:32, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Are any of the incoming links actually wrong if they wind up at Thailand??? I sincerely doubt it. If those articles need a discussion of the history of Thailand, then they should mention it explicitly in the text, not by a non-intuitive target for the redirect. This would be in the spirit of WP:EGG. --Trovatore (talk) 23:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
    • No more wrong that if Chinese Empire redirected to China. It's just not what I would personally expect. Speaking of WP:EGG, given the name's ambiguous nature, having the disambiguation page at the title (and discouraging linking to it) might actually be appropriate. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:25, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Redirect, as as the country's former name, to Thailand. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:54, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

*Do not redirect to Thailand, as that was the country's former name only during Chakri reigns 4-7, and briefly in the 8th. Principle of least astonishment might be served by piping "Siam" to appropriate kingdom, but hardcopy would only read Siam. Same goes for redirect to History of Thailand. Keeping that as default, however, could better be served if lede concisely gives range of years when "Siam" and "Sien" were exonyms, and when "Siam" was the [quasi?] official English name of Thailand. Note Exonym redirects to a combined article on both ex- and endonyms, that gives a rationale for Siam to link to History of Thailand. —Pawyilee (talk) 06:24, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• Redirect to Thailand#Etymology, but only after you vett changes I made today. To the section heading, I added Further information: History of Thailand. I do have sources for the two citations needed, but I'll have to dig them out later. This is more important:

  This article is missing information about Thai history from 1933 to 1997. This concern has been noted on the talk page where whether or not to include such information may be discussed.

  The missing history is at Rattanakosin Kingdom, which was only mentioned in the sidebar until I changed History section heading to add Main articles: People of Thailand and Rattanakosin Kingdom. That's not correct and is only an interim fix. Could I get some help over there?—Pawyilee (talk) 07:54, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Concerns My changes do not address the concerns raised by Paul_012 23:32, 19 August 2013 (UTC)—Pawyilee (talk) 08:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
    • Comment I see some basic misconceptions about links and redirects here. The most important aspect of wikilinking is the least surprise principle — a reader should be able to see a link and predict where it goes. If he/she sees Siam in blue, he's probably going to think "oh, Thailand". He should not have to follow the link (or hover over it) to discover whether that is true. If the link goes somewhere more specific, then there is a risk that information that ought to be in the article, set out explicitly in the text, is hidden instead in the content of the link. So this by itself trumps every other consideration mentioned, and makes it very very clear where Siam ought to point — just plain Thailand, no section, just the article. --Trovatore (talk) 19:10, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
• Strongly disagree, because — surprise, surprise! — at no time in its history was Siam just "plain Thailand."—Pawyilee (talk) 07:18, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Historically almost no country has existed in its current extent for more than a few 100 years. In English, the language of this encyclopedia, Siam is commonly used to mean Thailand. That is the determining factor. −Woodstone (talk) 07:55, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Please don't make multiple boldface !votes. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:25, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Please consider to delete the re-direct and form a stand-alone Siam article. A stand-alone article could explain shortly that Thailand used to be called Siam and may contain a brief section on the history of Thailand in relation to the Siam term. In that case, it would make sense to include wiki-links to Thailand and History of Thailand. In any case, note that the History of Thailand article contains a wiki-link to Siam, in the 'Thonburi and Bangkok period' section, which becomes a circle ref if Siam redirects to History of Thailand. 90.184.5.10 (talk) 11:48, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Is it so that the name change from Siam to Thailand was a result of a vote in parliament in the 1930's? If so, then Siam should redirect to the history of Thailand section. --80.203.35.81 (talk) 12:01, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

What about an article for Siam?

What about the suggestion of 90.184.5.10 to have a short stand-alone article for Siam with links to Thailand and History of Thailand? My worry would be how to keep it from expanding beyond about a paragraph. —  AjaxSmack  03:31, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

To all intents and purposes that would still be a redirect. We usually try to avoid creating such forks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

That sounds rather like a disambiguation page, which already exists. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:52, 30 August 2013 (UTC)]]

This discussion seems to have run its course, with no new comments for several days. Perhaps an uninvolved user could be found to close it? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 08:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Siam Call

Thailand — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:40:C200:82C0:1870:4B36:99C8:82B5 (talk) 17:10, 29 March 2020 (UTC)