Last month an old fellow from the Thai forums contacted me to discuss his idea of creating a Thailand offspring of Geograph. Geograph is a Web 2.0 project which aims to collect representative photographs and information on every square kilometer of Great Britain and Ireland. The project is very successful, as one can see in the map to the right many areas a fully red, the color chosen for squares having at least one photo. A German offspring has been launched already as well, but there the map is still green almost everywhere - I did not heard about that one before, but now already uploaded some of my photo stock from my home country.But this blog is on Thailand, and it is just a natural idea to extend this project to more countries, so he had this idea but not the ability to set up and host such a big site. Besides, to make a Geograph Thailand really work it must be bilingual, most Thai would be too shy to contribute on an English only website, and without Thai contributors it will be hard to get much content. So in order to promote this idea and find more co-workers, he instead now started a blog titled "One Tambon One Photo", to collect and present a representative photo for each of the 7255 subdistricts (Tambon). With a daily posting, this blog can run for 19 years without repeating itself, though quite clearly it will get more difficult once the touristic hotspots have been covered. Yet I am sure there are many potential non-Thai contributors who'd like to present their photos from remote places, so this blog could become a fun collaborative project as well as just interesting to read.
6 comments:
Andy what a good idea. I would certainly contribute some photos. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, it could run for a few years at this rate, but perhaps we might find a host to run it as a Geograph Thailand before then. And there will then be some starting stock to work with.
It should be added that I am NOT calling it Geograph Thailand. I would only do that after getting the official go-ahead to use the name. Not to mention finding a suitable host or sponsor. And it is always possible that someone might beat us to it. That doesn't particularly concern me, as I might be inclined to throw my support behind another organization that i thought suitable.
But that doesn't stop a few moves in the same direction. Or for that matter a change of approach. Hence a photo per tambon, instead of per grid square. Hence also my idea to emphasize both historical and geographical photos. In fact, I think it might also be possible to add a few other categories like architectural. But in fairness, Geograph posters are obviously aware that their photos represent a great deal than just geography.
I suppose you could say that Andy is already running an Administrograph Thailand here. And merger might be possible. And doing a fine job too!
A future Geograph Thailand would almost certainly adapt itself to Google mapping, as both Geograph Germany & Ireland have already done
Your private e-mail link just links to your web site and not an e-mail address. Is there a way for me to contact you?
My email is on the profile page, it is ahoerstemeier at spamcop.net.
On the bilingual issue. Well it's certainly something to be worked towards. But at this level of operation, it's probably better to encourage intermediate to advanced learners, who might then become interested in creating a bilingual site.
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