Blog cited in academic publications

For academic publications it is essential to have lots of references, and maybe even more to get cited by other publications - the only way to quantify the quality of a publication is how often it gets cited in other publications. When I studied (a field totally unrelated to the geography, politics and history topics I write here) I never made it to have anything published, and I have been out of the academic world since then. As blogs same as other amateur written, not peer-reviewed content is often not considered cite-worthy, I discovered that at least in four publication my content was cited. Rarely, a scholar or student contacts me directly and I am always happy to help if possible, yet out of the four citations I could find with Google I only had a short conversation with the author of the last one.

• Peerasit Kamnnuansilpa, "The challenges of Rapid Urbanization for Local Governments in Thailand" cites "Preliminary census results"
• M. Shamshul Haque, "Decentralizing local governance in Thailand: Contemporary trends and Challenges" cites "Number of administrative entities 2008".
• Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker , "Reviving Democracy at Thailand's 2011 Election" cites "Provincial Governor Reshuffle List 2011"
• Audrey Baron-Gutty, "Paradigme politique et évolution des institutions éducatives : le cas d'une société non-occidentale : la Thaïlande", mentions the blog in general

As I have no access to any academic journal, only those paper which happen to be freely accessible on the Internet, so if there are any further citations I haven't noticed yet I would be curious to know.

Area transfer between Wiang Chai and Siri Wiang Chai municipality

Yesterday two announcements were published in the Royal Gazette which modified the boundaries between the subdistrict municipalities Wiang Chai (เทศบาลตำบลเวียงชัย) and Siri Wiang Chai (เทศบาลตำบลสิริเวียงชัย).

• Modification of boundary of Wiang Chai municipality (ประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย เรื่อง เปลี่ยนแปลงเขตเทศบาลตำบลเวียงชัย อำเภอเวียงชัย จังหวัดเชียงราย) [pdf]
• Modification of boundary of Siri Wiang Chai municipality (ประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย เรื่อง เปลี่ยนแปลงเขตเทศบาลตำบลสิริเวียงชัย อำเภอเวียงชัย จังหวัดเชียงราย) [pdf]

The sanitary district Wiang Chai was created in 1985 covering the area around the district office of Wiang Chai [Gazette]. It thus covered parts of the subdistricts Wiang Chai and Mueang Chum. The remaining parts of Wiang Chai subdistrict got its local government with the creation of the TAO Wiang Chai in 1997. 1999 the sanitary district - like all sanitary districts - became a subdistrict municipality. The TAO was upgraded to a subdistrict municipality effective September 6 2013, and had to be renamed to Siri Wiang Chai as the name Wiang Chai was already taken.

If I read the text of the announcements correctly, the administrative villages 1, 8, 9, 13 and parts of 19 get transferred from Siri Wiang Chai to Wiang Chai. Comparing the maps in the two new announcements with the one from 1985, its the southern boundary of Wiang Chai which gets changed from a straight line to a much more complicated shape by the added areas, also the northwestern boundary has been moved so it now same as the boundary between the subdistrict Wiang Chai and Wiang Nuea. There however remains one strange boundary - boundary point 6 cuts off a small area of Mueang Chum municipality from its main part, maybe to be simplified in a future boundary redefinition.

A more detailed description of this change should be found in the transcript for the meeting 33 of July 13 by the board 2 considering draft laws, but sadly the webserver law.moi.go.th seems to be misconfigured to be inaccessible outside Thailand, so I cannot read that file.

Wiang Chai municipality boundary

@Amphoe competition

While I was in Thailand in summer, I collected the paper version of the first two issues of the @amphoe magazine published by the Department of Provincial Administration. Issue one my wife picked at the province hall in Trang - the staff there was very reluctant to give it away, and refused to give her a copy of issue two even though there were many boxes for delivery in that office. So I got issue two from the province hall in Phatthalung instead, while I was doing a short photo walk in the government complex my wife picked the magazine, this time from a much friendlier official. While waiting for me, they discovered a photo competition, asking to send photos with the magazine, so just for fun my mother-in-law posed in front of the province hall showing the magazine and submitted the photo. Everyone already forgot about that competition, so I was quite surprised to see my mother-in-law in the latest Facebook post showing the winning photos.

Hope that short she won will be large enough I can wear it as well when visiting next time - without my interest into these topics nobody of my family would have ever noticed that magazine anyway. And I am now looking forward to see the third issue of the magazine, it is already advertised on Facebook so at least the online version should show up soon. Lets see if it gives me chance for some nitpicking again...