Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Toki Pona/1

Toki Pona

The following discussion 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.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Ijzeren Jan has presented evidence that the article is not broad in coverage enough for GA status. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:40, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Article has 4 citation needed tags, two non-primary source needed tags, and two failed verification tags. I think a cleanup might be needed to maintain its GA status. ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 03:38, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Three citation needed tags now. The claim of sitelen suwi being inspired by Woodring and Scharf is verifiable in . Bowler the Carmine | talk 16:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

References

Comments by User:IJzeren Jan

Let me start with two disclaimers. First of all, I am not too fond of the circus around featured and good articles. And secondly, I know little about Toki Pona, and although I am impressed by its achievements, it's not really my thing. That said, since I was asked for an opinion, I'll be happy to share some thoughts.

Although there's no doubt that this is a really nice, decent article, I can see some space for improvement. To sum it up:

• The article is extremely heavy on references. Not that there's anything wrong with references, au contraire, but there's no reason to provide three or four different sources for just one simple, unquestioned fact. This comes across as an effort to justify the article's existence rather than to prove a fact, by making the references section look more impressive than it actually is. Which is understandable in so far that constructed languages are frequently under attack for being not notable enough, self-promotional etc., but Toki Pona is way beyond that point by now.
• Speaking about sources, it can't go unnoticed that the vast majority of them are primary sources. I would recommend cutting their number somewhat, at least in cases were a reference is not really necessary.
• On the other hand, the sentence "Toki Pona was the subject of some scientific works" is followed by only one footnote, referring to an article of five pages, which has been used for no less than 29 references and whose author is an active member of the Toki Pona community himself. I'm sure there must be some truly independent academic research on Toki Pona by now.
• In the same sentence, it is also written that "it has also been used for artificial intelligence and software tools". However, after briefly skimming through the source I get the impression that it is about potential uses rather than actual usage. The same goes for the third part of the sentence ("as well as a therapeutic method"): the source writes that the professor is "studying the language's usefulness", not that he actually uses it.
• The "purpose" section discusses the design principles of Toki Pona, which is fine. But what I would expect in this section is rather something about its intended goals. Was it a private thing of its creator that unwittingly happened to achieve some popularity, or was it actually intended to be spoken by others? And if so, by whom and why?
• What I would also like to know, and perhaps there are sources indicating it, is this: what exactly explains the popularity of Toki Pona? It's not uncommon for a constructed language to have a few fans, but rarely more than a handful. Why do so many people learn it? Is it because they want to be part of some experiment? Or because of the community? Is Toki Pona to them what Esperanto is to Esperantists, or is it rather what Klingon is to Klingonists?
• The article should at least explain why there are three different writing systems, and also if they are used, and if so, by whom and for what?
• Apparently, Toki Pona has no less than two different signed versions, and the phrase "more widely used in the Toki Pona community" seems to suggest that both are actually in use, which is surprising for such a small language. If that is true, I really would like to know more about that.
• Toki Pona uses capitals only for proper names. Why?
• And speaking about names, it seems like members of the community use a Toki Pona pen name, consisting of "jan" and a bastardised form of their first names, right? Which I guess would make me "jan Jan". :) This would be worth mentioning in the article, too. And what happens if two people have the same name?
• Nevertheless, I would suggest using real names instead of "in-universe" names. Same goes, BTW, for phrases like "Toki Pona: The Language of Good (known as pu)". Things like that make the article look like a from-fans-for-fans kind of thing.
• In-person meetups: it would be interesting to mention the number of attendees. And if it's just two or three people, better leave it out.
• Not that I am such a fan of "criticism" sections, but given the extremely low number of words, the article should present viewpoints on questions like: in how far can Toki Pona be considered a language at all? How do non-users see it? Etc. Several of such questions can be found on Meta.
• Including this one: how does Toki Pona handle complex (f.ex. technical) texts, especially since circumlocutions are subjective? Even if it is possible to translate complicated texts to Toki Pona, can the result be translated back in a reasonably reliable way?
• And at last, lipu tenpo looks great, but adding every individual issue to the list of publications seems a bit of an exaggeration. Instead, I would suggest adding https://liputenpo.org/ to the external links section.

Hope this helps! —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 21:58, 1 December 2024 (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.