Talk:American Sign Language/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: PrairieKid (talk · contribs) 17:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I would love to review this article, to help it reach GA status. I should start with some initial comments soon. PrairieKid (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry it took me so long to get this going. Will start right away! PrairieKid (talk) 00:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Initial Comments

Lead

• A little long for the size of the article

- I think it goes a little too deeply into the history of ASL and its relation to other sign languages. Strays a little bit from ASL.

• Well-written, although a little technical

- (I feel a little silly saying this but,) I had to think about a few of the terms used, particularly in the final paragraph. A summary should provide a brief overview, but not much more.

I've tried to pare down the lead. Mo-Al (talk) 18:27, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Infobox

• Outdated

- The number of speakers 40 years ago isn't nearly accurate anymore, especially considering globalization. A more modern figure probably exists somewhere

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a more recent estimate. ASL use isn't counted in the American census, so everyone relies on the 1972 survey. See Mitchell et al. (2006:17). Hopefully American policy will become more receptive towards ASL in the future. Mo-Al (talk) 17:41, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

What about this? Can you at least mention it? Not a terribly big deal, but something. PrairieKid (talk) 18:48, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't help, unfortunately. All the estimates other than the 1974 one are based on misunderstandings. See Mitchell et al. (2006). Mo-Al (talk) 06:58, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

• FSL comparison

- Don't see a source to say it is in the FSL family... I know they are related, but I wouldn't say they are that similar.

(Reading later on, I get it.) And, to be nitpicky, I don't think FSL is a direct... "heir" of French, similar to how ASL isn't English. (Which is ESL.)

I've tweaked this. You're right that it shouldn't have said "French". Mo-Al (talk) 17:39, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Classification

• Well-written, albeit, again, perhaps a little technical for the average reader
• Well sourced

No major problems. I'm pretty pleased with it.

Reply to this comment:

• Well-written, albeit, again, perhaps a little technical for the average reader

Hence, the accessibility to this page via the Simple English link: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sign_Language — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.138.95.59 (talk) 18:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

History

• Repeats Classification

- Repeats information on Plains Indians

Again, no other problems. Pretty happy here so far.

Population

• Outdated

- I'm sure you you looked hard for another statistic, but there has to be at least one more estimate for the number of ASL speakers after 1972

See comment above. Mo-Al (talk) 17:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

• Very well-written

- I'm learning quite a bit in this review. (Both about ASL and about editing.)

Once more, no big complaints

Geographic distribution

Nothing to say. I'm very impressed. Everything has been well-cited, well-written and interesting

Variation

• Quote could be in a box

- Just a minor, personal preference

Unfortunately I had issues trying to get the formatting to work. Mo-Al (talk) 00:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• Black ASL?

- I don't know if that is the proper, or commonly used term. I know AAVE is, so I would just use that for consistency.

Well, AAVE refers to a dialect of spoken English, not of ASL. I guess the analogous term would be AAVASL, but I've never seen that used. My sources all use the term "Black ASL." Mo-Al (talk) 17:45, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

• Slightly technical

- Some of the characters used to represent signs, the wording and phrasing are often a little difficult to understand. (Again, I feel a little silly saying that.)

Status

I'm going to have to continue this at another time. I will finish this later today or early tomorrow. I hope you can take this time to make the minor corrections needed. Thanks for the patience and, again, I apologize for the wait. PrairieKid (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2013 (UTC) PrairieKid (talk) 19:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

• Title

-I'm not sure if "Status" is a proper title. This mainly deals with the geographic distribution and CODAs/Deaf children.

I've changed this to "stigma". Not sure that's the best title either though... Mo-Al (talk) 23:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Writing Systems

• I think it may be helpful to mention that most ASL speakers write in English. It sounds like most don't read English.

Had trouble getting this in. The thing is, it's hard to find a pertinent place to mention this, since the section topic really doesn't have anything to do about English. Also, I'm not sure what the average ASL user's proficiency in English is... Mo-Al (talk) 00:02, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

The topic has to do with the writing systems ASL speakers use. Most of them use English.

Really? I thought this section was for the writing systems used for the ASL language. Wouldn't information about the English language be somewhat off-topic? Mo-Al (talk) 00:53, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I can't tell if your trying to be a smart-ass or not... Haha... I would just like a mention of what most ASL speakers use, as there isn't a definite system for ASL. Written English is part of ASL... I guess. PrairieKid (talk) 02:23, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if it came off that way -- I don't want to be argumentative. However, I don't think written English is part of ASL -- English and ASL are fundamentally different languages (despite the fact that occasionally ASL borrows words from English using fingerspelling). Now, ASL is sometimes written with interlinear glossing (e.g. "DOG NOW CHASE>IX=3 CAT"), which is mentioned in the writing systems section. However, the fact that ASL speakers sometimes use English doesn't seem relevant, just like the fact that some English speakers use Spanish probably doesn't belong in the English language article. Let me know if I'm off-base here. Mo-Al (talk) 15:11, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

(I was being sarcastic above, by the way. I hope it came off that way and not as if I was angry.) I think we can agree to disagree here. I understand what your saying. I'll leave it up to you. Besides that, I don't think we have too many more problems. I'm going to give the article a once over again, just to make sure, but I think I'll be passing it for GA level. PrairieKid (talk) 16:23, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Phonology

No problems.

Grammar

(This reviewer's favorite thing in the world...NOT!)

• Focuses too much on English

- More so, on how it isn't English! I realize that the whole article is like that. I understand that there is the confusion by the public that ASL and ESL are the same, but that doesn't mean this article should focus on that.

Okay, I've tried to de-emphasize this. Mo-Al (talk) 07:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

• Very technical

-I shouldn't have to click through 2-3 other articles just to fully understand what a subsection is hinting at

Iconicity

• Title is kind of a strange word... I think I've now crossed into being a college freshmen. (OH NO! BIG WORDS! AH!)

Overall

The Good

• Where not overly technical (and even then), this article is very well-written and interesting
• The images are all clear
• I learned a lot, which is always nice
• Article was focused very well, and covered everything it needed to.

The Bad

• Too many comparisons to English. They are two separate languages. Make one statement (every now and then, if you have to) saying that are not the same, and be done

Fixed. Mo-Al (talk) 00:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• Too technical, Mr. Linguist.

I've tried to deal with this, at least in the grammar section. Mo-Al (talk) 15:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

• I can't check many of the cites, because they are videos or otherwise inaccessible. I'll take your word for it.

I will point out that there's nothing wrong with sources that are hard to access (Wikipedia:SOURCEACCESS). Not a big deal though. Mo-Al (talk) 23:46, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

No major problems there... Just something I pointed out.

The Ugly

Nothing here.

I should be able to do the rubric now. Good work! PrairieKid (talk) 19:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I bolded all of the problems I now see with the problems, and struck out everything you fixed. I'm pushing this article a little bit (maybe more than I really need to, to be honest), because I see a lot of potential here. Possible FAN soon, huh? PrairieKid (talk) 02:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Rubric

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

Article will be put on hold for 7 days for changes to be made.  On hold

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   Too technical for now.

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   I can't check many of the sources, but the ones I could check were fine.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Again, focuses a little too much on comparing ASL to English

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:  On hold}}

   For 7 days.

PrairieKid (talk) 19:31, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

I've tried to fix most of your general comments. I had some trouble making the article less technical, though I did change the grammar section (which sounds like it was the most difficult section) to be more readable. Let me know if it's still not up to par. Mo-Al (talk) 20:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

At this point, I really have no complaints. I pushed this article a little much (and was nitpicky), because, from the beginning, I was very impressed at the level of quality the article already had. I can see this easily becoming an FA within a reasonable amount of time, with a reasonable amount of effort and I hope you at least attempt to get it there. For the future, I would work on the technical writing in the article. I still feel that readers have to have at least some prior knowledge in linguistics or ASL, and they shouldn't. Further, there still are a few parts where a ce might be required. They are good enough for GA but to make it to FA, they will need to flow better and become a little more interesting, and, dare I say it, to the point. For now, I think you have a really good article (I would classify a A-level now), which is informative for people who know very little, up to professionals such as yourself, and even people in the deaf culture. Personally, I truly enjoyed this GAN and am happy ASL was able to reach this level. It can only go up hill from here... American Sign Language, welcome to the GA list. PrairieKid (talk) 16:43, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks for all of the work helping to get this article to GA status! I'm excited to work on getting this article to FA status sometime in the future, and I appreciate all of your help. Mo-Al (talk) 17:27, 8 September 2013 (UTC)