User:Briannaanewton/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating the article on Baybayin, a Philippine written language that thrived pre-colonization by the Spaniards.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article since I myself am Filipino, and have been around several Philippine dialects in my life --yet it was only until recently that I heard about Baybayin. Subsequent to the Spanish colonisation, Baybayin became replaced with the Latin alphabet, in addition to several other aspects of the Filipino culture becoming lost under the Spanish rule. I've always noticed the similarities between Filipinos and other Spanish-influenced cultures, but I've become very intrigued with what my our culture was before this. Regarding my preliminary impression of Baybayin, an unconfirmed source suggested it's wavy structure to mimic the imperative of water in the Philippine culture (given its many, many islands), causing me to have a greater interest in what other mystical elements the language may lead to.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the Baybayin page is mostly concise, most definitely defines the topic and it’s main facet (being a “pre-Hispanic Phillippine script”) within the first sentence. In addition to a concise introductory sentence, a quick overview in its history, encoding, as well as usage is nicely tied together —thus also including information regarding the article’s major section.

Regarding the content included in the article, it directly aligns in relevancy with the topic, and consistently has editors combing through the page and ameliorating the information and sources (there are on average 3-5 changes every month as far back as 2019). The article does not contain any missing or inappropriate content, and also highlights the erasure of culture through colonisation.

There is a balance of neutral perspectives in the article, and the authors are very fair in acknowledging information from sources but also recognising its possible illegitimacy (for instance, under Early History, possible inscriptions of Baybayin was found in a jar dating back to 1300 AD, yet the author[s] do make note of it’s lack of proven authenticity). The article overall is not imbalanced in the capitalisation in some aspects compared to others —each section is thorough and equal in length and information; there is also no signs of imbalance on author opinions, everything is explained factually and objectively.

All facts in the article are backed up by a secondary source of information, however not all of the 74 sources are reliable. For instance,  some include links to personal blogs, however there are a number of academic sources cited. The sources vary in authors as well as mediums of information (academic articles, published books, university foundations and organisations that specifically specialise in the Filipino languages). I would say that not all of the sources are easily accessible such as the academic articles. While the abstract and some summary of the findings are available, unless one has academic accessibility they are not able to see everything, and some of the links are expired.

I did not find any grammatical and/or spelling errors, the sections are very well organised and do not include information inappropriate to the section. For any foreign concepts, such as other languages in which Baybayin could have stemmed from as well as the other locations in which the language would have traveled to, there are links to sources that provide background information on these topics which serves as very helpful to new readers.

The images included in the article are very helpful as they include the characters of the language as well as derivations of Baybayin into other languages. At first glance I thought that the photos of the flags included and the passport photo was irrelevant until I noticed that there is actually Baybayin inscribed onto these documents.