Change in administrator on the way

[Kuti]

That is why i told to her that it could be better if she makes the rules before leaving; but Sonja is still here and it is still the "classical era"

[janMato]

[Kuti]

Could we consider the very early years as "experimental era" ?

[jan-ante]

[janKipo]

When I wrote, a few years ago, about the futures of tp, I don't think I brought philosophy into it, just purism and pragmatism. But the philosophy does support purism -- not as such (rather the contrary actually) but because it is a philosophy of incuriosity (People in a village, even if they could hear the dogs barking in another village, would not go to see what is happening or even call a question). O)n the other hand (as noted), it is a philosophy of constant change and so supports the constantly changing language. But not, of course, a conscious, thought-out, change (as we are wont to do) but a natural development, where the bottom rises and the top subsides (whatever those are in languages). So, the philosophy says, "Let it alone, don't keep trying to draw it into some fixed framework" -- either the classical one or some new radical one. If someone innovates out of need, leave it lie; itr will either catch on or it won't. If it doesn't, no paroblem. If it does, no problem, though the language has changed.
I. alas, am a Confucian (actually, a Dialectician, I suppose, but they fuse in some areas), so I keep insisting on what is set -- while, like a good Confucian, recognizing that developments can occur within that set.

[jan-ante]

[janSilipu]

If tp philosophy is basically Daoism, then this is a fair practical version (without that kooky-spookies). If you have something else in mind, ... The point of "let it alone" is not to plan changes but give everyone a shot and see what sticks. The rest is record keeping and maybe a bit of enforcing existing rules and tendencies -- which are open to dispute, of course. The "needs" you cite seem to be just your ideas, not objective. Tp is an experiment with 120 words. If it doesn't work, someone will try with 150 (or 100 different one -- the present set is odd in several ways).

[jan-ante]

[jan Josan]

Whatever the outcome, it does seem to me that cleaning up all the empty spots on the website is important for attracting new users. As it stands now it is a poor reflection of the depth of toki pona vocabulary, grammar, philosophy and culture. That toki pona has remained as active as it has been without Sonja's daily involvement is a testament to its solid core. I don't think everything has to be set in stone now or anytime in the future, but fewer dead ends on the main website would really help give the impression that becoming involved in toki pona is a current, not past or pending activity.

It's perfectly understandable that Sonja hasn't had the time to work on toki pona as much now as in the past; we all have our own projects that sit waiting for out attention to return. toki pona is unique though in that there are enough participants with an historical respect and understanding to keep the project active and progressing at this point, and I sincerely hope some method could be arranged to facilitate this. Perhaps Sonja would have enough time to take on the roll of Benevolent Dictator for Life even if she isn't mired in the day to day details of fleshing out the on line corpus.

I hesitate to bring this up, because I worry about toki pona activity being spread across too many sites, but I wonder how a stack exchange type Q & A site could help for both beginning and advanced questions about toki pona usage. For example: .

I think this forum works the best when it comes to news announcements, collaborative writing projects and soliciting feedback, and non-directed musings. But we need a better way to answer, and maintain answers to, specific usage questions. And I think we could really benefit from a system with better search results. How many times have you been told "The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words (insert any toki pona word here)?

I don't fault the lack of consensus in these forums on the participants as much as on the method. I think the stack exchange methodology could bring a much needed focus on one question tied to relevant answers, a loose consensus of votes up and votes down, and a built in system of privileges based on participation.

[janMato]

re: stack over flow

Someone already created a "shapado" which is a stack exchange clone for toki pona:

http://tokipona.shapado.com/

Except for a handful of people, only jan Kipo and I used it-- I since returned back to using the forum since it has a larger audience even if it doesn't have voting and questions tend to spin off into unrelated discussions. I figure some prominent links on the tokipona.org page could help kick start promising resources like this and highlight otherwise hard to find toki pona sites on the greater web.

Also, I happen to be the proposer of the "Planned and Constructed Languages" stack exchange proposal. If you could sign on, that would be awesome.

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposa ... -languages