Talk:Santa María de la Cabeza castle/GA2

GA Reassessment

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Initial description

The article was reviewed last night for both DYK and GA by User:DivaKnockouts. I had found some prose issues in another of these castle articles, so I took a look at this one, and found what I consider to be severe issues with the prose. In fact, I believe it fails all three of the good article criteria under "Well-written", 1a. Specifically:

• the prose is clear and concise: it is, in fact, quite opaque. The Description section is especially problematic in this regard, and specialist terms are not explained or even wikilinked.
• respects copyright laws: I have not exhaustively checked for all possibilities, but the following example is quite troubling: a significant amount of text in the second Description paragraph is virtually identical to a Google Translate version of the sixth source. Compare the article's "the Santa María de La Cabeza castle has a fundamental difference with regard to other permanent bastioned fortifications: the design of its walls was developed into two sections. The lower body is plain and perpendicular to the pit; the upper body is tilted after the master cordon. Those changes catalog the fort as a unique bulding in the country." with Google Translate's "the fortress of Santa María de la Cabeza has a fundamental difference with respect to other permanent fortifications bastioned, because the design of the walls takes place in two stages, the lower body is straight, perpendicular (90 °) with respect to the pit and the upper cord after master is tilted (see Figure 3). This feature catalogs it as a unique fortification across the country."
  • I don't find them to be pretty similar. I wrote the translation by myself without using Google Translate (because it's a mess) and althout they have several similatiries (which is normal when you reword) they are not the same.
• the spelling and grammar are correct: I refer you to "bulding" in the above quote. In the review, it was asked that the word "which" be added to the following sentence from History: "During a powerful earthquake which occured througout the state in 1797, the Santa María de La Cabeza castle suffered heavy damages; it was partially destroyed." The word "througout" was not corrected to "throughout" nor "occured" to "occurred", and I would certainly use "damage" rather than "damages".

These are examples; I don't have time to give this a deeper review, but I don't think anything more is needed. The GA review missed some very basic and endemic issues with this article, and I believe the article should be delisted. Once the very major prose and translation issues have been solved, the article can be resubmitted, but it simply is not ready, and would in fact have been eligible for quickfail for the copyright issue alone. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:22, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

• This is weird. I translated the article by myself trying to make it different from a possible Google translate, although some things I found difficult to reword, due to the clarity needed to understand them. I am not too familiar with the specialist terms so I don't exactly know what to wikilink. I am still tweaking the prose to make it fluent and understandable, and to correct all the little issues that were left in the article. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 18:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I am rewording (as I usually do) most of the article to add clarity and flow :) — ΛΧΣ²¹ 19:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Final assessment

Hahc21 has stated that the translations were his own, and I believe him. The similarity to Google Translate points up the problem, however, that this would appear to be a literal translation with insufficient understanding of the various terms to do a paraphrase in clear and concise prose. Translation is hard, and translating technical material is that much harder. The results must meet Good Article standards, and these are not at or near such levels.

I strongly recommend that a copyedit be obtained from the Guild of Copy Editors before the article is submitted again. Phrases such as "The origins of the castle remount to 1668" in the intro, and the entire final paragraph of the History section, simply do not approach the "clear and concise" or "spelling and grammar" requirements, and problems remain throughout the article even after the rewording undertaken above (which should have been done prior to the original submission).

Although not strictly a GA requirement, there need to be more wikilinks to explain the many unfamiliar terms involved. As an example, the phrase "The Santa María de La Cabeza was built with marly limestone ashlar with fossil leftovers" should certainly link "marly" and "ashlar", and I'm not convinced the author understands how "with fossil leftovers" is connected to the marly limestone ashlar because I don't after having read the sentence.

It has been 24 hours, and the interested parties, including the original reviewer, have been notified. Given the extensive remaining prose issues, including "These changes in design calatogued the fort as a unique building within the country."—which is not only an oddly phrased sentence but contains an uncorrected typo—I don't think it's necessary to wait any further.

The article is being delisted; it is not a Good Article in its present state. I hope the author will continue to work on it and get a good copyedit. I further hope the original reviewer will be more careful in any future GA reviews; I simply don't understand how the overwhelming number of issues were missed. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:55, 9 January 2013 (UTC)