Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 February 19

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February 19

Italian festivals

Has this article been (badly) translated from a Googlable article in Italian, or an article, possibly now deleted, on Italian Wikipedia?

Can anyone help fixing it. Some of it is so poor it's a joke. (Highlight: Unlike La Tomatina, the ammunition at Italy's Carnevale di Ivrea's orange battle doesn't get squished before it is hurled in the streets. It may, however, become smushed after colliding with the helmets that keep faces from leaking their own natural juices.) --14:13, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

There's a few choices you have if you need help dealing with the article. First, you can just fix it yourself. The qualifications for fixing in article at Wikipedia are 1) You have a computing device you are capable of using to enter text and 2) You care about fixing it. That's it. The other thing you can do is to tag the article as needing fixing. This will draw the attention of other editors who might be interested in fixing articles. It puts the article in clean-up categories, so editors that patrol those categories know that the article needs work, and helps them find the article. Wikipedia:Template messages has a full list of possible tags you can place on an article that needs work. I hope that helps! --Jayron32 20:00, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Jayron, perhaps lack of clarity in my post meant I deserved a patronising reply. I have no ability in Italian to comprehend original language sources. I've posted here at the languages desk hoping to find a linguist. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 21:52, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Jayron's reply didn't come over as patronising to me. Nowhere in his post does he suggest that you need to be able to comprehend Italian language sources in order to improve the article. The article doesn't have to be a direct translation of an article on the Italian Wikipedia or any Italian source on the web, it can be improved by using English-language sources. Whether you do that yourself, or leave it for others to do, is up to you. --Viennese Waltz 09:30, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm patently capable of fixing issues in articles and finding English language sources, as even a cursory glance at record here shows. I came here looking for language assistance, which is one of the functions of the desk, but if I'm just going to be insulted, I'll leave it. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

If you need translation help, Wikipedia:Translation has some guidance on how to request translation help. For Italian specifically, Category:Translators it-en. Some poking around there may find active Wikipedians who are willing to help. --Jayron32 18:08, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry you already put work into fixing this; I had a look and found the original material was essentially all copy-pasted from various places on the web, so I'm afraid the whole thing is an unsalvagable candidate for WP:CSD#G12. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:47, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:20, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The way to handle this is to credit the original authors. I spent a day revising this article, then when I pressed "save", poof! the article had been deleted. I had the article open and I didn't see the red notice warning of an impending speedy deletion. Luckily I had backed up my work so all was not lost. Here's the article minus the copyvios which someone might like to restore:

Sorry, no, that still includes the same copyvio material. Basically all substantial parts of text that I could check were copied from the web. If you wanted to recreate an article you'd have to rewrite it completely from scratch. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:50, 20 February 2019 (UTC)