A fact from Le Corricolo appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 June 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Alexandre Dumas's travel book Le Corricolo, published in 1843, contains one of the earliest literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza(pizza maker pictured)?
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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The image is not of the article's subject, nor mentioned in or relevant to the hook, and so I think this needs to be a non-image hook.
The section of prose in the article about a collaborator needs citing.
The hook is cited, but I am unsure that the source referred to is a WP:RS; I am open to persuasion. The source it is cited to does not cover most of what is in the text cited, ie, neither the quote nor the bit about socio-economic analysis. The source doesn't even name Le Corricolo. Crucially, it does not support "it contains one of the first literary accounts of Neapolitan pizza". It says (my translation) "The first mention of tomato on pizza dates back to ..." - a different thing. And the source does not contain "published in 1843" which you use in the hook.
The lead is very short - a single sentence, and seems to serve as the first sentence of the main article rather than be " a summary of its most important contents" which "stand[s] on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic" as required by WP:LEAD.
The hook is about Neapolitan pizza, which is not mentioned in the article.
Hallo @Gog the Mild: and thanks for reviewing! I'll answer step by step:
The title of the book is 'Corricolo' (a dialect word incomprehensible even to an Italian), a kind of Neapolitan tilbury, which was the carriage used by Dumas to visit Naples. On commons there are several prints and photos of the corricolo, and the corresponding category starts with the introduction of Dumas' book, so I think there is some relationship. Perhaps we could write neapolitan Corricolo pictured instead of pictured. We could also change the image to a more Dumasian one (on Commons there are a couple of better ones in this sense, with monk, lazarus, scugnizzi and other passengers, exactly as Dumas describes them);
Within the article the connection is clear. A reader of the hook will be baffled as to why a tilbury is pictured. If you want to propose an ALT with a different image, go for it; remember that the image has to be used in the article.
Citation added;
Here I am perplexed, because apart from the quotation about being one of the first literary accounts (which is implied by reading the whole article), the text says it all. I quote it here below in Italian.
La pizza è finita perfino nelle pagine di Alexandre Dumas (padre), ne Il Corricolo, una serie di racconti su Napoli del 1843. Attraverso la descrizione della pizza, lo scrittore francese offre una breve analisi socio-economica della città: “La pizza è: All’olio; Al lardo; Alla sugna; Al formaggio; Al pomodoro; Ai pesciolini. È il termometro gastronomico del mercato: aumenta o diminuisce il prezzo secondo il corso degli ingredienti suddetti, secondo l’abbondanza o la carestia dell’annata”.
Are you sure you did not click on another link? In any case, I have added three other links, one of which is the Italian Encyclopaedia (surely an RS) where I have also quoted the sentence referring to the testimonies, the second is an academic paper and the third is a blog, but it is interesting because it photographs the original text. Actually, that of Dumas in the Corricolo is the first literary testimony to the existence of Neapolitan pizza: regarding the year, on some sources you find 1835 (the year of his trip to Italy, on some 1841 (the year of the beginning of the publication of the book), , on others 1843 (the year of the end of the publication of the book)
I'm sure. I was referring to the source you provide in this template. Your additional references in the article resolve this.
You are right here, the lead is definitively too short, I have expanded it a bit.
Looks good. As the lead is meant to be a summary of the main article, everything in the lead should also be in the article - usually in greater detail. Could you check that this is the case?
Neapolitan pizza is mentioned towards the end of the article, before the quote, and as you can see from the references a not insignificant part of the book's notability comes from being one of the first sources on Neapolitan pizza, so this information is important.
To summarise: I am waiting for your confirmation re the lead, you to do a QPQ, and - optionally - for you to propose an ALT with a different image. Or a completely different ALT which is relevant to this image. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
About the hook, I changed the picture with one of a pizzajolo in Naples in the 1830s. What do you think about it? If you don't like, I have an idea about another one...
Looking good. Nice image, needs a US PD tag. Change pizzajolo in the image caption to "pizza maker" - this is the English language Wikipedia. Likewise in the hook above. Nearly there I think. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:00, 13 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, changed (but wouldn't be better "pizza baker"?)! Regarding the image, currently it has a {PD-old-100-1923} Tag. Looks like it is also valid in the US ("This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928."). Is it OK?
@Alessandro57 and Gog the Mild: I have some concerns about close paraphrasing. The following sentence from the article jumped out at me: The book is an extraordinary blend of literature and of real life, allowing the reader to grasp the city in its bustle and history. This corresponds to the following passage from the source: Le Corricolo, extraordinaire mélange de littérature et de vécu, permet de saisir Naples dans son bouillonnement et son histoire. Google translation: "Le Corricolo, an extraordinary mixture of literature and experience, allows us to grasp Naples in its ferment and its history." Checking further, I found more similarities between the article and the above-linked source, eg. Dumas only stayed in the city for three weeks, but this time was enough for him to capture the essence of the city (compare Dumas ne reste donc que trois semaines dans la ville, mais ce temps lui suffit pour saisir l’essence de la cité). Some other passages, eg. the sentence beginning This explains the book's effectiveness... have been reworded enough to avoid close paraphrasing, but clearly offer opinions that should be attributed to the source rather than stated as fact. I haven't checked out the whole article, these are just examples of some of the issues I found. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 09:57, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Earwig only detects exact matches, so it doesn't pick up on close paraphrasing at all, let alone from foreign-language sources. I don't believe the changes you made to the passages I mentioned are sufficient; you have replaced some words with synonyms but the sentence structure remains the same. These passages (and others in the article that are too close to the sources) should be completely rewritten in your own words. See WP:CLOP#How to write acceptable content for more advice. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 20:05, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In this case Earwig's usefulness is very limited. Thanks for posting the essay about close paragraphing, now I get it (I hope). However, consider that some statements, such as those on the "sentimental consonance" between Dumas and Naples, are not characteristics of a single source, but are universal. I found them written everywhere, in French and Italian sources, ranging from 1950 to ten years ago. Can you please check again, @Sojourner in the earth:? Thanks! Alex2006 (talk) 09:23, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your efforts to resolve this. Let me first address your comment on the "sentimental consonance". The idea that Dumas's personality was similar to that of the people of Naples, and that this contributed to the success of the book, may be stated in numerous sources (I take your word for it), but it is still an opinion, and as such should not be stated in WP-voice as fact. You've already fixed this particular sentence, but there are others like it in the same paragraph, such as This makes Le Corricolo a valuable and still irreplaceable guide to discovering the city. The relevant policy is WP:Subjective. To expand on the example given in that section, the article on William Shakespeare says "He is regarded as the greatest writer in the English language", but doesn't say he is the greatest writer in the English language, regardless of how many people hold that opinion.Tonal problems can be an unintended consequence of close paraphrasing. Your source is a critical review, but you are writing an encyclopedia article; the information must be organized and presented in a different way. With your latest changes to the article, you've again reworded some sentences, but I still don't believe you're fully understanding the problem. For example, the source says that Dumas's technique of shifting from one genre to another gives the reader the impression that they are boarding the corricolo and travelling alongside Dumas in his journey through Naples. This is not a simple fact that can be restated in different words; it is the creatively-expressed opinion of the author. As long as these two ideas are linked together, i.e. that the shifting of genres creates an immersive experience, you are engaging in close paraphrasing. I don't have the expertise to say whether your latest alteration of that passage takes the text far enough away from the source to be non-problematic from a legal point of view; but the text still expresses a non-neutral opinion which should have in-text attribution.To be blunt, I don't believe that extensive close paraphrasing can ever be "fixed" except by erasing the article and starting again. It introduces so many problems, and once you start playing the game of rewriting individual sentences in slightly different ways, you're only covering up those problems, not fixing them. However, other DYKers are more tolerant of this, so I suggest you wait for someone else to come along and conduct a new review. I would like to re-iterate, though, for the benefit of the next reviewer, that I only spot-checked a few sentences, and my first comment in this thread should not be taken as an exhaustive survey of the article's close paraphrasing problems. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 14:40, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I have you to thank for explaining to me where the problems are in this article. If so, then the solution is to remove the whole critical part, and leave only the historical part, i.e. the facts. When it was written, where, why, etc. Remove the opinions, even if qualified and unanimous, and leave the facts. Do you agree, @Sojourner in the earth:? That's what I did, I hope that what remains is ok. Alex2006 (talk) 15:02, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
New enough, long enough. Hook short enough; I don't speak a word of Italian, so AGF on the hook and all sources. No neutrality problems found, no copyright problems found, no maintenance templates found. QPQ done. Good to go.--Launchballer07:25, 7 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gog the Mild (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
That's all for now, bye. Alex2006 (talk) 13:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Now GTG. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
@Alessandro57 and Gog the Mild: I have some concerns about close paraphrasing. The following sentence from the article jumped out at me: 
New enough, long enough. Hook short enough; I don't speak a word of Italian, so AGF on the hook and all sources. No neutrality problems found, no copyright problems found, no maintenance templates found. QPQ done. Good to go.--Launchballer 07:25, 7 June 2023 (UTC)