I am Nicola Arangino and I was born in Sardinia, Italy on 16 August 2002. I have been contributing to the outstandingly vast knowledge provided by Wikipedia and, most importantly, us Wikipedians since September 2020. Until Jun 2021, I was a student in a Senior High School specializing in Science Education (de jure, Liceo Scientifico) based in Sardinia, Italy, and as a consequence I'm, so to speak, rather knowledgeable about Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology and Technical Drawing.
That's definitely a tough question to answer. Why is a Wikipedian making sacrifices to edit articles, make contributions and bring his own knowledge to it? Possibly because he/she wants to contribute in this wonderful and comprehensive project that, despite its age, still has lots to say and lots of pieces of information and surely knowledge to provide and equip people with, whatever the country, the culture and possibly native language, in a joint effort to provide high-quality and, as much as possible, objective articles. That's probably the reason why I'm here, writing these lines and contributing to the articles listed below and many more.
The Languages I speak
Although my native language is Italian (CEFR level C2+), I also speak Campidanese Sardinian (CEFR level B1), which is also one of my native languages, and English (CEFR level C1+), that I have ended up speaking even better than one of my native languages (that's the reason why we Sardinians are used to saying that Sardinian language should probably be preserved and valorised more). As a result, I've decided to make use of this wonderful and versatile language that English is in order to share, as much as possible, my knowledge with fellow citizens of the world who wish to know more about the most varied topics to which I can give a contribution.
Apart from the languages listed above, I've also had the chance to study Latin, that is for sure a "dead language" since it is not spoken anymore, but it can also turn out to be rather useful when it comes to history researches and other contexts.
Articles I've contributed to
I've contributed to many article so far, and thus listing all of them here would be an almost impossible task. In spite of that, I have wisely decided to pick some of them (let us say, as it were, the ones of which I am proudest) and list them below:
Arbus, Sardinia: I've actually added virtually everything to the article: town's history, population, climate, language focus and so on;
Tor Vergata University of Rome: I've added a comprehensive section concerning university's reputation according to international rankings, as well as tables to further improve the article, that I've also extensively verified by adding reliable sources (in particular in the Notable faculty members and alumni section), and I've also added a hopefully useful section listing the different English degree courses offered by the university, as well as an entirely new section about university's affiliations;
ATAC SpA: I've completely rewritten both the introduction to the article, roughly along the lines of the Italian version of the same article (even though with significant alterities), and the "Public transport in Rome before 1909" section thereof, by adding almost 10,000 characters in just a couple of hours of work spread over around 20 days, which altogether makes for a remarkable achievement, given the local importance of the article which, for the sake of preciseness, is typically visited by more than 600 visitors a month.
Contributions to article quality
I've also contributed to the following articles by pointing out some problems or issues concerning them (e.g. more citations needed, clarifications required, etc...) (listed in order of importance):
Wikipedia Main Page, where there was a fault in the map used in the "In the news" section featured on December 29th, 2020 that has been promptly addressed after my pointing the issue out in the relevant error page.
EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, in which I've noticed a fault in the map featured as the main picture of the article. Malta was indeed depicted in a different colour from what it should have been and, after having pointed the fault out in the respective talk page, it has been promptly fixed by the map author.
Utah Monolith, I've suggested to better source some sentences and statements, as well as how to make reference to some new findings about the monolith, according to newspaper articles published at the time. This also included many discussions with fellow Wikipedians in the corresponding talk page;
Edmonton (Alberta, Canada), I've pointed out some rather confusing and unclear sentences, which were referred to no reliable sources, as well as completely unsourced statements.
Achievements on Wikipedia
So far I have "achieved" the following accomplishments on Wikipedia, but hopefully many more are on the way...
After having significantly improved the article, Tor Vergata University of Rome was marked as a "Class C" article, having formerly been classified just as a mere "Start", which makes it one of the 1,734 universities marked with this quality level. As a result, the article is now classified as such in the following categories: WikiProject Higher Education, WikiProject Italy and WikiProject Rome.
Service Awards
The ones listed below are the so-called service awards I attained on Wikipedia. Kindly note that these awards are automatically assigned to Wikipedia contributors on the basis of their registration date as well as the number of edits and contribution they have hitherto made to the Free Encyclopedia. In the box below, apart from my previous achievements, also the next award and the percentage of edits made so far with respect to the ones needed to accomplish it is shown.
To get to the next level, Novice Editor, level 4, they need to meet the editing requirement.
Progress towards the next level (by edits): [ 5 / 200 ]
2.5% completed
This editor is a Novice Editor and is entitled to display this Service Badge.
Previous awards
Registered editor
The Signator lv 2, Awarded for being a Registered Editor for 8 days and completion of 50 editsThe Signator lv 3, Awarded for being a Registered Editor for 15 days and completion of 100 editsThe Signator lv 4, Awarded for being a Registered Editor for 23 days and completion of 150 edits
Novice Editor
The Novice lv 2, Awarded for being a Registered Editor for 1 month 15 days and completion of 400 edits
Current awards
Novice Editor
The Novice lv 3, Awarded for being a Registered Editor for 2 months and completion of 600 edits
Barnstars
During my career as a Wikipedia editor and contributor, I have hitherto been awarded the following barnstars for the merits and/or achievements highlighted in each of them:
As I daily navigate the Free Encyclopedia, both as a user and (sadly a sporadic) editor, I happen to encounter some pages or sections thereof that may need some revision or work to be done. As a result, I am to enumerate, in the following of the present paragraph, what pages need (in my humble opinion) some degree of revision and, in particular, what aspects may need to be polished up.
Side note: currently, I am mainly planning on focusing on the following general topics: articles about Sardinian culture in general, or about towns thereby, articles about Rome and surrounding area, articles about control theory, automation and other Automation/IT Engineering related topics, in this latter case limited to scenarios where I identify faults, mistakes, slips or omissions only (I am not planning on making substantial contributions to the latter, but the "odd ones", so to say).
Here is the forementioned list of things to do:
I have recently found some interesting, relevant sources that may substantially improve the article of the town of Arbus, I have already strongly contributed to; in particular, I found the following sources:
https://www.sardegna.beniculturali.it/getFile.php?id=10607, an official document from the Sardinian venue of the Italian Ministry of Culture, describing in much detail the architectural style of the Church of Saint Sebastian, also cited in the wiki article. It may be worth to be looked into;
https://archive.org/details/dizionariotopogr00zuccuoft/page/n75/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=arbus: Encyclopedia naming Arbus, minor source;
https://archive.org/details/toponimiasarda00roll/page/4/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=arbus: Book about toponyms, gives some insight about Arbus name origin;
https://archive.org/details/ioannisfrancisci00fara/page/78/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=arbus: Latin-written piece of writing citing the towns of Arbus and Guspini in "a neighbourhood" of the year 1429 (pages 76 and 77): this sounds to be really promising, because, according to other sources I had previously consulted for writing the wiki article, I was not aware of any mentions to the town so early in time, apart from generic mentions from the middle ages. This needs to be looked into with some expert in Latin language, which goes further from grasping the general meaning of the writing. In any case, by the title, it seems a mention of Arbus being part of the Terralba diocese, being it "De Terralbae civitate et diocesi", which reads "On the citizens of Terralba and its diocese";
https://archive.org/details/lapatriageografi00stra/page/156/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=arbus: Encyclopedia naming Arbus, it gives an enumeration of the mining sites present at the time, which could also serve for further sourcing;
https://archive.org/details/faraejohannisfra13fara/page/638/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=arbus: Technical source giving insights into what minerals were available in the mines of the town, also meaningful to some extent;
EXTRACTS FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. BY PROFESSOR D. T. ANSTED, available at https://archive.org/details/scenerysciencear00anstuoft/page/n7/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=arbus, is interestingly one of the few English-written sources, not linked in any way (as far as I know), to any of the owners of the mines situated in the town's territory at the time, that cites the town itself. On page 185, it goes into some characteristics of the mineral vein exploited by the mine, which could be somewhat relevant to the article.
And this concludes the list. Obviously, this list will always be ongoing, implying that research and improvement work is luckily endless.
Places I've been to
Disclaimer: this section is, or rather may be, interesting only for monstrously curious fellow Wikipedians lol.
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Europe My actual citizenship
Italy – born
Sardinia – born in San Gavino Monreale, Sardinia, grown up in Arbus, Sardinia, visited Cagliari, Oristano, Sassari, Alghero, Bosa, Nuoro, Sestu, Carloforte, Sant'Antioco, Sanluri, Villacidro, Guspini, Gonnosfanadiga, Tuili, Barumini, Iglesias, Fluminimaggiore, Castelsardo, Buggerru;
Lombardy, visited Milan (EXPO Milan 2015) and Bergamo;
Lazio, studying in Rome (University of Rome "Tor Vergata") and visited mainly, for the time being, the city centre;
France, visited and had relatives in Marseille, visited Aix-en-provence;
Greece, visited Athens, Glyfada, Epidaurus, Mycenae, Corinth;
