Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astrology/Archive 4

Archive 1

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Archive 4

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 04:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Compatibilies and Correspondences on Astrological sign articles

A while ago, the "Traits" sections on the twelve astrological sign articles were removed because they were a magnet for original research, unverifiable claims and provoked edit-warring.

Unfortunately, this has only moved the problems to the "Correspondences" and "Compatibilities" sections. Numerous editors are edit-warring to re-insert "their" own sources and information. This situation cannot continue. The only two possible solutions are to lock the articles, which would be unproductive and provoke claims of favouritism to the current version, or to remove the sections completely.

Therefore, I propose to remove these sections from the articles, and to insert hidden text directing editors not to include them. This is an encyclopedia - it should only include encyclopedic information. I propose to do this at the end of this month (31 March) unless an alternative proposal is posted here. Black Kite 15:34, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

For the compatibilites, shouldn't they stay between their own elements like they have it now? That's the majority but whatever. I'm cool with the plan. Someone963852 (talk) 21:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Why would you propose the silence or restraint of ANY spread of information? Whatever is said, an intellegent (or knowledge seeking) person can digest data and determine their own conclusion based upon logic. Please, do not remove any articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.80.238.246 (talk) 09:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that the pretext that material should be excluded just because it draws edit wars is very misguided. Under this mindset, you may well go on and delete the Israel-related articles as well ! There has always been and will always be edit wars in these articles because the subject is highly contested. Material should be bounded by proper sourcing and that's that. The articles should be protected when excessive warring takes place. A semi-protection may also be proper as many misguided edits are by anonymips. That's the way it is usually done on Wikipedia. I did not find "encyclopedic information" formally defined by Wikipedia. These articles by nature cannot use reliable sources as defined, as there are none in astrology but currently, excluding the traits, these articles don't discuss much in astrology anyway. As I see it, the only thing to do is keep sources to mainstream astrologers. --Nathanael Bar-Aur L. (talk) 22:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

• if you look at the Astrological ages topic you will see that I have separated the mainstream view from fringe theories as a way to get around the multitude of perspectives on the ages. In addition sources need to be from printed material if they are to be references in the main body of the topic. Editorial additions without concise references with page numbers included should be immediately and automatically removed as these edits will be sub-standard. Any existing paragraph without suitable references should be earmarked for deletion. Unless encyclopedic sources can be identified as the source of the information it should not be included in the topic. External references at the end of the topic however can be websites. Terry MacKinnell (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• No problem with me if you delete the zodiac pages. Unfortunately the astrological pages of wikipedia are most of the time a target for liars, a target for individuals that love to deliberate misinterpetate the sources (as i have noticed many of them post information that have nothing to do with what the source really claims) and a target for vandalism. I prefer a deletion from the continuing existence of an article that is an easy target for spreading lies and for spreading personal opinions. --SotosfromGreece (talk) 22:51, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I think SotosfromGreece was referring to the comment "The only two possible solutions are to lock the articles ....or to remove the sections completely." in the paragraph made by Black Kite. I'm pretty sure people would get a better understanding of their sign rather than coming to Wikipedia. Having much look, what's the point of having the astrological articles if it has like the (Sign)'s Mythology that redirects to another article? (My opinions though) -Someone963852 (talk) 23:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The mythology section has nothing to do, really, with Astrology. Astrology is the interpretation of astronomical phenomenon. The mythology of the signs is already discussed in each sign's constellation article, which I believe is more appropriate. No need to have it in two places. --Nathanael Bar-Aur L. (talk) 06:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I fixed the Mythology on all twelve signs so it redirects. Someone963852 (talk) 12:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to make it very clear ... no-one is talking about removing the articles - only the Correspondences and Compatibilities sections. And yes, the fact that it draws edit-warring is a reason to remove them because there's no correct version. Because by its nature, this type of thing can be invented by anyone, and therefore (a) is not encyclopedic (WP:NOT), and (b) is not verifiable (WP:V). There are multiple sources, by multiple authors in the field, and multiple "astrological works" which state such things, but who is to say which is correct? Such things can never be verified. It would be better, indeed necessary, to limit the articles to facts. Black Kite 07:39, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not necessary to establish which are "correct". What the articles need to do is objectively document the literature on this subject. There are multiple conflicting sources for all manner of topics. Should all these topics be deleted from Wikipedia? Of course not. 86.133.55.86 (talk) 05:05, 22 March 2009 (UTC).

• The only part that I like in the articles is their first paragraph and the pictures and info. on the right side because it gives general information. Also, there should be the links that redirects to the mythology section ( on the constellation ) but not little sections of it on the astro. signs' article itself. --Someone963852 (talk) 21:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

These articles about astrology (eg. "Cancer (astrology)") therefore they must specifically discuss the astrological significance of the signs. I think the discussion of the signs is notable enough for each to have an article, as the astrology signs are often discussed in social settings. I don't think the articles should be removed, but without some discussion of personality delineation it just isn't astrology! There are some common grounds in the mainstream sources in delineation that can be summated. --Nathanael Bar-Aur L. (talk) 01:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• The fact that a topic is a magnet for original research, unverifiable claims and provokes edit-warring is quite obviously not a valid reason to exclude that topic from Wikipedia. 86.133.55.86 (talk) 04:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC).
  • Which no-one is proposing. Black Kite 23:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not what I understood from your post at the top of this section. 86.137.136.254 (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC).

It is only proposed that section that fail WP:V and/or WP:OR are removed (i.e. the Compatibilities and Correspondence sections) Black Kite 16:44, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with removing content that fails these requirements. What I do have a problem with is your proposal to add blanket statements "directing editors not to include" information about these topics (which presumably you're intending should be enforced by deleting any such content). Information about the "traits" typically or traditionally assigned to astrological signs is a legitimate topic for these articles, and there is no reason why it can't be treated in an encylopedic manner. Perhaps that hasn't been the case so far, but that, as I say, is not a valid reason for disallowing or discouraging future attempts. 86.134.90.32 (talk) 02:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC).

guys, you cannot post infoboxes saying "Please see an important notice relating to this article here" in article space. Such stuff belongs on talkpages. Please remove them. It is bad enough that most of these articles are plastered with content warnings, but you need to try and keep reader and editor apart. Any messages concerning the editor but not the reader belong on talkpages. --dab (𒁳) 13:45, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, these boxes and article space need to part ways, if only because the word "important" makes the boxes seem annoyingly pretentious: "Wait, before you read the article, come see what the important folks over at the WikiProject have to say." And that leads me to my second point, which is that this "important notice" seems to have made much ado about nothing--or, at best, about the wrong thing. I think that people, to some degree, might be confusing WP:OR by editors with WP:SPS's by the authors of various sources. Of course people can say whatever they want, about whatever they want (on their own websites, for example), but as long as they have been published independently of themselves, then their views are fair game for inclusion here. I winced when I saw, "It would be better, indeed necessary, to limit the articles to facts", given that one of Wikipedia's most famous tenets is, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." Of course WP:SPS and WP:DUE apply, but this means that we should be asking questions such as, "What are common threads that run through the sources about this topic?" and "What do the most prominent astrologers have to say about this?" and "What are the mainstream views and where do the most significant deviations lie?" before even entertaining the possibility that a topic/section is inherently hopeless. Cosmic Latte (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that in an area where there is no "right" version, in the end it boils down to giving carte blanche for anyone to include their opinion, or just saying "come on, this isn't really encyclopedic, it's a magnet for edit-warring and spamming, which is the lesser of two evils?" and getting shot of it. Black Kite 18:20, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Alright, so who's the CREEP? --David Shankbone 00:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, why have Wikipedia at all! It is all just a magnet for edit warring! And by the way, should these articles now be marked as stubs or do they even merit their own article in this current state? This is officially ridiculous. And as for "encyclopedic" - this term has got POV written all over it. I do think there are astrology encyclopedias. --Nathanael Bar-Aur L. (talk) 05:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
* re Just to make it very clear ... no-one is talking about removing the articles - only the Correspondences and Compatibilities sections. And yes, the fact that it draws edit-warring is a reason to remove them because there's no correct version. Wikipedia is not about correct versions or the truth, it is an encyclopedia. If different parties have diffeent versions or deas about signs, rulerships etc, provided they have reliable sources, they should all be included. However you can separate `mainstream' viewes from minority and fringe views, but ALL views should be included (this is how we handled different views in the Astroloigcal Ages topic). It is not the editors job to decide what is right or wrong. Terry MacKinnell (talk) 23:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

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WP:NOT#PLOT

Apologies for the notice, but this is being posted to every WikiProject to avoid accusations of systemic bias. Hiding T 13:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Lunar images

Category:Lunar images (images of The Moon) has been nominated for deletion at WP:CFD on May 23. 70.29.208.129 (talk) 07:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

New page

Hi guys! You just got a new page Ophiuchus (astrology) to maintain and improve, if you wish. The material stemmed from the article Ophiuchus, with some interesting and pretty well written stuff that is mostly attributable to User:Knowledge Incarnate. While most astrologers don't consider Ophiuchus because it disrupts the 3·4 = 12 schema of cardinality*element = number_of_signs, a few do, so therefore I thought it appropriate to create an article on it. Another reason is that I'm shrinking the mythology stuff to one paragraph (one section for each astrology item) from the astronomical constellations so that the astronomical is mostly filled with astronomical stuff. I'm considering splitting off other specialised mythological articles also for other mythological stuff, so that astronomers get their, astrologers get their, and mythographers get theirs.

BTW, take a look at Babylonian star catalogues and learn more about the most important common origin of the astrological signs and the astronomical constellations. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 09:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Question re help with an article - possible vandalism

Hi all,

I am working with collaborators and some other Wiki editors on the Richard Tarnas article, and we are having a problem where reviews are edited in as a page development, and then they are edited right back out by someone else. My understanding is that this violates some of the editing guidelines. There has, as well, been a ridiculous struggle over the notability of the subject, who is a well-established and highly cited author and academic. Notability no longer seems to be an issue, but now the page is being subjected to something that, to my thinking, verges on vandalism. Please advise. Thank you.Dioxinfreak (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The Sun

The Sun redirect is up for discussion on its target, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2010 January 26

70.29.210.242 (talk) 06:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:Current moon Formating & Template:Current Moon

{{Current Moon}} and {{Current moon Formating}} have been nominated for deletion. These could be made into something useful, but are not now useful. 70.29.210.242 (talk) 13:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies

FYI, this may be of interest to you -- List of adjectivals and demonyms of astronomical bodies

76.66.193.224 (talk) 10:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

book

this might be of interest to you, perhaps in writing some history of astrology at the turn of the century

http://books.google.ca/books?id=y5P1ekC1nLMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

76.66.193.224 (talk) 09:51, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Vulcan

see Talk:Vulcan (hypothetical planet) ... does anyone have an image of the astrological sign for Vulcan? 76.66.193.224 (talk) 12:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Astrology

At some point the image for the astrology portal template changed...

The current one looks like a symbol for occult magic rather than astrology to me... 76.66.193.224 (talk) 22:29, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Astrology software

We could use some eyes on what's been happening at Astrology software. An editor is removing reliable sources in the field calling them spam and I presume he views astrology trade publications as fringe. Of course, an award-winning trade magazine for astrology professionals is certainly the only place one will find reviews of astrology software, so he claims since these sources aren't reliable, the subject itself is not notable. Clearly a biased point of view and not supported by Wikipedia guidelines. Yworo (talk) 15:25, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Astrology articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

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We would like to ask you to review the Astrology articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

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Ophiuchus

So... what's the word on the new calendar? Poking around the various article talk pages, I don't see any discussions. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 23:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, firstly, the Internet buzz is mostly wrong; the changes are only to the sidereal zodiac. The tropical zodiac hasn't changed, so if you used the tropical zodiac, your zodiac sign hasn't changed. I don't know what the effects of this are on astrology, but it's an important thing to note. --TheSophera (talk) 04:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

There aren't any changes to either. The zodiac has little to do with the actual constellations. It's simply a more or less even division of the sun's trajectory with houses named after the constellations, just as the lengths of our months have nothing to do with the timing of the new moon. — kwami (talk) 09:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, there are enough reliable sources reporting on it that it isn't just going to be ignored. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 15:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It isn't going to be ignored, but it also doesn't change the fact that it's still nothing new. Someone963852 (talk) 18:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Kafziel, you clearly need to give some thought to your idea of a "reliable source", and to WP:DUE. It isn't being ignored, it has been pre-discussed about five years before the journalists decided they wanted to unearth it. --dab (𒁳) 20:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Relax, man. I'm not pushing for either one - I've never edited any article related to the zodiac in any way; I don't care about the subject in the slightest. But it is being covered by reliable sources - Time Magazine, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, to name a few. Scientific journals? Of course not. (Is there such a thing as a peer-reviewed astrology journal?) But they are reliable sources. Is it recentism? Possibly. But not just recentism; this has been going on for quite some time, and it's not as though Ophiuchus was invented this week by Time Magazine. It's as old as any of the others. As a whole, astrology gets very little coverage in major news sources, so it's not "undue weight" to mention the stories when they do appear. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 20:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I can't imagine what POV has to do with it, nor why you think a link to urban dictionary is compelling. Media attention can impact the notability of a topic, so I think Ophie is fair game for discussion. It may be better to consider inclusion in the horoscope article, in the zodiac subsection, because (a) there is one, and (b) there's no discussion of sidereal vs. tropical in that article. (Ophie's already in the main zodiac article.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quothz (talk • contribs) 04:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge of Tarot Cards

I will shortly be merging the tarot cards into their suits and I am trying to contact the interested parties for comment.Tetron76 (talk) 12:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Al-Kindi

An editor has asked for a community reassessment of this article to see if it still meets the good article criteria. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Al-Kindi/1. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Is Astrodata a citable source on Wikipedia?

Hi - new member to the project. The forum doesnt seem to be very active but will post anyway and hope to stir some activity between members of the project.

Incredible as it may seem, one of this project members has raised an issue on the 'reliable sources' page to argue that the Astrodatabank should noty be accepted as a reliable source for Wikipedia.

See the discussion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#is_astro_databank_reliable.3F

Please input so that the one person who agreed with him doesn't swing the balance.

I have just finished adding some improvements to the bio entry for Dennis_Elwell_(astrologer), and he is questioning references to Astrodata as part of that entry. Elwell's entry had three tags in it, stating that it was self-promotional (read like an advert) lacked citations, and that the subject lacked notability. As such it was heavily at risk of deletion.

Sure members here will realise what a shame it would be for WP to lose its Dennis Elwell page, so if you have any comments to add to that, or remarks for the discussion on the refs please do.

I hope to create a page for Benjamin Dykes soon - currently that is looking notable for its absense.

Look forward to working wioth other project members Clooneymark (talk) 13:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing incredible about asking for a second opinion on the reliable sources noticeboard. When there is any doubt it is always better to ask an outsider to the topic, before wasting time to add sources that are not up to WP standards.

It is also not a question of swinging the balance. WP:NOTDEMOCRACY

MakeSense64 (talk) 14:17, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Dennis Elwell biography page

I've just added info and links to the Dennis Elwell (astrologer) page and would very much welcome contribution and comment from other editors. There is a dispute about whether the article justifies the three tags on the page:

In need of citations Reads like an advert lends undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, controversies or matters relative to the article subject as a whole.

If you can find time to look at this, please do. Clooneymark (talk) 14:19, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Jean Elliott bio page (and other bio pages)

A number of astrology content and bio pages have been tagged as being in need of citation. I hope that there are some sleeping members of this forum who might be able to look through the pages, and add a little to help support or improve the quality of the content.

I have seen discussion of a desire to move the Jean Elliott bio page swiftly towards deletion. I believe this would be a shame but I have little time available for this myself. Perhaps some other editor could take a look at this?

I have also asked other editors to place notices here if they feel there are pages of such concern that they face the prospect of speedy deletion.

I would also ask the Astrology Project Member Makesense64 to not be too dramatic with the deletions and cuts he is making to the content of astrology pages, but to raise here his concerns about any pages he feels are in need of deletion, or from which he intends to cut a substantial amount of content. I think it would be good practice to request that notice is given on anything significant, so that it gives the project members warning and an opportunity to input into what may or may not be valuable Clooneymark (talk) 13:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Alleging that my edits are too dramatic. Suggesting that you know what my intentions are. Any other things you see in my future?

If you find any problem with an edit on a specific article, that's what the article's talk page is for. MakeSense64 (talk) 15:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Ptolemy - astrology section

I am currently working over the text of the 'astrology' section in the bio on Ptolemy. If anyone wants to contribute or discuss edits, I've opened up a new section on the talk page. Zac Δ talk 09:43, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Astrological Organizations

Astrological organizations

Please see the discussion page for why this page needs development. It has been marked for speedy deletion, which I have contested on the basis that the page is in need of development not deletion. Anyone able to contribute or kick off ideas for a lede? Zac Δ talk 21:30, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

It would be good to get ideas on how that page could be made more informative and useful generally Zac Δ talk 21:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

---

This matter probably deserves wider coverage than it is getting in its talk page so I'll add an update here. Asked to provide criteria for inclusion in the list, I have suggested that the list should admit all organisations that are notable within astrology and where there is no reason to question their credibility.

For the criteria that defines notability I suggest:

• any organization that has been running for over 25 years automatically qualifies for inclusion
• any organization whose professional certification programmes have reached the standard by which they are approved by the Advisory Panel on Astrological Education, which has strict criteria for inclusion (There may an international advisory body of similar standing in America and Australia: if so this could be amended to include their approved certifying programmes. *Please add details if you know of any* on the talk page for the list).
• any organisation which is notable for having a reliably referenced specialist focus.
• any organisation which has a reliably referenced widespread influence or minimum 200 members.

Some dubious entries have been previously removed and there are two more that I checked today which concern me:

- The Cosmobiology Research Foundation. I am not familiar with this and there is no information I can find on the web except a website that is supposed to be under development but gives no information. I am not sure if the website is actually being developed, or whether it's been in that state for some time. Not sure if theis is currently more than a one man band.

- The Magi Society - on its website this purports to be the world's largest association of astrologers with 5000+ members, but also claims it is emerging out of a secret society, and there is no information about its governing body. Memberships have to be made by personal telephone discussion.

I'm inclined to think that both entries should be removed as lacking credibility unless or until there is reliably referenced information that can be linked to from the page. However, it may be that other editors know more about these organizations than I do. Can anyone suggest a reason why either of these organisations should be retained? Bear in mind that we are tasked with making this list as credible as it can be. Zac Δ talk 21:04, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Are the fixed star pages of sole interest to astronomers and not astrologers?

I have experienced problems today with Makesense64 (a member of this project) who considers that astrological references are not appropriate in the pages on the fixed stars, arguing that those pages are first and foremost about astronomy and not astrology. Within the Algol talk page he has proposed the small subheading 'Astrology' be removed, and deleted a recommended link to Nick Kollerstrom's exploration of the historical, astrological and cultural exploration of the star. I have reverted this edit, following another editor's contradiction of his view, and suggested he get consensus before deleting content that has been accepted since 2005. He has issued a request for members of the Astronomy project to comment on whether astrological references are acceptable within these 'astronomical' pages.

But why are we to accept that the fixed star pages are not of valid relevance to astrologers as well as astronomers? Are the fixed star pages not of interest to the members of this project too? I find this situation baffling and would be intersted if other astrology project members have views to offer on this. I for one would be unhappy to see all astrological references removed from the fixed star pages as if their cultural and astrological associations have no remit for inclusion in this encyclopaedic reference Zac Δ talk 14:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Though not all modern astrologers use fixed stars, they were important in ancient history. Nowadays, as ancient tablets and texts are being translated, their role has enjoyed a revival in the work of Bernadette Brady and several other notable astrologers. While I can see an advantage - even a necessity to separate pages on constellations from signs of the zodiac, IMO there are only two ways to list the fixed stars on WP. Either two pages listing the astronomical and astrological information for every star and any search goes via a disambiguation page first. However, this will initially result in many stub pages on each star and would unnecessarily slow up the search. Or as occurs now the star is documented from both the astronomical as well as the cultural and historical angle. Do you know which WP rule is being cited for this proposal? There is no question of irrelevance WP:RELE "On Wikipedia, relevance is simply whether a fact is in the right article, based on whether it pertains to the article's subject." Otherwise, proposals to rewrite or remove history based on personal taste is contrary to the spirit of WP:NPOV. Robert Currey talk 18:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting Robert - there doesn't seem to be a reference to policy and I agree with what you have said. I don't have time to comment on that page again today and would prefer to see it get input from other editors who have been less involved so far. But I see the objection being pursued is that the Wikipedia page on Algol is an 'astronomy page' and so astrological reference falls outside its remit. I don't understand what it means that the article is labelled as falling "within the scope of the astronomy project" or why the two objecting editors feel that they can fix the focus on astronomy as a subject rather than the star itself and everything that relates to its astronomical and cultural significance. Zac Δ talk 21:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

And isn't this a bit ironic given that on the astrology page many editors want to throw the emphasis away from how astrology defines itself and onto the way it is defined by modern science ? Zac Δ talk 21:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

@Zac . Please 'focus on content' WP:FOC. If you have something to say about an editor, then that is normally done on their User Talk page.

To bring a certain discussion to the attention of other editors, a {{Please see}} template can be used. MakeSense64 (talk) 08:43, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I would agree under other circumstances, but you are a member of this project; so this seems the best place to raise the issue - where you can offer your point of view, and help us to understand it. Why have you made yourself a member of the astrology project when practically all of your editorial efforts involve criticising astrological content, arguing against astrological reference, proposing swift deletion of astrology related pages (or asking other editors to consider that), whilst never doing anything yourself try to improve astrological references or fix the criticisms that you raise?

I simply do not understand this situation and am concerned at the way you have called for members of the Wiki astronomy project to join in your request that astrology content be removed from star pages, with the suggestion that you put to them “It is a questionable development when astrologers start taking over astronomy pages with GA status, so more editor comments will be welcome.”

There has been no attempt to take over the page, and if others see the situation through your eyes this will lead to a lot of unnecessary hostility cast towards astrologers, for the sake of a moderate and inoffensive contribution that does not detract from the astronomical information at all. Zac Δ talk 13:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

1) It is perfectly possible to raise an issue about content without always mentioning the name of a certain editor. To start a comment with '@name' is of course acceptable, because it shows who is being replied to, but bringing contentious material about an editor rather than about the topic on the table becomes a case of singling out that editor, and is not considered civil. Hence WP:FOC, consider the top 3 levels in the pyramid figure, everything below it is not considered OK. Comments about an editor are to be made on his User Talk page.

2) People can contribute to WP in various ways, which are all equally OK. Some editors only correct typos, or only tag articles with issues, others only create stubs to have others develop or delete them, some people only do clean up like removing EL spam and reference spam and things like that, still others specialize in putting articles for deletion. You make it sound as if only editors who find and add materials and sources are doing 'constructive' work here.

3) Joining the astrology Project does not mean a person has to be pro-astrology and is here to promote astrology. Anybody can join a project, even complete skeptics. In fact WP considers that highly desirable in the light of NPOV. Just ask yourself: what will create a more neutral article about a Church? Four priests working on it? or 2 priests and 2 atheists working on it? Does that answer your question?

4) There is no good reason to be concerned about putting a 'please see' template on WP:AST when major changes are being made to articles that have been under their care for years. That's what WP requires us to do. Have you made any attempt to contact astronomer editors who have worked on the Algol page, which is rated as 'High-importance' for astronomy? If so, where did you contact them?

Instead you applaud the actions of an anonymous editor who came out of nowhere and quietly slipped in a "WikiProject Astrology" template on Talk:Algol without even making a mention of it in the eddit summary. If WP:AST becomes more hostile towards astrological edits it will then be my fault? Because I notified them?

Do you have any further objections to any of this? MakeSense64 (talk) 09:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Reviving WikiProject Astrology

I originally founded this project back in 2006, and I've decided to come back to revive WikiProject Astrology. I started yesterday with a major cleanup of the main page, although there is still some more work to be done. I am open to any suggestions about how we might better organize the project in the future. I look forward to working with everyone here to improve the astrology articles on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris Brennan (talk • contribs) 16:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

This is good news. Glad to hear it and thanks for the work you've already put into originating and now shaping up the project page.

One thing you might be able to help me with. Yesterday I created a page for the Urania Trust, and I can see that the notice at the top of the page says it is an 'unassessed article'. I tried to look into how new articles get assessed and I may be confused but it seems they get assessed by the members of the projects they are associated with. Is that right? If so, should I be asking for members of this project to assess the page or is that actually done through some sort of automated process? Sorry to kick off with a question from the start, but that is the first page I have created from scratch so these things are still a bit of a learning curve for me. Zac Δ talk 17:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

A group of people associated with this project need to be assembled in order to assess articles like that. --Chris Brennan (talk) 03:55, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Welcome back, Chris Brennan! I am sure that I will have some suggestions. Zac - as a former trustee of the UT, it is good to see this important organization is listed. It will no doubt be assessed shortly. Robert Currey talk 18:47, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I have a suggestion, expanding coverage to become Astrology and Geomancy. 65.93.15.213 (talk) 06:19, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Chris, what number of contributors would be necessary to create an assessment group? I assume I would not be able to contribute opinion on pages I have created or worked on significantly but would like to volunteer for such a group to help assess other pages; if it can be re-established. Zac Δ talk 07:31, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Algol

the appearance and usage of astrological information about the star is under discussion at Talk:Algol. 65.93.15.213 (talk) 06:19, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the notice to the talk page, that it falls within the scope of WikiProject Astrology. This regards the situation being discussed above, under the heading "Are the fixed star pages of sole interest to astronomers and not astrologers?" I was worried that there was a territorial tendency developing, which suggested that the article could not delve beyond the limits of pure astronomy, so I'm relieved to see that need not be the case. Zac Δ talk 10:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I think all the stars that form the star patterns called traditional constellations (any tradition, not just Babylonian), should be tagged. And wishing stars that have been used in folk cultures. And other such usages in ancient astrological traditions that are no longer in use. And ofcourse omen stars (ancient novae, supernovae, conjunctions). 65.93.15.213 (talk) 12:15, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Thanks for expressing that. When I get occasion, and time, to look at pages of that type, I'll now know that it is possible to add the tag. Zac Δ talk 12:33, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Though not modern constellations that are not traditional. For instance, Argo Navis was split into several modern constellations, for the stars used in the modern constellation pattern but not the ancient one, they should not be tagged. All the southern hemisphere constellations with European names are all modern so should not be tagged solely due to European constellations. Similarly while ancient omen stars would be tagged, more recent supernovae, novae, etc should have references to astrological material before being tagged. 65.93.15.213 (talk) 06:24, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

As I have pointed out on the Algol Talk page, please read WP:SCOPE in this regard. The scope of a page is not changed by adding a portal template to the article's Talk page. And when it is done stealthily, as was the case on Talk:Algol, then it certainly doesn't look good.

The scope of a page can only be changed by editor concensus.

If there are any doubts about the scope of an article, then the first step would be to ask on the Project that has maintained the article. If you want to change the scope of an article, then that should not be undertaken without notifying the Project that has maintained the article. So in both cases WP:AST is the place to ask. That is normal WP procedure. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:46, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

THere is nothing to support your suggestion that the 'scope' of the article has already been defined and restricted to astronomy content. As I have said before, we are not talking about a page in an astronomy book, we are talking about a Wikipedia feature on the fixed star Algol Zac Δ talk 13:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it IS like a page in an astronomy book. Have you tried to ask the previous editors of the article what is the scope of it? The lede does not mention astrology, so we have to consider the strong possibility that it is an astronomy article. MakeSense64 (talk) 10:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you stop pushing the point now. It has been raised on the NPOV noticeboard and, as you know, the only response so far has been to say that you are wrong in every respect and have acted disruptively against consensus by edit warring. If you have more to add you should make your case there, where the issue has been called to attention to be examined against the WP policies you raised as reasons why there can be no astrology content on the page. Zac Δ talk 10:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Asking a question is not pushing the point.

I am not required to make my case on NPOV noticeboard. WP advises not taking the bait WP:BAITING.

There is no complaint against me. MakeSense64 (talk) 10:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) FYI, it is not a good idea to go out and add WikiProject Astrology tags to every article that has 'some' connection to astrology. Adding too many Project tags to minor articles is not accepted. See the feedback and relevant policy link I got to this question here: [1]. As members of this Project we can remove inappropriate Astrology Project tags in articles if we see them. It makes no sense to add more article to the Astrology Project if we are with too few people to even keep up the articles that are currently within this Project's scope. MakeSense64 (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed change for astrology box

I would like to propose a change for the astrology box template, which currently looks heavy on the page and so dominates attention. I want to suggest something lighter, and more in keeping with the background page colours of Wikipedia. Any thoughts? Current proposal on left, new proposal on right. Zac Δ talk 22:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a good change to me. --Chris Brennan (talk) 03:01, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I have no objection to the lighter colors, but I would take the older picture of a horoscope back in. The new picture is completely blurred and details too small. In the old one you can recognize the symbols for planets and constellations. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Zac, I agree with the colour scheme and am in favour of an improvement to the style. This wheel looks more professional, but I find what I would consider a huge number of aspects too reminiscent of Dean's caricature on page 35 of Recent Advances: Safety in numbers where "given enough factors astrology cannot fail to work." I favour a version with tighter orbs or just with major aspects, though in the interests of working co-operatively on the page, I would not object to the improvement.

BTW, I like the simplicity and clarity of the wheel next to Astrology Education, but recognize that this needs to be a different format. Robert Currey talk 11:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Robert - I like the delicacy and intricacy of this image, which portrays the fact that astrological analysis has complexity built into it, but if you want to see that other image as an alternative go to this page diff - I already considered it but discounted it for the same reason as the original chart image - too dominant and likely to be distracting to page content. The only way to avoid that is to go for a light image, but then you need something with details to create a visual impression. It's not a problem that the chart details are not clear - in fact that's a bonus because it leaves the image unable to advocate in favour of one system of division, or the inclusion of certain features rather than others (and the image can be clicked for details). Sine Chris and I are in favour are you OK for me to go with this for now, as an overall improvement? The question of image could of course be reviewed at a future time when serious attention could be committed to that. In the meantime, I think it's more important to give the main focus to content. Zac Δ talk 12:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Zac, I agree that the chart should not be distracting, should be the whole chart and reflect the practice of most astrologers. I am fine if you go ahead with the improvement for now, if it can be seen as work in progress, rather than a final version. Robert Currey talk 12:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I like the idea that some point in the (hopefully not too distant furture) we can commit some attention to creating or locating an ideal image. Thanks for the feedback Zac Δ talk 12:45, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The proposed change has a more modern, more analytical and less heavy arcane look. Each degree is marked in the wheel and positions are given, which suggests the complexity. I tend to agree that there are too many aspects shown for the reason Robert gave. Certainly an improvement. Ken McRitchie (talk) 13:18, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Astrology
Background
History of astrology
Astrology & astronomy
Sidereal vs. Tropical
Traditions
Babylonian  · Hellenistic
Islamic  · Western
Hindu  · Chinese
More...
Branches
Natal astrology
Electional astrology
Horary astrology
Mundane astrology
More...
Categories
Astrologers
Organizations
Astrological texts
Astrological writers
Astrology Portal

Astrology
Background
History of astrology
History of astronomy
Astrology and astronomy
Traditions
Babylonian  · Hellenistic
Islamic  · Western
Hindu  · Chinese
Sidereal vs. Tropical
More...
Branches of horoscopic astrology
Natal astrology
Electional astrology
Horary astrology
Mundane astrology
More...
Categories
Astrologers
Astrological texts
Astrological writers
Astrology Portal

Ophiuchus (astrology)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus_(astrology)

I want to nominate this page for deletion. It is based on misinformation and builds upon the confused and incorrect assumption that Ophiuchus, as a constellation which crosses the zodiac, therefore constitues a zodiac sign. Obviously this is rubbish which causes no end of ill-founded criticism of astrology. My tag for deletion was removed by another editor but not (yet) without reason, other than "it is not a good candidate for speedy deletion, please, nominate the article at AfD if you wish".

I'll be doing that next and will add the link to the discussion shortly Zac Δ talk 10:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The link for the deletion discussion is here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ophiuchus_(astrology) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zachariel (talk • contribs) 11:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

For completeness' sake let me add that at the same time you are adding astrological material to the astronomical article about Ophiuchus.

That's not going to look good, because as you can see on the Talk page there, the astrological material about Ophiuchus was split off to a separate astrology article in 2009. And now you are trying to delete Ophiuchus_(astrology) and putting astrological stuff back into Ophiuchus, thus reversing an earlier concensus decision.

The materials you added there should be put into a 'criticism' section in Ophiuchus_(astrology).

You can still withdraw your AfD nomination.

Better get used to it that on WP the astrology stuff gets split off from astronomy articles rather quickly.

You may see that as a bad thing but it is not. If astrology is covered inside a scientific article then it has to be kept relatively small as per WP:PSCI. When it is inside an astrology article, then you can cover it more broadly without having to worry about the astrology part becoming too big compared to the rest. MakeSense64 (talk) 13:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

You are not adding any information that I haven't already made self-evident (with good reasoning) on the deletion discussion page. Zac Δ talk 14:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

The deletion discussion has been closed as a Keep. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Astrology history articles

Within the last hour an editor has proposed three major astrological articles for deletion:

Babylonian astrology

Hellenistic astrology

Horoscopic astrology

...and also declared on the main History of astrology talk page

I announce my intention to delete all unreferenced content from this page within seven days. This is in line with Wikipedia principles about verifiable content. Wikipedia pages are not sandboxes for personal opinions, views or discussions. Please add necessary citations for every assertion made.

I have placed "keep" votes on those pages and if others feel the same you should visit the page and follow the link in the box at the top of the page to register your vote.

I have also commented on the main History of astrology page that I believe his announcement is unreasonable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zachariel (talk • contribs) 01:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

This should be taken to arbitration. It is absurd. There is no reason to just delete articles like that. --Chris Brennan (talk) 07:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Notice about a requested astrology topic ban for a member of this project

I beleive it is appropriate, and probably necessary, for me to include a notice here about a proposal for a topic ban that I have requested on the Administrator's noticeboard against the WikiProject Astrology-member MakeSense64.

I have given the reaons there so I won't repeat them here. 16:46, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

An update to this situation is that MakeSense64 has been topic-banned from astrology and astrology-related pages for 6 months.

Bannering

I have been informed that I should seek permission to add your banner to articles. Should WPAstrology be bannered onto the article Ophiuchus (astrology) ? 65.93.15.213 (talk) 04:50, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I assume you mean the {{WikiProject Astrology}} template which generates this on the talk-page:

I'm not sure why you need permission - is that the case Chris? I recently added the link below to my user page which allows me to see all the recent changes made to pages associated with the Astrology project because they have this banner on the talk-page. Consequently, when I come across a page that covers astrology which doesn't have the banner I just add it in. Since the principle is that anyone can edit WP, I assume you only need to apply common sense and act on your initiative.

• Wikiproject Watchlist - WikiProject Astrology

(It's a good idea for members to add this discuission page to their watchlist so they become alerted when messages are posted here

-- Zac Δ ^talk! 12:42, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The astrological sign pages

The astrological sign pages are pretty dire. See for example Cancer (astrology) - if there is anyone here looking for a good job to do, giving those pages an overhaul would be a very worthy project. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 12:49, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The listing of astrology articles by quality and importance

As astrology articles have developed or declined, some of the original assesments of quality and importance have shifted. WP:ASSESS says "the quality assessments are mainly performed by members of WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles". How can we reactivate this Chris - how many members are required to do this?-- Zac Δ ^talk! 14:39, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Astrology categories

Is anyone able to help with the categorisation issues of astrology project pages? I want to know if it is possible to create a new subcategory within one of the existing categories. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 13:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The code looks complex, but appears to originate from the sub page. Robert Currey talk 14:25, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

There is some info on this page: Wikipedia:SUBCAT#Subcategorization. --75.220.182.100 (talk) 14:44, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks I'd looked at the Subcat information earlier but I was still lost as to how to create the category. I have had a very helpful response from Stepheng3 (talk) who answered the request for information I left on his talk-page. Here, for others, is what he explained - like everything else, it's all very simple once you know how!

Hopefully you're already familiar with WP:SUBCAT. The mechanics are very simple, but I don't know where they're documented, if at all. To create a new category (say Category:Zodiacal signs) first type Category:Zodical signs in the Wikipedia search box near the top of any Wikipedia page (just below the "Log out" hyperlink. Since the category doesn't exist yet, this will bring up a message saying You may create the page "Category:Zodiacal signs", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered. Click on the red link to Category:Zodiacal signs. This takes you to the edit page for the new category. In the large text box between the "Heading Format ..." toolbar and "Content that violates any copyrights...", type the name of the parent category, surrounded by double square brackets, thus: [[Category:Astrological signs]]. In the smaller "Edit summary" text box, type a brief summary such as new subcategory. Then click on the "Save page" button. Your new category should appear within a few seconds. I hope that helps. —(18:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC))

-- Zac Δ ^talk! 18:29, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - simple when you know how! Robert Currey talk 19:19, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Psychological Astrology

I have just finished re-editing the Psychological Astrology page and welcome involvement of other editors. Robert Currey talk 11:43, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Citation needed

I am looking for a citaion to support a footnote commment that no astrologer was ever put to death for practicing astrrology (only in situations where the charges went beyond their practice of astrology). Does anyone have a reference to a book that states this? I'm sure I've seen this reported in several places but currently I'm struggling to find a citation for it.-- Zac Δ ^talk! 10:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment relating to the Astrology Page

There has been a request for comment on the Astrology Talk Page and editor's views are welcome. Robert Currey talk 00:12, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Dubious claim

Hi, several (possibly all - I haven't checked) of the star sign articles (e.g. Virgo (astrology)) contain a quote from Jung that includes the claim that "it is possible to reconstruct a person’s character fairly accurately from the birth data". Although a quote, this material is presented in the article as an "explanation", rather as if it is a statement of known fact, and is highlighted in a box to give it extra prominence. This claim seems to me to be highly dubious, and while I'm not saying we shouldn't use the quote at all, I'm not at all sure it should be presented as unchallenged fact in the way that it presently is. 86.181.169.8 (talk) 18:40, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I felt the box broke up the text and made it easier on the eye but to ease your concern, I've changed the quote box, to the standard quote format. The quote is clearly attributed to Jung so not given in WP's voice. It's highly relevant in showing that the tropical zodiac, which creates the western signs, is a time-based system, and it these time-based, seasonal influences that have helped to derive the symbolism and meanings associated with them. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 18:49, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but unfortunately that text now looks to me more like it's a part of the editorial. I see no indent (possibly because of the arrangement of graphics, I'm not sure), and there are no quote marks, so it just tends to look like an ordinary paragraph of article text (of course, I understand that it is preceded by "...who wrote:", but even so...). Also, I wonder if we ought to follow the quote with a disclaimer to the effect that claimed correlations between birth date and character are highly uncertain, and very far from "fairly accurate" as the quote claims. In my opinion, when we quote something so clearly dubious we ought not, as I say, let it stand unchallenged. 86.181.169.8 (talk)

Hi, on the first part, I have resolved that now with clear quotation marks. On the second, I don't see the need for a disclaimer when reporting Jung's belief - in fact there is uncertainty built into the quote: note the comment "If there are any astrological diagnoses of character that are in fact correct, this is not due to ..." -- Zac Δ ^talk! 16:11, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, this is really unencyclopedic. First, it is poor practice to have too many quotes in articles. And to have the same quote from Jung on all 12 zodiac sign articles isn't justifiable at all. Then, it isn't acceptable to say in Wikipedia's voice "The tropical zodiac therefore offers an essentially time-based system of symbolism to astrology...". Such a statement can only be made if cited to recent scholarship, not to Ptolemy or Jung. It isn't even clear what it means. If I have understood the intention correctly, it would be better reworded: "The tropical zodiac therefore offers to astrology an essentially time-based system of symbolism". But it still isn't clear. What is "essentially" doing in the sentence? Does the tropical zodiac offer a system to astrology? No. Is the zodiac a "system of symbolism"? Not necessarily. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:31, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

The use of this template, and whether it needs to be amended is something I intend to raise for the project to consider as part of the general discussion on the 12 sun sign pages. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 17:55, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that is helpful. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:24, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Tetrabiblos

Good news, everybody! I finally threw together an initial article about Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, based on some information contained in the Ptolemy article itself. If you think you can make it better, please step up and do so. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 02:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations Ihcoyc! To my inexpert eye, you appear to have done a great job on Tetrabiblos and in keeping with the Ptolemy article which has recently been improved. Your sources appear to be very solid, though some of the references could be merged. I merged the Campion reference and edited the ISBN as my copy (first edition) 2008 has a different number. I have read varying accounts as to origins of the split between the tropical and sidereal zodiacs, though your careful wording seems in line with Campion and conventional wisdom. Robert Currey talk 09:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Excellent article Smerdis! Keep up the good work. --Chris Brennan (talk) 20:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Re the sentence in the lede:

"Ptolemy's Almagest was considered an authoritative work in astronomy, or as Ptolemy would have called it, "natural" or "physical astrology", for more than a thousand years after it was written; and the Tetrabiblos, its companion volume, was considered equally authoritative in judicial astrology, the use of the stars and planets for divination."

My understanding is that Tetrabiblos was more oriented to natural or physical astrology while Almagest was purely astronomy. For example, in chapter 2 of Book 1 of Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy writes about the connection between the tides and nature and the phases of the Moon. Rather than address our interpretation of Ptolemy's view of Natural Astrology and the terms Natural and Judicial astrology as they evolved in the last millennium, I propose to replace the sentence with the following:

"Ptolemy's Almagest was considered an authoritative work in astronomy for more than a thousand years after it was written; and the Tetrabiblos, its companion volume, was considered equally authoritative in determining the meaning of the astronomical cycles: astrology, the study of the stars and planets in relation to earthly matters."

Do any other editors have view on this? Robert Currey talk 14:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it's more a comment on the shifting meanings of the word "astrology", and that's what that was trying to convey; it may not be getting its point across. After all, **astrology would be the expected word to compass star science, and the two words were synonymous until the seventeenth century, at least in English. "Natural astrology" or "physical astrology" (Greek physike could be translated either way) dealt with celestial mechanics; "prognostication" was the specific art of interpretation. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Great stuff - I started working on that project a few weeks ago on the main Ptolemy page but it was clear that work had to be done on a Tetrabiblos page first, and have struggled to get back to it. I have some refs and additions that I'll weave into this. Thanks Smerdis. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 16:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Could a member of this project add a rating on the quality and importance scale? I think it should rate highly on both, but feel I am too involved in it editorially to make that decision by myself. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 12:30, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Since Chris Brennan and I both considered this worthy of a featured article, I have rated it as a good article and of high importance to this project. Robert Currey talk 12:48, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I would like to get more involved in making sure

astrology project pages get some kind of rating applied. There seems to be a lot that are unrated or in need of updates. I know any memeber of the project can do this, so might create a list of those in need of attention -- Zac Δ ^talk! 13:17, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I had to take it down to B class. Wikiprojects don't get to decide what articles are GA. There's a review process. I suggest that when Zac has finished his current clearup, people start comparing the article against GA criteria. Many (most?) FA candidates are already GA. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Need to establish out WP: Astrology project consensus on issues related to the sun-sign pages

There has recently been a lot of discussion about the Scorpio (astrology) page. The concerns have been discussed on the talk page of that article and on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard. They relate to the structure, content and sources used for all the 12 zodiac signs.

It has been suggested that WP:astrology project members should propose recommendations to address the issues:

• “The solution is to write zodiac sign article guidelines in WikiProject Astrology, with advice on appropriate sources.”
• ”Maybe, after the article structure guidelines are set up, we might make an effort to review the relevant "reference" books, particularly for the titles of the various articles they have, to help decide where to put specific information. But I would think that would probably best come after deciding the astrology guidelines”.

So we need to engage in collaborative discussion and perhaps set up an editorial team that overviews these and other zodiac pages. I am aware that many WP:Astrology project members, for one reason or another, are no longer active editors. It would be good if those who are willing to help will add their name or comment below. It should (hopefully) not take too much work to get the series of twelve signs in good order if we have a group of contributing editors able to decide the format and sharing the task of contributing content.

There are two important issues to consider and make decisions on. I will summarise them first and then detail the problems below.

1. an agreed structure and format of content for the 12 signs.
2. guidelines for what can be considered reliable sources for demonstrating what astrologers believe.

Though it sounds straight-forward, there are various issues involved in both tasks. For example, it has been suggested that the use of traditional sources, such as William Lilly’s Christian Astrology, may not be appropriate, even though this demonstrates the continuity of astrological belief. The suggestion is that Lilly’s work may constitute a primary source, and the argument is that WP prefers not to use primary sources.

Discussion on this would need to consider whether the WP:RS policy has been correctly interpreted (I do not believe it has), whether it applies in this case; and what makes a reference to a direct quote from an author like Lilly (or Valens, Bonatus, Alan Leo, Charles Carter) any more reliant on a secondary source explanation than a reference to, say, Linda Goodman’s works (i.e., if the text remains influential and available for reference, and the meaning is self-evident, then we do not need a secondary source to tell us what a primary source says; ultimately all references to directly quoted information could be described as using a primary source, so when and why does this become relevant to our references?). For issues like this we need to establish what the WP:Astrology project members believe to be appropriate, and if there is uncertainty on policy we can get assistance from the reliable sources noticeboard.

However, I would suggest that, rather than engage in fragmented discussions on various problems simultaneously, it would be better to focus pooled discussion on the issues systematically. Since sources are necessary to verify the content, it seems sensible to first establish what the ideal structure and content of the pages should be.

Creating an agreed structure and format of content for the 12 signs

1: Use of template information

Since there is an active debate about this, the first point this group should establish is this:

Should the 12 pages include templated content which explains on each page what the signs are, how the tropical definition differs from the sidereal definition, and why; which then explains why the sun’s passage through the sidereal signs occurs on different dates to those of the tropical zodiac?

Some necessary background:

Earlier this year I started working on some of the astrology sign pages with the hope of bringing them all to a good, consistent presentation of content over time. Please take some time to consider how the Virgo page looks today, compared with the state of the page when I started working on it.

Note that there was barely any intelligent content on the page in early August, and how the only reference given, to qualify the comment “In western astrology, the sign is no longer aligned with the constellation as a result of the precession of the equinoxes” was to a web article with patently incorrect facts entitled “Why astrology is even sillier than we thought”.

The lede to that article captures its gist: “New zodiac signs 2011: Thanks to a wobble in the earth's axis, the astrological positions calculated some 2,000 years ago no longer apply. And even back then it was a big load of nonsense.”

This demonstrates why, (in the process of trying to build content that explores the sign from various angles) I opted to include a clear explanation of what the signs actually are. I consider that this is directly relevant, because how can this page talk about the astrological meanings and associations of this sign if there is confusion about how this sign is defined as a division of the zodiac? Since the problem of unclear definition affects each sign, it seemed sensible to include a brief summary of clarification on every page in the series. To enable that content to be easily changed if it was felt necessary to change it, I put the information into a template zodsign1. This means that any change made to the template, automatically updates the content displayed on the 12 pages, so we retain the benefits of both consistency and flexibility.

The use of this template has been criticised by another editor, who suggests that the page should offer a link to the zodiac page instead. My argument is that visitors to any of the sun sign pages are mainly looking for information which directly relates to their sign. Many will be interested in learning about these issues of definition, which are directy relevant, but most will not think to go looking for explanations on other pages if they don’t realise that these pertinent issues even exist. Additionally, the zodiac page has a much more extensive coverage of technical and historical issues, whereas this template information offers a directly relevant summary of information that can link to the zodiac page for more extensive details.

The editor who opposes the use of the template has suggested that this is not the standard practice of Wikipedia; for example:

• “Articles related to France do not all repeat standard information about the location of France”.

On this point I would argue that there is no comparable confusion about the definition of France, and there are no alternative schemes by which a location could be deemed "in France" according to one viable definition, but "in Belgium" by another (and if there were, then those pages would probably want to explain that).

Ultimately there is no identifiable policy that prohibits the use of this template. The WP:astrology project members should first decide whether they approve of the use of this template in principle or not; and if so, whether the current content is ideal, or whether the text needs to be amended, reduced or deleted altogether.

We can then move on to discussions on whether the structure I have used for Virgo makes a suitable model to replicate for each of the 12 signs, or what additions or amendments should be made.

Please indicate your views/make suggestions on the use of the template below: -- Zac Δ ^talk! 13:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support the use of a Template for clarification — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robertcurrey (talk • contribs) 15:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

This template is a practical solution to much confusion. As I see it each zodiac term has a triple or arguably a quadruple meaning. There is the tropical sign of the Zodiac, the sidereal sign, the constellation defined by the stars and the relatively recent zone defined by the IAU. In a search under Scorpio the majority of visitors would be seeking Scorpio (astrology) and most of those will be seeking the western tropical sign of Scorpio. However, most visitors do not know these four possible meanings of the term Scorpio and unless this is made abundantly clear, these articles will be misleading.

I think that this or any agreed explanation of the differences should be consistent across all 12 signs and agreed collaboratively by editors. These pages are among the most trashed on WP by sceptics and fans - usually these editors use an IP address and the pages should IMO be permanently semi-protected. The explanation requires careful wording and I can think of no reason why they should be different for each sign.

I don't think there is any mileage in the argument that this should be compared to “Articles related to France do not all repeat standard information about the location of France”. Almost everyone knows where and what France is - there is no issue of confusion, though Paris should be identified as being in France or in Texas to avoid misunderstanding. A comparative example should involve a less well known term such as a Tor and ideally one that is also ambiguous. So under Glastonbury Tor the word Tor is defined even though there is also a WP page defining a Tor. Or under French Toast, it theorizes that it was invented by restaurateur, Joseph French (rather than being from France).

I think the template could be slightly reduced in wordage and kept to a simple level. I also wonder if there is a schematic image that shows the difference between tropical and sidereal zodiacs? Robert Currey talk 15:18, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support use of template

Using a common format for all 12 signs makes sense. The difference between the original Virgo page and the current one is like night and day; any reasonable person would see that the improvement is significant.

There is no reason why the kind of nonsense disseminated by the article Why astrology is even sillier than we thought and the like should make it into objective articles on Wikipedia. Articles should be free of political motivations; therefore any kind of thrashing a subject should be avoided. Go to reliable sources and write an intelligent article, respecting the subject matter.

Since there is no difference in principle how each sign of the 12 signs should be approached, using a template for this work makes sense.

The argument comparing articles on zodiac signs to articles on France is silly and non-applicable. When writing articles on various towns in France, we need to have proper and detailed information on them; one cannot simply refer the reader to the main article because the information the reader is looking for is simply not there. A sign is a component of the zodiac and not the zodiac itself. SLP (talk) 16:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

• Agree on the template

I imagine that anyone not very familiar with the topic, wishing to look up different signs, would appreciate a standard presentation. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Axel (talk) 16:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

• Template Required

I also agree that a common template which is uniform for all twelve zodiacal signs as indicated above be adopted. Terry Macro (talk) 02:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support the template

There has been massive confusion between the tropical signs and some of the constellations and it is easy to see why. They have the same names. In such a state, disambiguation needs to be presented at every opportunity where the confusion could occur and a standard template is the best solution to ensure this astrological literacy.

Jung's quote helps readers to sit up and take notice because it puts a recognizable face on the facts. It clearly and succinctly describes how the birth data is relative to a time-based framework and has no dependency on the constellations that have the same names.

This time-based framework has been difficult for many people to grasp, although there are other problem areas as well. Clarifying this, and keeping it free of tampering, will reduce this sort of avoidable ignorance. It will also screen out such intellectual atrocities as the attempt to include Ophiuchus, which will NOT have the template. Ken McRitchie (talk) 02:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Although the Jung quote contains an essential fact, I do not mean to imply that about the first sentence, which without any supporting context seems to be an opinion expressed as a fact. Perhaps Jung means that it is possible to reconstruct a person's astrological character fairly accurately from the birth data. Ken McRitchie (talk) 03:49, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support the template

I'd add that the importance of astrological writers like Claudius Ptolemy, William Lilly, and Alan Leo are recognized several times over by scholarly texts. They meet all the normal tests for being reliable sources. The text of these authoritative treatises is public domain encyclopedic material that we should grab with both hands. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 05:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

'Support the template' I think this template is a good practical solution and cant see why anyone would have a problem with it. Can hardly believe an editor would have a problem with using William Lily's work as a reference to what astrologers beleive, ridiculous.Wendy Stacey (talk) 17:49, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Please address the question. @Zac. You have picked out my example of articles related to France, but not mentioned that I gave other examples. I do not think you can find any parallel to the template that you wish to include. Other WikiProjects are concerned to maintain encyclopedic quality in their articles, to ensure that rules are kept to, not bent. @Ken McRitchie, Ihcoyc/Smerdis, Wendy Stacey, please look at WP:PSTS. Ptolemy (c.AD90-c.AD168), William Lilly (1602-1681) and Carl Jung (1875-1961) are all primary sources for astrology, not recent scholarship. If you disagree, the reliable sources noticeboard will give advice. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

• oppose - the template is a clear violation of "don't repeat yourself". There is far too much text there that should be in one place, not repeated William M. Connolley (talk) 18:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Support the template' I am a published Sun Sign Astrological Author and you have to have some sort of template to work to otherwise the article/s (and there has to be 12) will get unwieldy. I don't think we need to add a heading 'compatibility', as some Sun signs don't work together but when you make up a chart you find that their Moons get on, or the Ascendant or other 'planets'. I really would suggest leaving off compatibility :) xxx Veryscarymary (talk) 19:07, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm.

• "some Sun signs don't work together"
• "their Moons get on"

I don't think we should use templates as a way to sneak in fictional content whilst pretending that it's real. bobrayner (talk) 11:43, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The discussion on the template is redundant now as it has been deleted for technical reasons. Essentially, it was decided that a template should not be used to present content. See the discussion here:Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Zodsign1

For the purpose of clarification - there was nothing in the template related to astrological meaning; nor anything in its content that could be described as 'fictional'; it was presenting factual information on how the zodiac signs are divided.

It is still necessary to create guidelines for those pages, to create agreement on a consistent approach and better quality content. The information that was in the template needs to be looked at again as part of that process, and it would be good to get suggestions such as Robert Currey's about making the information more concise and looking at the images involved. Personally, this is not a good time for me to be doing more on this myself right now. Perhaps we can plan to get some activity going on this in the New Year and create a monthly project goal to work through the series as an astrology project team effort? -- Zac Δ ^talk! 12:23, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Vote-stacking

Prima facie, there has been vote-stacking in relation to this discussion. I am going to ask about this on the administrators' noticeboard for incidents. There will be a discussion there that people who have posted here might want to follow. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

And I have taken it to ANI now. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

There has been no vote-stacking here, and since I was following your suggestion on this Itsmejudith, I am very suprised that you take objection to the attempt to make astrology project members more aware of this situaion. I have commented on the situaion in the ANI thread here.

Also, could you explain why you decided to insert new rules and redefine the project's structure and content guidelines without any notification or discussion with project members? You say "The Latin name of the sign in Western astrology should be generally used. The name in English should be given, with the name in Arabic" - are you not aware that the English names are employing the Latin names? For the two this affects, do you require us to be purist and refer to Scorpio as Scorpius and Capricorn as Capricornus, even though not all Latin authors did this? Suggesting an etymology section is constructive, but proposing suggestions that are not very well thought out in the style of astrology project policies is a bit out of line. Should I assume that you wish to be regarded as a member of the project? -- Zac Δ ^talk! 14:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

My Latin is pretty rubbish, but if I have remembered any of it the distinction between Scorpius and Scorpio is only one of case. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment

Looking for uninvolved comments on the usefulness of the template Template:Zodsign1. The template has been produced through this WikiProject to be placed on all the pages for the 12 signs of the (Western) zodiac. The justification is that information about the zodiac in general and the distinction between the tropical zodiac and sidereal zodiac in particular is going to be of interest to most readers who look up their own star sign. (I hope I do not misrepresent that - project members will doubtlessly want to clarify in their own terms.) The objection is that use of the template duplicates information, some of it being unsourced. Another suggestion has been to merge all 12 star sign articles into an appropriate parent article, such as Zodiac or Astrological sign. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:15, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Suggest this discussion be left to until Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Zodsign1 is done. Rich Farmbrough, 00:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

Yes, editors need to know where to comment, and it's disorientating when editors have been told to comment here, to now find yet another place where the same issue is discussed, but without any of the necessary background information. So what about the editors who have already commented above. Do they need to be contacted again and asked to repeat their views elsewhere, or is this an attempt to ignore their views? -- Zac Δ ^talk! 14:58, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

No and no. Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 20:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Comment: I don't see the point of this RFC when this template has a deletion tag on the top; discussion is better suited to the deletion page. Whiteguru (talk) 20:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

That's right. Discussion has been suspended per Rich Farmbrough's suggestion. If the RfC needs to be formally withdrawn, please say and I can do that. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:53, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I removed the RfC template. I was notified of this RfC by the RfC notification bot, but it appears the RfC is obsolete, moot, defunct, etc. I removed the template so other editors don't get notified. --Noleander (talk) 19:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Need to Lock

Any discussion about improving these pages is pointless unless they are first locked for editors only. The level of vandalism is so high that any changes made are replaced with rubbish within hours and any normal discussion on improvements is impossible. Neelmack (talk) 10:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean exactly? How can a page be locked for "editors only" when anyone and everyone can be an editor? N^oformation ^Talk 10:26, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should be more precise - I mean protected - a semi protected status where only registered users with an established number of edits can change the page would be best WP:SEMI Neelmack (talk)

If you believe that a particular article needs protection, then read the protection policies at WP:PP, and request protection at WP:RFP. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

If anyone looks at the edit history of any of the articles for the twelve signs they will see a persistent level of vandalism from unregistered users. It seems there are a lot of people out there who know nothing about astrology (pro or against) who can't resist trashing these articles or else dumping in their own POV material from some dubious source. It makes any kind of discussion about improving the articles almost impossible. It's probably not feasible to ask for all twelve to be protected at once, maybe if we took the articles one at a time. Thoughts anyone? Neelmack (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Vague, general complaints are not useful. If you have specific, concrete complaints about a specific article, then discuss them on the article talk page, or request protection as I described above. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Unless I missed something this is a forum for general discussion about all the astrology articles. If you are uncomfortable with a general discussion about the astrology articles and how to deal with them overall, I suggest your time might be better spent elsewhere. Or perhaps you genuinely believe there is no problem with the astrogical sign articles in which case you should say so? Neelmack (talk) 14:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month

Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Astrology will have interest in putting on events related to women's roles in astrology. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. These events can take place off wiki, like edit-a-thons, or on wiki, such as themes and translations. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 19:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Keywords

What do we do about sections on keywords (or characteristics) which seem to be trivia magnets, unsourced with editors coming along and adding their favourite? Dougweller (talk) 10:21, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you point to an example of such a keywords section? Any list of keywords would have to come with clear criteria for inclusion. It will be better to have sourced prose containing the keywords. MakeSense64 (talk) 10:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

RFC on pseudoscience section in lede of astrology

I have started an RFC on the pseudoscience section of the lede of astrology where I have proposed new wording. Your comments are appreciated at Talk:Astrology#RFC_on_change_to_pseudoscience_summary_in_lede. Thanks. SÆdon^talk 22:12, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Saedon has unfortunately done more than simply proposed new wording; he has edit warred to try to force through a POV version of the lead. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 23:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

And therefore people shouldn't comment in the RFC? What exactly is the point of going around to every page I post an RFC request on and accusing me of edit warring if not to WP:HARASS me? SÆdon^talk 00:07, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The proposed wording is this:

"Astrology is a pseudoscience and as such is not taken seriously by the academic or scientific communities. Some scientific testing of astrology has been conducted and no evidence has been found to support either the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological tradition. Furthermore, the conjectural hypotheses that planetary bodies affect individual human lives contradicts well understood, basic aspects of biology and physics."

This is completely trite, makes no attempt offer understanding on what the astrological argument actually is, and seems to be motivated by Saedon's own wish: " “It would be nice if we should just succinctly state that astrology is bullshit (in a more encyclopedic way obviously) rather than the clunky wording we have now.” (SÆdon - astrology talk page, 23:20, 8 May 2012). Really, I think some editors would prefer the whole entry consisted of three words: "astrology is bullshit".

I've added the following quote from David Pingree regarding astrology and astral omens to the article page, to demonstrate that it's unsupportable to claim that academics concern themselves with subjects that they don't take seriously, regardless of how many WP editors would like to cheer along a suggestion that claims otherwise:

"All of these subjects, I would argue, were or are sciences within the contexts of the cultures in which they once flourished or now are practiced. As such they deserve to be studied by historians of science with as serious and thorough a purpose as are the topics that we usually find discussed in history of science classrooms or in the pages of Isis. This means that their intellectual content must be probed deeply, and not simply dismissed as rubbish or interpreted in the light of modern historical mythology; and that the intellectual content must be related to the culture that produced and nourished each, and to the social context within which each arose and developed. -- David Pingree, Isis, Vol. 83, No. 4, December, 1992, pp. 554-563. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 13:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Request for input in discussion forum

Given the closely linked subjects of the various religion, mythology, and philosophy groups, it seems to me that we might benefit from having some sort of regular topical discussion forum to discuss the relevant content. I have put together the beginnings of an outline for such discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting, and would very much appreciate the input of any interested editors. I am thinking that it might run over two months, the first of which would be to bring forward and discuss the current state of the content, and the second for perhaps some more focused discussion on what, if any, specific efforts might be taken in the near future. Any and all input is more than welcome. John Carter (talk)

_{Automated message by Project Messenger Bot from John Carter at 15:44, 5 April 2011}

Correlation - a point of concern for references in astrology articles.

Correlation is regarded as the premier journal of astrological research; its remit according with the standard academic requirements "that all submissions are peer-reviewed by suitably qualified experts in the fields of astrology, physics, and statistics". A point of debate has arisen on the reliable sources noticeboard, concerning whether Correlation and similar journals can be accepted asw a 'reliable source' for papers published concerning studies into astrology.

You are invited to comment here. Oron the discussion page of the main astrology article.

Astrology Project templates proposed for merge or deletion

There has been a proposal to merge the two astrology templates - Template:Astrology and Template:Ast box. Since the argument is that Template:Ast box has a more limited use I assume this proposes the deletion of the newer Template:Ast box. Additionally it has been suggested that both could be deleted on the grounds that we have the astrology footer templatewhich renders them both useless.

I have commented and pointed out that each template serves a specific purpose and they are best left alone. Trying to merge/delete any of them would cause many problems for Astrology project pages. Since each has a purpose I would also have thought that the proposal goes beyond the reasons by which a template can be proposed for deletion, which are only these:

1. The template violates some part of the template namespace guidelines, and can't be altered to be in compliance
2. The template is redundant to a better-designed template
3. The template is not used, either directly or by template substitution (the latter cannot be concluded from the absence of backlinks), and has no likelihood of being used
4. The template violates a policy such as Neutral point of view or Civility

If you have views on this please add them to the discussion before the decision is made: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Ast_box

Proposal to merge the page on Esoteric astrology page into the main Astrology page or the entry on Alice Bailey

Discussion has been requested on this proposal - see the talk page discussion here. --Zac Δ ^talk! 17:24, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It's probably worth mentioning that Wikipedia recently lost a sizeable, and IMO informative, article on Mundane astrology through a similar suggestion to merge its contents into the main astrology page. Follow the hyperlink I've just given to see how this 'merge' ended up as a four sentence paragraph in the History of astrology page. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 17:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It may have been sizeable, but how much of the previous article was neutral and properly-sourced? This is supposed to be an encyclopædia, rather than the world's largest prose collection. The merge was a result of this discussion; I think we got the right outcome. bobrayner (talk) 19:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Well WP editors are all welcome to their own opinions but I can't see myself how that can be called a "right outcome". I was personally unaware of proposal, but more worrying (since I was taking a wiki-break) is the fact that no one bothered to make the WP editors most capable of fixing the sourcing problem aware of the situation. For example, I see no notification, or invitation for input into the discussion placed here on the Wiki:Project astrology project page.

Looking over the content of the link you provided, opinions seem to be split between the options of keeping or deleting the page, or merging its content into another page. So no clear consensus was established as far as I can see. It looks to me like the decision to merge was taken as a compromise for the fact that editorial views were divided, but since so very little content was kept to offer a WP account of one of the oldest and historically important branches of astrology, effectively the page was deleted. Of course, pages can be rebuilt with renewewed commitment to better sourcing, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that most of the editors with good knowledge of the subject and its sources have become too demoralised by the "anti-fringe" paranoia (which sees any objective account of astrology as dangerous in its presumed promotion of pseudo-science) to continue with an exercise akin to pissing in the wind. Just my opinion, of course, based on what I've seen and experienced here myself. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 21:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Hey people. Astrology is a vast subject. It has around five distinct subdivisions (Natal, Horary, Electional, Mundane, Medical, off the top of my head) and a staggering number of subdivisions, one of which is Esoteric, which, prior to - I believe - Alan Leo, did not exist. Alice Bailey is a late-comer and an also-ran.

So, yes, you NEED an independent Esoteric Astrology page, just as you NEED an independent page on Bailey (who herself said she knewnothing about astrology), as well as independent pages on Mundane, Medical, Electional, Horary, as well as Natal.

I am myself actively campaigning to get rid of Enlightenment Science, as it is, in the end, simply a consensus based mess that has outlived its usefulness. The Encyclopedic movement is of course one of its major components. We need to restore the Greek fundamentals. Which, starting with the 12th Century Translators, had been done and was the underlying force driving the Italian Renaissance. Which was picked up by the Germans (German Renaissance) which after five centuries was wiped out in the 30 Years War, whereupon the French imposed Enlightened Ignorance, as the genuine science component of the Renaissance went straight past them. If Wiki wants to continue as a serious reference, it needs to come up to fully professional standards. This trivia of deleting this and deleting that, based on whim or phony consensus, needs to stop.

In my day job I have on more than one occasion found and restored and published books that had been lost, or were on the verge of being lost due to modern scientific prejudice. I have people asking me what do do with their libraries of precious books, what to do with their personal papers. I'm at wits ends as to what to tell them. Donate them to an institution? They'll be trashed on sight. This is serious business and I've run out of patience. Do we make it an eye for an eye? You delete us, we delete you? Dave of Maryland (talk) 19:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposed MOS for Religion

There is now a proposed general Manual of Style for Religion and other articles relating to ethoses or belief systems atWikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. Any input would be welcome. I personally believe at least one of the reasons why many articles in this field have been as contentious as they have been is because of lack of such guidelines, and would very much welcome any input from others to help come up with some generally acceptable solutions to some of these problems. John Carter(talk) 22:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Despite the best efforts of Nicholas Campion in Bristol (I think that's where he is at the moment), Astrology is in no way religious. Never has been, never will be. Astrology is its own science and requires its own rules. The problem is the failure of astrologers to seize the confidence to formulate and insist upon them. Dave of Maryland (talk) 19:46, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Recent and current page deletion proposals

Recent page deletions include Mundane astrology and archetypal astrology. Currently the page archetypal cosmology has been proposed for deleteion. Please comment on the discussion page if you have views to add.

It would be very helpful is anyone becaoming aware of deletion requests which affect the astrology project pages could make a notice here, as these are obviously discussions of interest to members of this project. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 11:34, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Just be aware that asking members you know to be sympathetic to astrology to join the wikiproject, and then posting up relevant AfD's here looks a lot like canvassing. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Hardly I would have thought, since the project gets as much input from editors who are not sympathetic to astrology. Editors with all sorts of reasons to keep an eye on astrology-related content are members of this project, so all benefit from having a central place for notices and discussions relevant to the project pages.

I was hoping to try to revitalise this project a little - is there any policy you know of that prevents me letting other editors who might not know of it, and may be interested in joining, know about this?

History of astrology

I have done quite a lot of work to this article in response to the request made in July 2011 that the content be referenced and overhauled to save the page from deletion. The outdated text from the 1911 Encyclopdia Brittanica has mostly been removed and replaced with better quality content sourced from other WP pages or new content with appropriate references. I would appreciate further contributions and critical analysis from any other project members. There is still a lot of work to be done to the page and I'll aim to contribute further as I can. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 14:07, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Project Hindsight page proposed for deletion

There is a discussion on whether this page should be deleted. See the discussion here if you have a view on this. -- Zac Δ ^talk! 09:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

AfD Faculty_of_Astrological_Studies

Also note this AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Faculty_of_Astrological_Studies. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Advisory_Panel_on_Astrological_Education. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:52, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Clean up

I have cleaned up the main page of this project a bit, since it was a terrible mess. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:49, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Some more AfD

Some more astrology articles I have put in AfD:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Like-engirding
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aphetic place
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Horoscope pattern

A few articles I have just tagged for now, but also look like very weak keepers:

• Color of the day
• Mangal Dosha

How many more do we have of these?

What about some ongoing AfD, now that Zac has been topic banned. Do we put in a neutral worded note to let the closing admin know of his topic ban? MakeSense64 (talk) 07:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

As a general rule, merge would be a better option than AfD. Some of the content is useful in terms of astrology. And we do have to cover the belief system of astrology carefully. It is essential reference for understanding medieval and early modern literature.Itsmejudith (talk) 09:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

But we cannot merge unsourced material. These terms are so obscure that it is hard to find anything about it. Many astrologers probably don't even know them. Also, doing a merge is a rather complex operation. Is there any history worth keeping in an article that never had any sources? It will be more simple to delete these articles, and if sourced material on those topics is found, then add it in an article where it belongs. MakeSense64 (talk) 10:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd second that. Easier to delete/redirect and then add content to the main article as and when sources are found. Sometimes cleaniup is less practical than just starting from scratch. bobrayner (talk) 11:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Bob. When there is zero reliably-sourced content, it's better to delete and start from scratch. Would support deletion of "Color of the day" and "Mangal Dosha" as well. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like ignorance and prejudice. In point of fact, over the past 20 years extensive work has been done in Hellenistic area, where tentative efforts were built upon. One of which was/is the Aphetic Place. Horoscope patterns go back to Marc Edmund Jones and were picked up by the Hubers, in Switzerland, with their very colorful charts and is in fact a major subdivision of natal astrology. Not only do working astrologers use patterns in their work, there are at least two distinct schools. That "most astrologers don't know" is not an excuse. I myself am preparing Mark Riley's translation of Vettius Valens for publication. The academics have done a fabulous job with the translation, but what they've given us is very far from being usable. It's going to take publication and then another dozen or maybe 50 years before we completely understand what Valens was up to. Is it Wiki's policy to suppress astrology?

It's better to delete now and figure it out later? Let's build on what we have. Point out the specific areas believed to need help and be patient. Help will come eventually. I myself can supply half of what you want (whatever it is), sourced and all I sit in a library of some 1500 books, some 500 from India, I publish nearly 50 astro titles, but I need the incentive. Casual talk of deletion simply makes me see red. What advantage is there to that? Dave of Maryland (talk) 20:07, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Article alerts activated

I have added "article alerts" to the main project page, which replaces the manually kept lists that are rarely ever up to date. The article alerts show any AfD, PROD, RM, RFC, MERGE,.. in articles that fall within the scope of the astrology project. The list is automatically updated every day. See: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Astrology#Current_tasks
MakeSense64 (talk) 05:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

infobox for zodiac signs

The infobox we see in articles like Libra (astrology) only shows duration according to the Tropical zodiac. But, we should add the duration according to the Sidereal zodiac as well, because WP is supposed to be neutral and should not show a preference for either zodiac system.

On a related note. Anybody else who thinks it would be better to split our current Zodiac article into Zodiac and Zodiac (astrology)? The current mix of astronomy and astrology in that article makes it almost unreadable, and also goes against WP:PSCI(scientific information should not be dwarfed by psci info in an article) MakeSense64 (talk) 05:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd support the split for the reasons you gave. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. bobrayner (talk) 22:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Possible merge with Astrological sign as well? IRWolfie- (talk) 21:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Logical. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions welcome

Hi all,
I discovered what I think might be a walled garden of... problematic content on "Chinese zodiac" articles. There's a handy navbox here:

For instance, we have neat tables of personal qualities - people born in the year of the Dog may become a "great designer, counselor, priest, politician, actor, judge, clerk, agent, police officer, scientist, and professor"; their motto is "Harmonize"; their colours are Lavender and Vermilion; and they are associated with countries like Latvia, Belarus, and Canada. (The wisdom of the ancients has no trouble keeping in line with modern geopolitical developments). Anyway, I removed most of it (lots of diffs likethis &c) but some has been readded. All comments and complaints welcomed... bobrayner (talk) 17:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

We could probably clean up in astrology articles for a year, and still not see the end of the tunnel. All we can do is take it category by category and see where it takes us. The Chinese astrology articles are in bad shape and poorly sourced, but it's not easy to find good sources for it. The Vedic astrology articles are a mess as well. Where to start? MakeSense64 (talk) 19:19, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Found one good academic paper, not for the detail of the belief, but for the sociology of how it is used today, Creating New Traditions in Modern Chinese Populations: Aiming for Birth in the Year of the Dragon. Daniel M. Goodkind. Population and Development Review , Vol. 17, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 663-686. Published by: Population Council. Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1973601. Only since 1976 have people taken the zodiac into account when trying to time the birth of children. They mention "the perennially bestselling Chinese famers' almanac, of which every Taiwanese household owns at least one copy". That could be usable for details of the belief system. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a good direction to go in; thanks! bobrayner (talk) 22:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I think "Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures" is a useful source with chapters about astrology in China, astrology in India, and astrology in Islam. Here you can see it: [2].MakeSense64 (talk) 14:08, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps a tertiary source, but good enough to allow us to make improvements. Based in what I see in that encyclopedia entry, plus reading of the two articles, I think that Chinese zodiac should be merged into Earthly Branches. The latter article should be renamed earthly branch. The material in Earthly Branches that deals with points of the compass is separable and should possibly go into Cardinal point, but that is a rambling catch-all of an article that already has information about Chinese concepts. I'm off on break now, not back till September, so that's just a suggestion. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:21, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

The living western expert in Chinese Astrology is Derek Walters, who in 1984 published Chinese Astrology: The most comprehensive study of the subject ever published in the English language. It is still in print, 410 pages worth. My desk copy is the Watkins edition of 2002. When you constantly talk of deleting this and deleting that, you drive the experts away. They're not going to mess with you. If you're reading through my comments on this thread, know that I personally know a lot of these people, or know where to find them (Western - Chinese - Vedic), or know others who have the knowledge and expertise. For Chinese astrology, no, I don't know Derek and I'm not sure how I would get a hold of him, but I do know an expert in Hong Kong who could lead me to others - and it's dang hard to find an expert in Chinese astrology. I've got that kind of depth. Dave of Maryland (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Astrological aspect

An important concept, I think, in the Ptolemaic system, and elaborated by Ptolemy himself. Lots of junk in the article, though, which is a pity, because I need to understand whether the word "trine" is correctly used in Chinese zodiac. It seems pretty dubious to use a word from Western astrology to explicate a Chinese concept. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:51, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Having read up just a bit more, I'm sure that the triadic groupings of Chinese signs have nothing at all to do with "trine" in Ptolemaic astrology. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

As is, the article looks like an indiscriminate collection of information. I think the entire section "Ternary aspects" should go, it highlights in the text that it is rarely used in astrology. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

One of the problems is that with articles like these we are going into describing the in-universe jargon and methods of astrology, which for most part will be only be backed up by in-universe sources. One would probably expect to find all of this in a course on astrology, the question is how much of this belongs in an encyclopedia? E.g. in these "ternary aspects" we come to a fringe theory within astrology, so fringe within fringe. How far do we go in this? Do we explain all the concepts of a pseudoscience in standalone articles? Maybe we need a RfC on how much weight to give to all these astrology concepts, before we spend much more time on this. MakeSense64 (talk) 14:36, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Potentially offensive material
There is a rule in polite society. The guy who calls African Americans "niggers" is disqualified from discussions of race relations. Whether we do this is or that with ternary aspects is a matter for debate. The editor who terms astrology a "pseudoscience" is disqualified. I will insist on this. Dave of Maryland (talk) 21:09, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Great to clean up, but can we keep the most basic concepts, plus everything that is part of Ptolemaic astronomy as opposed to astrology. Selfishly, I want a way in to make sense of literary criticism of Chaucer and other writers who used astrology, and some of that criticism has to go quite deeply into the belief system. I don't need it all in the encyclopedia, but what is here does have to be readable and referenced. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:43, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Past or present tense in articles about discarded systems of astrology

We have a List of astrological traditions, types, and systems and a lot of systems are in the "historic" category. I was doing some much needed cleanup in Medical astrology and was wondering why this article is written in the present tense, as if this is still current practice. Just looked at another article about a discarded practice Phrenology, and found it written in the past tense. So do we use present or past tense in articles about historic forms of astrology? MakeSense64 (talk) 12:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Past tense if its not in use. I should say that article seems generally unneeded as the template does a much better job; I would suggest redirecting to astrology. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Which template did you mean? I think "Medical astrology" is sufficiently notable to get a standalone article as a topic of historic interest. There is certainly more cleaning up to do, I have started with prodding some articles from Category:Technical factors of astrology. MakeSense64 (talk) 11:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

What I mean is the astrology template template:Ast box. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Capricorn

The usage of Capricorn is under discussion, see Talk:Capricorn -- 76.65.131.160 (talk) 02:21, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

ast box

I'm in the process of changing the main astrology page template to use more standard template features: Template_talk:Ast_box#draft_change_.28standardised_forms.29, if anyone wants to help with the draft. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Urania Trust. Sædon^talk 20:10, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

My earlier experience is that touching astrology/astrologer articles can quickly become like stirring a hornets nest, especially when you touch articles of British astrologers/organizations. Maybe we should try to have a broader RfC before we attempt to do more cleanup in this area. How high do we put the notability bar for astrologers or astrology organizations? As I mentioned in my reply on Talk:Astrology , our current WP:ACADEMIC notability guideline suggests that the bar should be put higher for pseudoscience related activities. There is definitely more cleanup to do. But a RfC would make more clear what to delete and what not to delete. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

off topic attack on another editor

Hello MakeSense. We first need to remove editors who consider this to be a pseudoscience. Again, I will insist. Some minimal knowledge is required, which you lack. You are biased. Dave of Maryland (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2012 (UTC) This is a mainstream encyclopedia that reports what reliable sources report. The mainstream of science considers astrology to be pseudoscience and thus this is what we report. Please go over the policy links I have left on your talk page and decide whether you are willing to follow WP norms or not; if not then perhaps astrowiki would be a better fit for you. Sædontalk 21:17, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I have started by putting up the question here: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Independent_sources

MakeSense64 (talk) 07:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Note Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Little_Astrology_Prince_(2nd_nomination). IRWolfie- (talk) 12:30, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

October

• And Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Uranian astrology. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:24, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/John_Addey_(astrologer)

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Roy_C._Firebrace

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Howard_Beckman_(2nd_nomination). IRWolfie- (talk) 00:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Scope

I've started to remove some of the articles that have no mention of astrology from project. It is more awkward to monitor the project when irrelevant articles are in it. Astronomy articles are not necessarily in scope or else we have a pointless overlapping; the article should be specifically about some topic within astrology, or the connection of a topic within astrology to another topic. IRWolfie- (talk) 17:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Redirection of Western Zodiac signs

On 22 October 2012 the contents of the articles for the individual signs of the western zodiac (Pisces (astrology) etc.) were removed and replaced with redirects to Astrological sign#Western zodiac signs. These edits were made by User:Dominus Vobisdu with the edit summary: Unsourced and unsourceable cruft. No justification for stand-alone article. This did not seem to follow a community discussion.

Following concerns raised at the Reference Desk I will, after posting this, restore the articles to the form they were in immediately before their redirection. At least some of the articles seem to have been significantly reduced in size also prior to this redirection, however I have not reverted these changes.

Because I am sure editors may wish to discuss this (perhaps to reinstate the redirects, or make other changes to these articles), however a discussion spread among the talk pages twelve articles in question would be too dissipated, I suggest Talk:Astrological_sign#Redirection_of_Western_Zodiac_signs as a centralised discussion location. An editor with more experience than I in Wikipedia policies may wish to move this discussion to a better location. LukeSurl ^{t c} 15:23, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Restoring unsourced content is probably not a good move. Do you have sources which support changes like this and this and this? bobrayner (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I made the redirects initially. The redirects were made to an article which covers the signs. Do you have any reason against the redirect? Redirection does not need to follow discussion; rather if valid objections are made then it needs to be discussed. No actual objections have been raised; rather people are citing the need for discussion (contrary to what WP:BRD says). IRWolfie- (talk) 16:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I have replied at Talk:Astrological_sign#Redirection_of_Western_Zodiac_signs. LukeSurl ^{t c} 17:29, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I find it strange that the zodiac sign articles are sparse at best. - s t a r c a r (talk) 04:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to try and cleanup the infoboxes for the zodiac signs. Not only is there {{Infobox zodiac}} and {{Infobox zodiac sign}}, but each sign itself has a designated template, e.g. {{Pisces box}} or {{Aries box}}. This defeats the purpose of using a template, since there is no perceivable way to use a specific zodiac sign template on any other page but its article. I've also tried to clean up the box a bit, moving the neat row of signs to the bottom from the midsection. I don't think we should link our project page from the infobox; I haven't seen that done in other infoboxes but maybe I'm wrong. - s t a r c a r (talk) 00:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Main Astrology article Cognitive Bias section

Recent edits to remove OR from the Cognitive Bias section in the main Astrology article have been reverted. Talk:Astrology#Cognitive_Bias Please contribute constructively to resolve the issues. Ken McRitchie (talk) 19:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I would be interested in hearing where the OR is, as I wrote much of (all?) that section, and did it based purely on the secondary sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:55, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Fu Lu Shou statue images up for deletion

Several images used at Fu Lu Shou are up for deletion.

• File:Mammoth Ivory Three Star Gods.JPG (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• File:Mammoth Ivory Shou Star.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• File:Mammoth Ivory Lu Star.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• File:Mammoth Ivory Fu Star.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

-- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:46, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

The "New Millennium Astrological Chart" Graphic

The astrological chart graphic in the project description is beautiful. It is also cast for the wrong year. It is clearly the horoscope of some point on the Prime Meridian for midnight on 2000-01-01 instead of the correct 2001-01-01.

I trust I do not need to recap the reasoning for this here, but if anyone wants to take a stab at explaining which of the first 20 centuries of the current calendar should be considered to contain 99 years instead of 100, go ahead. Freeman (talk) 20:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Fire ahead with a correction if you want, IRWolfie- (talk) 12:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd love to, when I get up the $400 for the software that generates nice charts like that. Freeman (talk) 21:15, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• On second thoughts, why would the start of 2001 be more appropriate? IRWolfie- (talk) 21:55, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

The new millennium began in 2001 because there was no year zero, so the year 2000 was the last year of the old millennium - its 2000th. But most people celebrated the new millennium as we saw 1999 out and believed the start of 2000 to be the beginning of a new millennium. I'm not sure it's a big problem because it matches public perception, but technically-speaking, Freeman is right. Tento2 (talk) 11:03, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:49, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I have proposed to merge this wikiproject and 12 others to a new wikiproject. Please see the proposal. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:39, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Adding Albohali to the project

I added the page on Abu 'Ali al-Khayyat (Albohali) to the astrology project since his works were mainly of astrological interest. I also changed the name of the entry from Pingree's unusual spelling to Khayait to Khayyat, to make the page more accessible. A google check shows that all other sources refer to him as Khayyat rather than Khayait. I gave the page a "mid-importance" rating to reflect the fact that there is increasing interest in his works through recent translations of James Holden and Ben Dykes. Tento2 (talk) 12:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Interest in reviving this project

IRWolfie's Merge Proposal (see above) suggests we consider this project dead and merge it with 12 others into a new wiki project to oversee all aspects of Fringe. He says "My thought was to re-purpose skepticism into a task force specifically related to the concepts of skepticism and to notable skeptics and organisations" (but please see the full discussion to understand his comments in their proper context).

My view is that this approach is counter-productive; and it would be better to explore why a project which was once very active now feels like it is covered in dust. I don't have a great deal of experience as a wikipedia editor, or a great deal of time to commit to wikipedia generally, butcan contribute fairly regularly and will happily help however I can. I would like to work collaboratively with other members of this project, so my first effort will be to contact everyone listed as a member to see what interest exists, and encourage discussion on if and how the project can be re-stimulated.

I notice that under "Purpose and goals" on the project page, the first objective is:

• Identify unmarked astrology-related stubs and expand them into full articles. See Articles in need of expansion below.

But the link to "Articles in need of expansion" is dead (goes nowhere). Maybe a good way to get a team active would be to identify a few articles that need development, or an overhaul, and create a "project of the month", so we can pool our knowledge and efforts and bring at least one astrology-related article a month to a good standard. I welcome input on this idea, any other suggestions, or any indication that other members are still active here and interested in keeping this project alive.Tento2 (talk) 09:04, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Your quote of me is very odd and has no relation to what I actually proposed. Rather here is the guts of why I proposed it: "Broadly my suggestion was meant to capture all those areas generally covered by WP:FRINGE guidelines and which are in the area of scientific scepticism generally, Fringe was my suggestion as a compromise between putting people off with the word "skepticism" and also not putting off mainstream editors with names like "alternative science" (as though one can pick their science!)." IRWolfie- (talk) 09:44, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm concerned that posting this message on lots of editors' talkpages is canvassing. Don't do that. bobrayner (talk) 12:10, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

@IRWolfie. I made a quote from your post of that day; if your words have no relation to what you actually proposed then that is very odd. Best advice is always that which I gave "see the full discussion".

@Bobrayner. I have noted your concern. Please note that I disagree. Tento2 (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Tento, please note that editors are expected to leave neutrally worded messages when they notify someone and not get a head start on the argument at the user talk pages (see WP:CANVASS for more details). I take it from the lack of replies here that my comment about lack of interest is quite apt. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

My post was appropriate. It was not put "on lots of editor's talkpages", but specifically placed on the talk pages of every editor listed as an active member of the project, including yourself. As an member I have the right to contact other members to make them fully aware that without an indication of more interest this project is under a proposal of being merged - and to point out my own view that it would be a shame for that to happen without seeing if there are ways to regenerate interest. Neutrality requires that I put forward both views factually and without exaggeration, which I did, with the intention to generate more discussion; it does not require me to pretend that I do not want to generate discussion and involvement from other members, when patently that is the purpose of contacting them, to see if it exists. (I wonder if it is dwelling on petty points like this, and being told "don't do that" instead of being welcomed and encouraged as a new member trying to work collaboratively, which has driven other editors away?).

I agree that in the absence of any responses to suggest that there are editors willing to invest time on the project's concerns, it can be fairly described as a dying project. However, I noticed that some editors only post periodically so I would suggest waiting another week before drawing that conclusion. It took years to develop this project, and I see no need to rush decisions on its future as if there is an impending deadline at the end of the week. Tento2 (talk) 09:20, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Tento2 thanks for the heads-up, but I don't have time for this. IRWolfie-, bobrayner and others like them seem to have an unlimited amount of time to devote to excluding all views from Wikipedia but their own narrow dark and suspicious beliefs. Wikipedia is getting a bad reputation and it will only get worse as I expect you can tell from the current proposals. Maybe when Wikipedia becomes so bad, it will either crumble into pieces like a corrupt empire or, if it is valued enough by the public, it will incur a massive backlash of renewed openness and rich diversity of views. Ken McRitchie (talk) 00:01, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd be curious to hear what my "dark and suspicious beliefs" are since I don't think I have ever outlined my own beliefs. As an astrologer, I think you will always find aspects of wikipedia undesirable because the most reliable sources do not accept astrology but actively refute it. When someone is writing a neutral summary of astrology that fact must be acknowledged. In the current astrology article I think there is a fair balance between, say the practices, history, cultural impact of astrology, and its current reception amongst scientists and in theology, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

If you haven't outlined your beliefs they are dark and suspicious by definition, IR! Itsmejudith (talk) 10:30, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

• Looking at the discussion linked in the previous section, I must admit that I don't see the point in congregating a bunch of dead Wikiprojects (like putting a bunch of corpses in a hole, covering it, and hoping for some kind of reanimation! Quick! cast a spell!) I'm not going to suddenly have an interest in Homeopathy; I expect the same of someone from the other projects. This does not seem beneficial for any active / inactive person from a specific Wikiproject. My guess is that they will all remain just as dead (I guess one grave to maintain is better for the groundskeeper)

I really don't care what those active want to call it, be it "Wikiproject" or "Task Force." Rather, I can't see any detriment or benefit, leave it as-is or change it. Don't know why anyone is even bothering... - s t a r c a r (talk) 01:21, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Infobox Lunar eclipse

{{Infobox Lunar eclipse}} has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.181.39 (talk) 12:58, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Infobox Solar eclipse2

{{Infobox Solar eclipse2}} has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.181.39 (talk) 13:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with the deletion, but can't find the link for the discussion. Tento2 (talk) 10:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The discussion ended about 4 days ago: Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_October_1#Template:Infobox_Solar_eclipse2, IRWolfie- (talk) 10:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Ah. OK, well thanks anyway. Tento2 (talk) 11:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Malefic planet

Any gurus on malefic planets willing to help out at that article? I'm having time finding good sources and the existing sources are startlingly bad! Thanks! Alicb (talk) 02:00, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:Stars with proper names

Category:Stars with proper names has been nominated for deletion, as these stars appear in various cultures astrologies, you may be interested -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 07:19, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

"Stargazer"

The naming, usage and primary topic of Stargazer is under discussion, see talk:Stargazer (disambiguation) -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 06:02, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Corrections to dates, date and citation format in sign articles

I have created a module which encapulates values for the dates the Sun enters and exits the various signs; the data is taken from the U.S. Naval Observatory's Multiyear Interactive Computer Almanac and covers 2015 through most of 2050. The Template:Zodiac date produces some erroneous results, so I hope to implement the change this week.

Eight of the twelve articles about astrological signs use the format of the month going first (like March 23), one uses the day first (like 23 March), and the rest are mixed. I have written the module to put the month first; if this is agreeable, I would change the date format in the four articles that aren't already using it.

The Infobox zodiac would also be altered to provide a citation for the new information. Seven of the twelve articles use the style known as Citation Style 1, one seems to use the Chicago Manual of Style, and the rest are inconsistent or use bare urls. Except, that is, for Pisces (astrology), which uses a combination of {{Citation}} and {{sfn}}, and has an extensive list of sources.

I would suggest moving the articles, other than "Pisces (astrology)" to the {{Citation}} template, which is very nearly the same as Citation Style 1. The main difference is that the different elements in the citation are separated with commas rather than periods, which is what most publications outside Wikipedia do when they use end notes. (All the articles use end notes.)

I'd like ideas about how to incorporate the citation from the infobox into Pisces (astrology). Jc3s5h (talk) 20:43, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Considering the lack of suggestions about Pisces (astrology) and not wishing to upset the fine set of references at Pisces, I think the best solution is to have the infobox produce a short footnote and create a reference list, including one for the MICA software, at each article that transcludes the infobox. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:38, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

This change is complete. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:24, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

"Mercury"

The usage and primary topic of "Mercury" is under discussion, see Talk:Mercury (planet) -- 70.51.45.100 (talk) 05:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Academic mathematics vs. astrology in Universal trinity

Please have a look to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Universal_trinity. Apparently whenever astrologic symbolism encounters over basic logics also mathematical logics there is a danger that some tunnel view mathematicians who want to robotize everything distantly mathematical try to overrun it. So is here a more serious view to it possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MathLine (talk • contribs) 00:36, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

GAR for Tycho Brahe

Tycho Brahe, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. More details are available on the re-assessment page. Please ping me if you need anything as my watchlist is already quite large and I'd prefer not to add seven or eight more wikiprojects to my watchlist on top of the ones that I already have. Mr rnddude (talk) 23:37, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The large moons of Jupiter and Saturn

I know that there've been castings based on the 4 large Jupiter moons and 5 large Saturn moons in astrology in the 1600s and 1700s. Does anyone have the astrological/astronomical symbols for these celestial bodies? -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 13:19, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Dodecatemoria and Cosmobiology online calculator

Hello, I have created free online calculators for Dodecatemoria and Cosmobiology. There are currently no other websites/online services providing such astrology calculations. Would you consider adding external links to those calculators?

Dodecatemoria - https://horoscopes.astro-seek.com/traditional-astrology

Applied Cosmobiology - https://horoscopes.astro-seek.com/astrology-midpoints-online-calculator

Petr9 (talk) 14:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:26, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

"CIRCLE with DOT" (SUN) is now illegal on Wikipedia

FYI, there's now an edit filter, Filter 680 that makes the SUN symbol illegal to use on Wikipedia. The Sun Symbol found at Solar mass in subscript form is currently disallowed when adding new text. So "☉" (U+2609) as in M_☉ is impossible to type in articlespace, and a big red vandalism warning shows up instead of being saved.

As these are rangeblocked unicode characters, I suspect that many astrological symbols are now deemed illegal on Wikipedia. -- 65.94.42.168 (talk) 10:21, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Hysterical nonsense. You've used it twice in one paragraph. Cabayi (talk) 08:27, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

The behavior of the Wikipedia software in article space (that is, where there is no word followed by a colon at the beginning of the name of the page) is not the same as in other spaces. This talk page is in talk space, because the names of pages in this space start with "Talk:". What works in talk space does not necessarily work in article space, and vice versa. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:41, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, you mean we can't do this? Personally, I'd test an explanation before publishing it. Cabayi (talk) 17:32, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Nostradamus Featured article review

I have nominated Nostradamus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Notification

Galileo Galilei has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:52, 25 November 2021 (UTC)