Talk:Aries (astrology)

Aries facts for real

Aries don't really have a temper. I've never met one with a temper or anyone who knew an Aries with a temper. And their definitely top verse. Lucky color is red. There are 4 stars in the Aries constellation. Also very passionate. A fire sign too, along with Leo and Sagittarius. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xxsxnflowerbbyx (talk • contribs)

Wiki Education assignment: JRN 101 News Literacy

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 August 2022 and 12 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Vbenejan (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by BrieBernier24 (talk) 21:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

More facts?

I feel like we should have facts about the characteristics and personality of all the Zodiac signs. I don’t see info like this in the articles on the Zodiac signs. I came here to learn that kind of stuff, so I can’t add any info. 98.97.112.26 (talk) 23:38, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

See WP:V, WP:IRS and Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

A number of historical alchemical sources from the early-modern period have pretty stable correspondences between signs and other systems [such as the mercury(/sulphur(/(salt)) system]. Presumably there are secondary academic sources which someone could find to add that information. Contrary to popular belief (and, it seems the consensus of wikipedia editors), the historical study of these subjects in terms of medieval and early-modern literature has become legit at reputable institutions over the past couple of decades. Of course, there's a great distance here and the stuff written by contemporary newspaper hacks and cents-per-word dating articles. The reason I've never had the confidence to actually go to the academic libraries and root such info out from the journals is that I'd end up under a dual assault from casual editors who want to fill it with trash and general emic stuff which would fail WP:V and WP:IRS and the wikerati who learnt in the cradle that any mention of astrology is per se illegitimate. It's kinda dispiritng to spend a couple of days in a University research library working on good secondary sources to have the work removed by a barn-star lawyer. The sefirot articles from Kaballah are in a similar mess. A useless mixture of unattested nonsense and confusion of different systems, folk arguing differently way on each of the sephirah over what traditions are legit. Oh well. 18:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC) Zaza9147 (talk) 18:20, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

It might be possible to find reliable sources that say the consensus of medieval European sources agree with some claim about astrology. That's completely different from saying that the claim is actually true in the real world. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:26, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This is true. It's generally known as the contrasting Scholarly and Emic approaches. The risk to the scholar, from past experience, is that most of this work is not easily available for free online, so it means things like using annual leave to go to a library, and so is a considerable personal expenditure at the risk of having to constantly monitor and defend the work from both casual deletion and crud accumulation in discussions like this. From other scholars in this area too, this is why pages on Western Astrology, Kabalah, etc, are in such a dismal state as it's not worth the candle. Zaza9147 on a device without my login details. 21:39, 16 November 2023 (UTC)~ 92.40.201.58 (talk) 21:39, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

I see three posts in this thread that are similar enough that they might have been made by the same editor, but they all have different signatures. Users should be aware of WP:MULTIPLE where it is explained that editing with more than one user name is generally discouraged. (Oh, I see the statement that Zaza9147 and 92.40.201.58 are the same editor.) Jc3s5h (talk) 21:50, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia prefers secondary sources. So one would look for sources by scholars who have read primary sources, such as medieval sources (or images or transcriptions of them) and found a consensus for certain claims, if the article was titled "European medieval view of the Aries astrological sign". Evaluation of medieval sources is aided by the fact that not many of them were written in the first place, and fewer still survived.

Evaluating modern sources about the Aries astrological sign, that is, sources that make assertions about current information about the sign, would evaluate the sources according to whether they are objectively true or not. Since the scientific studies that have been done show that astrology is no better than random guessing, the "unattested nonsense" in one book, the "confusion of different systems" in another, and a faithful description of how astrology was done in 1500 are all equally bad, if the books assert the claims are true. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:04, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

You need to distinguish between the medieval and early-modern periods where the printing press made a big difference to volume of primary sources. Typically these do not say things like Aires has a bad temper but, say, link it into the historically very important Paracelsian systems of alchemy and such like. I see no reason why such widespread and remarkably consistent associations of that period, when astrology was mainstream, shouldn't be covered as religion is on Wikipedia, that is clearly stating what was believed, bracketing that, not asserting it as true even, if you like, saying it is not! As you say, from compendium secondary sources. The reason it needs research library access is that most of the secondary source journals are paywalled and the books are prohibitively expensive to a working class scholar (look at the publisher Brill"s website some time). And good luck getting an IKK from the county system for those! Zaza9147 again. Sorry, will get the login sorted at the weekend. 92.40.201.213 (talk) 06:10, 17 November 2023 (UTC)