Talk:Jewish astrology/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Vaticidalprophet (talk · contribs) 00:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Davidbena -- per my comments at Nableezy's talk, I'm interested in reviewing this article :) It's very solid work, and I hopefully won't have too many comments. I'm making this page to commit to a review, but due to current factors in my life will need at least a couple days to start serious work on it, which I hope is okay with you. Vaticidalprophet 00:19, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to see that you've taken an interest in this article.Davidbena (talk) 01:15, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General notes

A couple of general notes:

The referencing style here is a little difficult for the reader to follow. It's similar to a {{sfn}} style, but without the link from the author's name to the reference. It might be better to convert the existing footnotes to sfn; the author names are already linked to articles in the bibliography, so this wouldn't lose those links.

I have since gone over the references and have added {{Harvnb}} to the sources, which links directly to the Bibliography. Thanks for pointing this out to me.Davidbena (talk) 21:20, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, footnotes that give additional information (such as notes 30 to 32) are in the same section and styled the same way as footnotes that lead to references, which makes it hard for the reader to tell which is which. It may be more informative to use a different style for those, such as {{NoteTag}}; as it stands, the reader doesn't know if hovering over will show them a reference or if it'll show them more information.

Again, thanks for pointing this out to me. I have turned these long explanatory references into individual notes, in accordance with your directives.Davidbena (talk) 21:20, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

The lead is really good, but there are a couple points where it might be better to assume less prior knowledge of the subject. The reader might not necessarily know why the classical planets are different to the modern scientific concept of the planets, or who exactly the Sages are, so linking explanatory articles could help aid them. The best advice I ever received on article writing is to assume that the reader is a bright young person who wants to learn about the topic, but knows very little about it.

Your advice here is deeply appreciated and very pertinent. I have since added links to "Sages of Israel" and to "classical planets" so as to lend greater understanding to these topics.Davidbena (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Rabbinic belief

The style of giving the dates of birth and death of the relevant figures seems a little out of scope -- readers interested in those can hover for or click through to their articles (keep in mind readers who aren't logged in see navigation popups by default). A better way to contextualize their era might be to give the same idea in prose, e.g. Maimonides, who lived in the late twelfth century rather than Maimonides (1138–1204), in his day.

Done

Other rabbis have vaunted their knowledge of applied astrology. Said Samuel of Nehardea, "I know the pathways of heaven as I do the pathways of Nehardea, excepting the comet, about which I know nothing."[7] Elsewhere, Samuel of Nehardea said: "I am familiar with the streets of the firmament [in heaven] just as I am familiar with the streets of Nehardea." These quotes are almost identical -- is there a reason to have both?

True. I have since removed the second quote, but kept its reference.Davidbena (talk) 22:10, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The second (excluding the quote), third, and fourth paragraphs seem quite split-up at points that may not be the ideal places to split them up, from a topic perspective. The second paragraph could be consolidated with the part of the third discussing the Talmudic dispute around astrology, then combining the end of the third paragraph with the fourth, as this would mean each paragraph deals with the same topic throughout.

Following your directives, I have consolidated the second paragraph with the greater part of the third paragraph, while the last part of the third paragraph has been joined with the fourth paragraph, for greater coherence.Davidbena (talk) 22:23, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This section covers historical attitudes in admirable depth, but are there more recent discussions to add? Astrology is of course seen very differently by mainstream society today to how it was for many years, and it would be interesting if possible to see some more modern perspectives, whether they consider astrology important or unimportant.

Vaticidalprophet, I will see what I can find in the matter that you're inquiring about. Perhaps in the JSTOR data-base of academic articles I can find something that speaks on modern perceptions and attitudes towards astrology, but bear in mind that the focus of this article is not on astrology in general, but rather on "Jewish astrology," in particular.Davidbena (talk) 22:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Will make further comments later. I've enjoyed reading this article so far; it's an in-depth work on a subject (astrology in history and religion) that is frequently covered poorly on Wikipedia. Vaticidalprophet 10:08, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Astral influences and how they are determined

I wonder if some of this section sounds a little too 'uncritical'. I appreciate the in-depth treatment of the subject, but I've edited enough in what people tend to overgeneralizingly call the 'fringe theories topic area' (not a great name, and describing too many very different things, but other names are worse) to know many editors object to descriptions that e.g. go in-depth about astrological practice in ways that imply it's still an entirely mainstream endorsed subject. I wonder if a page move to something like History of astrology in Judaism, or the Astrology in Jewish antiquity that is the bold text in the lead, would avoid the risk of these complaints, by making it clearer it's more of a historiography -- I certainly appreciate the work and research here, and mostly want to avoid the issues that can come up when discussing the history of astrology and similar beliefs around editors with very strong opinions on the topic area.
The section set off as [Note: The ancients conceived that there were only seven primary planets. The moon, although a satellite rather than a planet, was also numbered among them; the sun, which is a star rather than a planet, was also numbered among them. The earth was not numbered among them since it was central to the rest. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, as well as the other recently discovered planets and satellites, were not known to the ancients, and therefore are considered trivial to the rest] should be converted into a footnote proper, rather than being bracketed in the text.

I've been reading over this for a few days, and am mostly thinking about the title issue. I've ran into unexpected issues when editing articles about the history of similar subjects and individuals who are interested in them, and especially given that the bold text in the lead is a slightly different title to the article, it might be ideal to move the article itself to such a title. Vaticidalprophet 15:16, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The problem that I see with changing the title is that you'd, equally, need to consider changing the titles of Babylonian astrology, Hellenistic astrology, Islamic astrology, Western astrology, Hindu astrology, & Chinese astrology, and to make them all "History of astrology" per country. This is not right. It is especially not right in this article on "Jewish astrology," since the emphasis is NOT on the history of its usage, but rather on the very substance of astrology (i.e. its practical usage, based on the changing stars and planets, and how to determine them), meaning to say, how astrology was applied and how it is understood today, what can and cannot be done with respect to astrology, all based on a plethora of classical Jewish authors. I would, therefore, oppose any name change to the article.Davidbena (talk) 00:29, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's fair; I'm not sure how an RM would close, but I won't start one if you object (though I could imagine another editor possibly doing so). Looking over again, I think most of the article is in reasonable shape, but I just want to query the "Events attributed to the influences of the constellations" section. Do we have sources actually saying that people attributed these specific events to astrology? If we don't, the section crosses into WP:OR. Vaticidalprophet 14:12, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The examples brought down in "Events attributed to the influences of the constellations" are all sourced. I would not dare mention an event said to be related to an astrological alignment if it were not sourced.Davidbena (talk) 01:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]