Talk:Thanksgivukkah

"assuming the Jewish calendar is not revised"

Epeefleche, why do you keep reverting my addition of "assuming the Jewish calendar is not revised"? The source already cited for that sentence in the article is this, which says, quote, "if the Jewish calendar is never modified in any way, then... Hanukkah will again fall on Thursday, 11/28...in the year 79811." AJD (talk) 01:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

As I explained to you on your talkpage already, please do not add content, as you did to Thanksgivukkah, without verifying it by citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources. Per wp:burden, if you wish to restore the sentence provide a proper RS inline ref at the end of the sentence that you wish to add. Epeefleche (talk) 8:27 pm, Today (UTC−5)

I state again: The source is already cited with an inline ref at the end of the sentence. I am editing the sentence to more accurately reflect what is stated in the already-cited source. See my comment above, which you appear to have responded to without reading. AJD (talk) 02:11, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

OK ... there appears to be a snafu here. Help me. Which RS source do you see saying that, and what does it say? Some of the refs are now not working. And, btw, you have just violated the three revert rule.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:51, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Yet again, please see my comment above. The source cited is this, note 15 in the article (Mizrahi, Jonathan (January 14, 2013). "Some of You May Find this Interesting...: Hanukkah and Thanksgiving: A once in eternity overlap". Jonathanmizrahi.blogspot.com. Retrieved November 9, 2013.). The cited source says "if the Jewish calendar is never modified in any way, then... Hanukkah will again fall on Thursday, 11/28...in the year 79811." To reflect this, I have edited the relevant sentence to say "The next time Thursday, November 28 will fall during Chanukah will be in the year 79811, assuming the Jewish calendar is not revised, according to one quantum physicist." I do not understand what the problem here is. And you violated the three-revert rule first, not that that's an excuse. AJD (talk) 04:12, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The blog itself isn't a wp:reliable source. Self-published media such as blogs of this sort are largely not acceptable. Do you have an inline citation to an RS that states what you are seeking to add? That's what we need.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

The blog itself isn't a reliable source even for resolving the question of what the blog itself says? That is to say: the sentence originally said "The next time will be in the year 79811, according to one quantum physicist." The blog post cited is that quantum physicist's statement, and what he actually says is that the next time will be in the year 79811, if the Jewish calendar is not changed. WP:PRIMARY says, on the use of primary sources, "For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot." From this is seems inferrable that use of primary sources is acceptable to cite claims about what the content of the primary source actually is; it is not necessary to cite a secondary source for the claim 'A Tale of Two Cities begins with "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Therefore I infer that it is not necessary to cite a secondary source for the assertion 'Blog post X says Y' when we can just cite blog post X itself. AJD (talk) 05:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

(Also, of course, my edited sentence is in a logical sense truth-conditionally entailed by the original sentence. That means that if the original sentence is considered to be verified by reliable sources, the revised sentence is also necessarily verified by them. In other words, my edit does not add any factual information, and so there's no way it can have added information not verified by reliable sources.) AJD (talk) 06:00, 14 November 2013 (UTC))

If the RSs are not reporting that tidbit, we don't have evidence that it is sufficiently notable to report ourselves (and it is likely to be a subtle joke anyway for other Jews ... it depends on all sorts of things, but the Jewish calendar changing is not likely ... we could encumber the article with "assuming as well the gregorian calendar is not changed, and so on, but that would be a disservice). If the RSs aren't covering that, it is simply not a notable point. A non-rs blog can't confer notability of that tidbit. See also wp:primary. Further, please see Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth ... wikipedia is not as into truth as you might expect.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

1. I read (and, as you will see above, refer to) WP:PRIMARY. It implies that primary sources may be used as reference on the question of what the primary source actually says. Moreover, WP:RELIABLE says, in so many words, "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves" [emphasis in the original]. In other words, Mizrahi's blog post is considered a reliable source of information on what Mizrahi's blog post says, even though it is a blog post.

2. It is not "likely to be a subtle joke for other Jews", and it is not the case that "the Jewish calendar changing is not likely": Mizrahi states elsewhere in the blog post that the Jewish calendar changing is likely. He states, in fact, that the very assertion that Thanksgivukkah will not be repeated until 79811 is a joke.

3. "Verifiability, not truth" is supposed to be a stronger criterion than truth, not a weaker criterion than truth. We should not state something known to be false ("the next time will be in the year 79811, according to one quantum physicist") just because some poorly-factchecked secondary sources incorrectly paraphrase an accessible primary source. AJD (talk) 06:47, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Epeefleche, per your comment that this phrase would encumber the article with "unless the Gregorian Calendar is not changed", etc. Despite that being a slippery slope fallacy, it also ignores the fact that while there's been no serious discussions on modifying the Gregorian Calendar, there is in fact a quite a bit of debate right now about "fixing" the Hebrew Calendar as seen here. Therefore, a static assumption of the calendar IS relevant. Also, if I might add, you seem to be moving the goal posts quite a bit with AJD. First you claim it isn't cited (it was), then you claim the cited source that AJD didn't add isn't reliable (perhaps, but AJD didn't add it so holding him responsible isn't fair dealing), then you pull the "verifiblity, not truth" card when nothing else seems to stick. I'm not entirely sure why you are being so hard on AJD over what is obviously a good faith effort to clarify the article on items previously cited, but I think you need to back off a little bit, lest I need to remind you that the policy against edit warring applies to you as well. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 23:01, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Shin--First of all, as to edit warring, I could be wrong but in the short period of time I was looking at -- a couple of hours -- I thought I had reverted twice; my friend, in contrast, had reverted 3 times, and done that despite a clear warning. As to the goal posts being moved -- at first no refs appeared on my display, and then a ref to a non-RS (clearly non-RS) appeared. It really doesn't matter who added it. That is of zero significance. What is significant is that -- other than OR -- it is only the non-RS ref that is being used to support the material that my friend wants to insert. So, of course, the conversation shifts accordingly. Your other discussion is all covered by wp:OR. And, of course, verifiability not truth is pretty basic -- but at the time that no refs appear, it would be odd to discuss it. I do believe it came up when refs were discussed, however, and it goes hand-in-hand with the non-RS issue, and the no OR issue. It's not a question of good faith either -- of course this is a good faith discussion. Who ever thought otherwise? But we don't put in OR, and non-RS-supported material, because the person supporting it is acting in good faith. At the same time, I recognize that we see things differently at times, as you were a "Strong Delete" !voter when the issue of this article even continuing to extis was discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thanksgivukkah, being of the view that the entire article should be deleted as the entire topic (let alone the minor fact at issue here) was not notable. With that as background, it is interesting that you find this fact to be appropriate for inclusion.--Epeefleche (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

That is ShinmaWa, not Shin. Be respectful and thanks in advance. I'm not going to wikilawyer with you about revert counts and all that. I'm really, really not. I'm more interested in attitude and intent. Rather than discussing the issue civilly, you skipped right over "discussion" and went straight to "threaten someone with a ban on their talk page". To me, that makes you the warrior, not ADJ. Additionally, ADJ was absolutely correct in what he said. Most of the reliable sources that you aspire to are, in fact, directly quoting the work done by the source that you are dismissing out of hand as original research and unreliable. How ironic! Face it, you are in the wrong on this one. (PS. My !vote in the AFD is immaterial here. Don't make this about me.) -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 00:00, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are so sensitive, but I guess you are. People refer to me here as Ep and Epee all the time. It's not as though they are stripping me of an honorific title. Assume good faith. There was not bad faith, and your comment suggest you assumed it by accusing me of not being respectful. So -- given that you as you say above -- are interested in "attitude and intent", I would urge you to assume good faith. That extends to assuming good faith about attitude and intent, of course. As to you saying that I "aspire to" reliable sources, I'm not sure what that means. As to your !vote at the AfD, it is interesting to me, as you wanted to delete the entire article (actually, "Strong" delete !vote), but are taking the opposite view here on a small non-RS-supported factoid within the article you wished to delete (which is now garnering 1,500 hits per day, and moving upward in that regard). That is to me a very interesting dichotomy -- and I'm not discussing you, but rather your positions at the Project in this regard.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:09, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I knew you were going to try to turn this into a discussion about me. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 00:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Epeefleche, please stop referring to the Mizrahi blog post as "non-RS". Per WP:SELFSOURCE, it is a reliable source for the sentence at hand. And I don't know what you mean by saying that the reference "appeared", since the ref had been present in the article in its current form and position for three and a half days before I ever edited the article, and was in fact put in that form by you. AJD (talk) 06:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

(It's also worth observing that notability is a criterion for what topics Wikipedia has articles about, not for what information about those topics is mentioned in the article; so your repeated references to things like "notability of that tidbit" are strictly speaking out of place.) AJD (talk) 06:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the self-published blog is an RS. And I don't think this is a situation where self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, as it is not an article about the blog, are making a claim that is not an exceptional claim, and does not involve claims about third parties. And of course I never added the blog as a source -- you are confusing running a copy-edit bot with adding a ref as a source. And while it is true that the notability standard for articles is different than the standard for specific information within the article, we do have standards for information within the article and material that no RS has cited is the sort of thing that is not considered sufficiently notable to include. Otherwise, we would be flooded with self-published blog "information" that no RSs have ever mentioned. In fact, the arguments at AfD against this article were by those who thought that everything in this article was trivial to that degree.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say you added the blog as a source; I'm just saying that, since you copy-edited it on November 9th, I'm baffled by your continued insistence that it "appeared" after this discussion began. I don't understand the second and third points you make about Mizrahi's blog post a non-RS, since "making a claim that is not an exceptional claim" and "does not involve claims about third parties" are arguments in favor of treating it as a reliable source. As for the first point, well, it doesn't seem to be in dispute that what Mizrahi said about when the next Thanksgivukkah is is "sufficiently notable to include", and if we're including it, then (1) we should do so accurately and (2) what Mizrahi said is a reliable source about what Mizrahi said. Also, I refer you to WP:COMMONSENSE (removing the qualifier "assuming the Jewish calendar is not revised" violates common sense, in that doing so makes the article misleading by stating a tongue-in-cheek joke as fact). AJD (talk) 15:07, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Where does your bafflement arise from? I ran a program that cleaned up formatting. Of course that is not tantamount to reading every ref in the article, and determining if it was an RS. Why is my running that at all relevant to this discussion? My other points begin with the lead-in that "I don't think this is a situation where ..." And yes, "common sense" is invariably used by editors who dislike wp:primary and other rules, in an effort to say we should do just the opposite, but common sense to me means that if no RSs cover it ... especially where as here the general subject is heavily covered ... it may not be worth us covering. Our goal is to reflect the RSs.--Epeefleche (talk) 17:24, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Your continued assertion that the Mizrahi blog post is not a reliable source per WP:PRIMARY for this purpose continues to be false. Anyway, yet again, my bafflement arises from the fact that the reference was in the article all along, and yet you continued to profess not to even see it there and that it "appeared" later, even after I had posted a link directly to it; however, my bafflement isn't really relevant to the article per se, so we needn't pursue this line of discussion. AJD (talk) 18:11, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Was the term really coined by anybody?

"The phrase was coined by a Boston-area resident who, along with her sister-in-law, created a Facebook page and a Twitter account devoted to the phenomenon."

Just because somebody created the Facebook page and Twitter account does not mean they "coined" the phrase. This is a term I started hearing immediately by people the moment it was realized that these holidays would fall on the same date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.214.189.2 (talk) 19:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Behold, the power of PR. Viriditas (talk) 02:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

"The convergence jump-starts the holiday season early for millions of American Jews."

What is the purpose of this statement? It doesn't really say much except paraphrase a particular news article's attention grabbing lede. This sentence also appears out of place in the article, neither relating to the paragraph before it, nor to the one after it. Hannukah is the only Jewish holiday in what is known "The Holiday Season" (which is just another word for "Christmas Season") and so Hannukah can't "jump-start" a season if it is the season. Not to mention that the real Jewish "holiday season" is actually September-October-ish, with the High Holidays and Sukkot. But if you take anything away from my argument here, let it be that this sentence is out of place in the article and relates to neither of its surrounding paragraphs. --- Wikitiki89 (talk) - 02:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Festivus is not a Jewish Holiday

Festivus was created by the writers of Seinfield TV show. I have removed reference to it being a Jewish holiday in the article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.1.77 (talk) 04:18, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Recent additions

I think the material added by IP editor 74.104.169.179 is not valuable to the article and I'd like to delete it. It consists mostly of far-future projections of when Chanukah will fall in November, which are (a) OR, or at least uncited; (b) not entirely germane to the article, which is about Chanukah coinciding with Thanksgiving specifically, not the general calendrical properties of Chanukah; (c) arguably in violation of WP:CRYSTAL (though admittedly that could be fixed by noting "if the calendar is not changed" again). Also, there are a couple descriptions of fallacies and misconceptions about the general properties of the Jewish calendar, which obviously belong not here but in Hebrew calendar. Does anyone object to me deleting these again? AJD (talk) 03:58, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

If there's no objection here, I'll delete it later today. AJD (talk) 13:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I object --- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.28.254.170 (talk) 06:45, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

On what grounds? Do you have arguments against the points that it's original research and that it's not relevant to the article? AJD (talk) 15:01, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm new to wikipedia so didn't understand this talk thing. First of all, calendars as they exist today are mathematical objects. I don't agree that WP:CRYSTAL applies the way you said. The statements are statements of fact as the calendars exist. It's like saying you will pay $5 on $100 sale at 5% sales tax. That's true now and in the future, no matter what sales tax is in the future. Having said that, the whole 70,000 year thing is just a mathematical thing, nobody believes that if life continues close enough to as we know it, that Hanukkah will be allowed to cycle through the year.

The relevance of the data has to do with the confusion that has surrounded the coinciding of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah. People are terribly confused as to whether it happens again in a few decades, or in 70,000 years. The existing words almost answer this, but lack the depth to provide clarity.

For example there are tons of Thanksgivukkah blogs with quotes stating "The Jewish calendar repeats on a 19-year cycle, and Thanksgiving repeats on a seven-year cycle. You would therefore expect them to coincide roughly every 19 x 7 = 133 years." However, this is not quite right in part because of the fallacy of the 19 year cycle. I could quote sources.

Also this whole thing has confused too many people about the difference between the first and second candle lighting falling on Thanksgiving. (2013 was a two candle lighting event)

Also nobody else has mentioned the simple fact that it won't be that many years before Hanukkah falls during the Thanksgiving weekend holiday.

Finally there persists the impression this is a random event like hitting the lottery or something, even though there are statements about drifting calendars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.169.179 (talk) 13:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for responding! So, I think I don't really see how the existing text of the article doesn't address most of your issues. For instance, I think the article as currently constituted is quite clear that (a) the first day of Chanukah will never again (in the foreseeable future) fall on or before Thanksgiving, (b) the reason for this is that the calendars drift out of sync, (c) the first night of Chanukah will fall on Thanksgiving a couple more times in the next two centuries, and (d) the calculation of 70,000whatever years is based on the assumption that calendar won't be revised. It could be clearer that (d) is a tongue-in-cheek calculation that a lot of media sources have decided to run with, and that because that's how long it will take to cycle all the way back around the calendar. It could also be clearer that in 2013 it was the second night of Chanukah that fell on Thanksgiving. I'll see if I can clear those up.

I think it's beyond the scope of this article to debunk every single misconception that's commonly mentioned in articles about Thanksgivukkah—especially misconceptions that aren't strictly about Thanksgivukkah itself. The place to clarify that the 19-year cycle isn't accurate is Hebrew calendar, if it needs clarifying. (Note that Thanksgiving also isn't on a 7-year cycle! The Gregorian calendar has a 28-year cycle on the small scale, and century years screw it up.)

I'll concede the point on WP:CRYSTAL, since it's not really at all probable that the Jewish calendar will be changed in the next 600 years. However, it's still original research in that you looked up the future dates yourself rather than citing someone else's calculation of them. Ordinarily I wouldn't object to this that much—don't tell anyone, I don't care that much about Wikipedia's OR policy, facts is facts—but in this case the reason it matters is that there's no evidence that anyone is interested in future overlaps between Chanukah and November that don't hit Thanksgiving; the reason "nobody else has mentioned" that it won't be very many years before Chanukah overlaps Thanksgiving weekend is because nobody cares. So from here it looks like you're filling up the article with extraneous non-notable text that's not about Thanksgivukkah, which makes the article more cumbersome and harder to read and find the useful information in. AJD (talk) 05:25, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

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