Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astrology/Archive 1

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how is this different?

Just curious--how is this different from regular contribution to articles? Doovinator 01:57, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the idea is that we will be able to have a centralized location from which to coordinate the creation and improvement of articles. Most of the other subjects on wikipedia are a lot more organized and well done than the astrology articles here because they have specific groups of people who specialize in the field, and they get together to coordinate their efforts. Part of the advantage of having a project like this is just to be able to organize all of the subject matter into the correct groups and subgroups, but also to be able to standardize the terminolgy used and other things that streamline the editing process and make it much easier. So, this wont really change the way that you usually contribute to articles, but it will just be a project to give more overall structure to astrological content of wikipedia in general. Make sense? --Chris Brennan 03:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good! Doovinator 03:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Does astrology articles need to be more co-ordinated? I mean apart from its historical reference hasn't it all been shown to be a falsehood based upon numerous scientific studies which show that by no physical mechanism could the motions of the planets and stars cause significat effects upon a human, and that people born close to each other have no statisticaly significant similarities relative to people born over invervals separated by a significant period of time? --Neo 22:44, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The validity of astrology, or lack thereof, is somewhat irrelevant within the context of Wikipedia. The goal of this project is mainly to present the beliefs and practices of various cultures and civilizations where there existed a specific systematic explanation of perceived or imaginary phenomena, or more specifically a system based on such an explanation that we refer to generally as astrology. What you seem to imply in your statement is that subjects which are 'wrong' or seen to be in bad taste should either not be addressed or should be left in a state of disorganization due to our culture's view of the subject. If we applied such logic to other areas of Wikipedia then we should also either not have, or not organize articles on World War II since the subject is somewhat distasteful, or on Aristotelian physics since it is wrong. This doesn’t make sense. So, the answer is 'yes', the astrology articles on Wikipedia do need to be more organized and coordinated because it is a rather large field that spans many different civilizations and time periods, and their is no reason to simply ignore that the subject exists. --Chris Brennan 23:43, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The idea that astrology "has been shown" to be a falsehood in some "scientific" way is an unfortunate misconception of what science is and is not. Science is rather good at demonstrating "what is", but very poor at proving "what isn't". The way of science is to start with a theory, seemingly prove 98.5% of it, and leave 1.5% to be figured out later. In a few years someone investigates the 1.5%, and discovers in fitting the pieces that, in fact, only 62% of the original theory is true, an additional 37% is explained by a new and different theory, and this leaves 1% unexplained, which another researcher tackles later, and another later, all to similar results. Science thus comes continually closer to "the truth", but never reaches it, and never categorically disproves anything. Doovinator 04:08, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That's an excellent example of the Pareto principle! --Fractain 00:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Categories

The Astrology category currently holds 9 subcategories and 159 pages. These will need to be re-categorized along the lines of entries in the box on the main page (also shown to the right of this text). So perhaps suggestions to expand or modify that list could be collected here.

I also have a technical question: How can this box be edited? Aquirata 10:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, figuring out the categories and getting that into place should be top priority since actually putting all of the astrology articles into categories will be such a big job. You can edit the astrology box at the following link. I just wanted to get something up initially, but maybe we should hold some discussions on how this should be organized. We are going to be covering a lot of uncharted territory in attempting to classify some of this stuff because it has never been done before on such a large scale where all of the traditions have to be taken into consideration. Do you have thoughts on how the structure of the template should look? Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Astrology

A historical (or traditional) categorization is certainly one we need. Then there is natal astrology, horary, electional, mundane, medical, financial, etc. Scientific research should certainly get its own page if not category. I don't understand the Astrology by type category as it seems like a potpourri of everything astrology. One cannot have a category where one item is natal astrology and another is sidereal astrology. Also, I think electional astrology is a much better understood term than katarchic astrology is; same for horary vs interrogational astrology.

The organization by traditions may need some tweaking when it comes to 20th century astrology because of the sudden diversity of traditions that sprung up in the 20th century. At this point I just left it as "Western astrology" since that appears to be the main article on mainstream modern western astrology at this point, but I was thinking that it might be a better idea to replace that entry in the template with a large page on 20th century astrology/traditions, and then that page can discuss and link to the specific developments in the 20th century. I don’t really understand the astrology by type category either, but I just added it because I wanted to get together all of the preexisting categories on Wikipedia for astrology so that we could remake them. I guess that I would agree about the naming of horary and electional astrology, I just got used to using those older terms based on their common usage in academic works on astrology. I will change those right now, although both of the pages that they will link to are badly in need of work. The entire page on electional astrology is almost solely on Indian electional astrology, and while I agree that that is valuable, I think that the page should be more neutral in explaining what the subject is and its implications, and then branching off into different pages which explain its application in different traditions. It seems that there is quite a bit of work to be done here. I think that we are going to need more recruits. --Chris Brennan 20:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Chris is right. The subject of Astrology is so major, spanning so many centuries, that perhaps the best way is to assign sections to those who have expertise and knowledge in these areas. One of the ways, that may help is taking two titles, Judicial (classical) Astrology and Natural Astrology and working within those pairs. I agree with Chris also on the Electional Astrology being solely based on Indian electional astrology; however, historical facts should suffice there as well with branches, as Chris suggested, going into different pages that can expand on the various astrological cultural traditions.

I think you probably just have an ambiguous sentence here, but I wonder if Chris thinks that electional astrology is of Hindu origin. It's probably the oldest Hellenistic astrology and clearly has origins in the Mediterranean long before Dorotheus in the First. The Hindus got astrology from the Mediterranean world originally. I don't think there's much room for doubt about that. At best, you might say there was some technical cross-pollination. And modern-day Hindu prasna is not at all the same as Western electional. NaySay 21:32, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall saying anything about electional astrology originating in India, so I'm not exactly sure where this is coming from. I have been making the argument for a while that interrogational astrology originated in India, but that is a separate matter that I'm still researching. --Chris Brennan 21:43, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, Chris. I'd love to see that stuff, if you're willing to share. NaySay 15:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Funny, I didn't know that William Lilly, who predicted the fire of London in 1660, was practicing Hindu astrology. Andrew Homer 19:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The thing is that many people, while they've heard of Astrology, mostly have a popular culture view, which isn't much, when they hear the term. So, when they turn to resouces like Wikipedia, the Astrology Page itself should be clear, and clean enough to lead the reader towards sections that perhaps they are looking for, or want to learn more about (this includes critical views on astrology that provide perspective, rather than seeking to debunk the subject outright based on POV, either individual, or group-based conventional. Chris' direction helps provide more neutrality which is a definite road towards getting an expansive, knowledge-building, and cleaner Astrology Page.Theo

External links

I have added a link to the 'Objective validity of astrology' article (now stored on Wikinfo) at the bottom of the page in a new section entitled 'External links'. This will preserve the link even if it is removed from the Astrology page. Research notes and suggestions for title change from old Talk page have also been copied over to Wikinfo. Aquirata 07:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Excellent resource Aquirata. Thanks!Theo

Counter-Earth and Antichthon

User:Mrwuggs is proposing to merge Counter-Earth and Antichthon together. Previously, it appears he merged both into the Antichthon article. This would be wrong, since the Counter-Earth article is not mainly involved with the Antichthon concept of antiquity. 132.205.44.134 02:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

1181 Lilit/1181 Lilith

Hello,

there is a discussion on whether the asteroid 1181 Lilith has any relation at all to the astrological concept of the second moon / black moon / Lilith. From the section on the article, it seems that these two concepts are disjoint, and only share a name in common. There is an article Lilith (hypothetical moon). 132.205.93.148 00:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

There's thousands of asteroids, and one of them is called Lilith. The "Black Moon Lilith" is a 20th-c. idea about the possible effect of some nodal positions on the Moon's orbit. So, no, you're right-- they are not the same thing. There's an awful lot of asteroids and we basically know nothing about the effect of any of them, since almost all astrological literature long pre-dates their discovery and naming. Some of the larger ones (e.g., Ceres) have been promoted to planetoids by scientists, which is likely to spur even greater speculation on their possible significance in the future, but not much has been written about any of them, except a few books about Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Juno and Chiron--which are, again, purely speculative, and generally based on a kind of free-association with their names. Any information on Lilith would be of the same nature. However, an internet search on "asteroid + Lilith" would probably net some information like this about that asteroid. I don't know if this project will soon address asteroids. For me, the topic is very peripheral, but perhaps others will disagree. NaySay 11:17, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Michael Erlewine

Astrology software pioneer (with Matrix Software) and AllMusicGuide founder Michael Erlewine has material he would like to include in the article. I'm unable to determine much about his astrology software claims, and hope that someone here can help make the article compliant while being fair to Erlewine's desire for coverage of this aspect of his career. See Talk:Michael Erlewine#Request for comment. --Dhartung | Talk 03:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia'a own Horoscope charts

Some time ago there was a discussion on what Wikipedia's own horoscope looked like. See Talk:Astrology/archive1#A_Horoscope_for_Wikipedia and these charts were produced . But a precise time was not available.

I just came across information on the posting of the first edit held here Wikipedia:UuU which shows the first ever edit at 21:08, 16 January 2001.

Perhaps the Wikipedia Astrology project could decide a suitable fate for this information Lumos3 09:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's foundation Sidereal chartSee interpretation

Wikipedia's foundation Tropical chart

Hmm. I asked around on the #Wikipedia IRC channel and a user suggested I ask here. Sam 15:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Another attempt at asking hasn't garnered much more, but nonetheless: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2007_May_14#Time_of_creation_of_Wikipedia

Just noticed something... in the "Date and time" tab in the user preferences, the example date is January 15, 2001 at 16:12. Maybe this was the time the site went online? Drawing a chart for this time (I presume the time is in UTC as everything else recorded by the server is) is very interesting. It gives Aquarius rising at 18 degrees with Uranus at 19. Samuel Grant 16:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Astrology

Hello all! I created the Astrology Portal as requested in the "Current goals" section of the main project page. Feel free to help out! AQu01rius (User • Talk) 03:38, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks great! Sam 19:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I've started a discussion on the featured article for January. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Sam 00:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

When you say "editors" are you referring to people as myself with 35 years experience in astrology who have contributed to the "Astrology" and "Zodiac" articles or the censors who keep deleting my contributions though they never have studied the topics? Andrew Homer 06:18, 3 January 2007 (UTC)