Talk:Jewish astrology

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jewish astrology/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Davidbena (talk · contribs) 02:08, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Davidbena: I don't think you are supposed to review your own nominations. Maybe withdraw the nomination and start again, see WP:GAN/I#N3. This also applies to all the other self-reviews you started today. If you are unsure, you could ask at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations. The instructions for starting a nomination are found at WP:GAN/I#N1. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:34, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

My understanding is that I'm not allowed to comment (review) an article that I submitted for nomination. Can you please show me where I have done something amiss by only saving a page for the review process? If I am in error, I will definitely correct my mistake and withdraw the nomination. Please explain.Davidbena (talk) 16:31, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

By clicking on the button "start review", you automatically become the reviewer. On this page, just below the headline "GA Review", it says "Reviewer: Davidbena". As the nominator, you are supposed to wait till someone else clicks that button to review the article. Once this has happened, you are free to comment the review but the decision of whether to promote the article belongs to the reviewer. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:40, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

The instructions given for nominating an article for "Good Article status" state explicitly that after submitting a request for review, the submitter must save the submission. See, for example, this here. How then was I supposed to "save" the nomination? After you have explained this to me, and I have realized that I have erred, I will remove the "GA nominee" template from the article talk page.Davidbena (talk) 01:06, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

For Your Information: I have resubmitted the nomination, without clicking onto the review.Davidbena (talk) 01:30, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Jewish Texts

Is there any historic books on Jewish astrology or main books?

~~ Ted ~~ 2607:FEA8:4A2:4100:6176:95AF:D85D:D9C1 (talk) 21:52, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

This talk page is for the discussion of edits to this page and not for general discussions of or questions about the topic. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:13, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Its not a general question about the topic. Its for including into the article (since the topic doesnt really list any historical books used or written by Jewish astrologers).

~~Ted~~ 2607:FEA8:4A2:4100:CA8:3176:DDFE:74FA (talk) 04:35, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

That would depend on what you mean by "historic books." There are several rabbinic works dating back several hundred years which speak on Jewish astrology. There is also the Babylonian Talmud, a momentous work written 1,500 years ago which also discusses in depth the subject of Jewish astrology.Davidbena (talk) 17:31, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Topic section?

There's least seven synagogues in Israel built 1,500 to 1,700 years ago feature mosaics of the zodiac. There may be others. Can someone write it into the topic?

~~Ted~~ 2607:FEA8:4A2:4100:CA8:3176:DDFE:74FA (talk) 04:41, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jewish astrology/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

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

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)

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

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)

• 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)

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)

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)

• 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)

• 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that in Jewish astrology it is permissible to gain an occult knowledge of the stars' influences on human beings, but that the actual worshiping of the stars is prohibited? Source: Maimonides, Moses (1956). Guide for the Perplexed. Translated by Michael Friedländer (2nd ed.). New York: Dover Publishers, p. 159 (part II chapter V)
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: This article reached "Good Article" status within the past 24 hours.

Created by Davidbena (talk). Self-nominated at 14:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Jewish astrology; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• 

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: Recently promoted to GA, great research and a compelling hook. No Swan So Fine (talk) 14:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

• LlywelynII, thanks for helping me promote the article Vatican Hebrew MS 133 to DYK status. My question now concerns the article Jewish astrology which has been nominated, some time ago, for DYK, but seems to be on hold, or perhaps, has even been forgotten. What can I do to expedite its DYK status? Davidbena (talk) 08:34, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, this is weird. 1st, I'm happy you saw that more as a force for good than just being annoying. I do think that article ended up better, even though I was just helping prune around the edges. 2nd, this is nuts. They did fully approve this and then (I guess) forgot about it. I will try to look around and take care of this for you but in the future if anything happens like this—things like this don't normally happen—the surest bet would be to poke the active project people at Wikipedia talk:Did you know. I know that's kind of hidden but it's the talk page for the queue part where the promoters and admins talk about what actually goes up next and how. 3rd, what a fun topic. Thanks for creating it!  — LlywelynII 14:15, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I thought. It had been removed from Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded on July 17 but somehow missed being in the Template:Did you know/Queue. For now, I've just relisted it on the normal page and hope someone will notice all the ticks. If that gets autohidden again, post something to that talk page I gave you. Even weirder: Same thing seems to have happened to my {{Did you know nominations/Marcus Junius Gracchanus}} and {{Did you know nominations/Temple of Piety}}. — LlywelynII 14:19, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

@Davidbena: Oh, one thing that might've caused this problem. @No Swan So Fine: seems to have "approved" your nomination while simultaneously ing your QPQ instead of N/Aing it. Is this another one of the nominations you've submitted that are in your first five? If so, leave a note about that so the promoter sees it. — LlywelynII 14:25, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for @ing me! I've fixed it to NA. No Swan So Fine (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

• I pulled the article from Queue 6 due to citation concerns. These need to be resolved before this can be promoted again. Z1720 (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Marking it as unapproved until citation needed tags are resolved. Cielquiparle (talk) 04:52, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle: I am not sure what you mean by saying "until citation needed tags are resolved." Can you please explain to me what is meant by this? If you mean the place in the article where the hook is mentioned, it can be found in the first sentence of the section which is headed by the words: Proscription against idolatry. I would gladly fix the problem myself if I knew what exactly you are referring to.Davidbena (talk) 22:49, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

@Davidbena: In the article, I have placed "citation needed" tags after the sentences and other places that need inline citations. These references are not for the hook, but to verify other information in the article. These should be resolved. Z1720 (talk) 01:40, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Aha! Now I understand. I'll go through the article and try and fill-in these requested citations.Davidbena (talk) 02:10, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

@Z1720:, @Cielquiparle:, to the best of my ability, I have filled-in all the requested citations with their individual sources. If I've missed anything, please let me know.Davidbena (talk) 03:51, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Davidbena. There is still one unresolved cn-tag in the Kabbalah section, and the table in the Astral influences section requires citations(s). Cielquiparle (talk) 04:00, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I have addressed those issues as well. Thanks!Davidbena (talk) 20:50, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Restoring green tick as citation needed tags have been resolved. Cielquiparle (talk) 03:07, 6 September 2023 (UTC)