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This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination: Retarget, 8 May 2019, see discussion. merge to Astrology, 26 March 2012, see discussion.

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Mundane Astrology

Mundane Astrology article

Historical Predictions section

I suggest removing the historical predictions section as it is poorly sourced and the link of many of the entries to the topic is dubius. I also propose deleting any unreferenced sections, are there any objections/comments? IRWolfie- (talk) 12:56, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Be my guest. I doubt any of those sections could be reliably sourced anyway. It is notorious difficult to find reliable sources for astrology-related topics. Modern astrology is practically never treated in scholarly sources, and most of the sources that exist are non-reliable coffee table books and for-entertainment-purposes-only do-it-yourself guides and such which give wildly conflicting information. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:06, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the material, as per WP:BURDEN be aware that the burden of proof lies with the restorer. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:14, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikis and blogs

Neither are reliable sources, and they all need to go. 86.** IP (talk) 13:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Concerns about the skeptical sections

I propose that we delete the last two paragraphs (and the quotation) - it's enough to say that astrology is a pseudo-science. --Salimfadhley (talk) 22:53, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Rebuilding content

This page was proposed for deletion a few months ago for having mostly unreferenced poor quality content. It was decided to reduce most of its content and merge what remained into History of astrology as a subsection of that page. However, mundane astrology is a branch - a type of astrology, not a period of its history, so this content does not fit on that page.

I have taken the content that was merged out of the History of astrology page and will aim to recreate a more appropriate page, starting initially with the text that was salvaged in the merge. I will add a little more to develop this, but want the original text from the merge to be seen as it is before adding anything to it. Almost all of the astrology project pages reference this page because it is one of the top importance pages for the astrology project, and links to it are built into the project footer-templates. -- Zac Δ 23:01, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Have added more information and references. I believe that all the previous problems identified in the earlier delete proposal have been fixed. If any remain, please discuss. -- Zac Δ 23:06, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Contribution of content concering Richard Trewythian's practice of mundane astrology

This is a contribution of new content which relies on a good academic source and adds (I believe) informative encyclopedic content to the page. If anyone feels differently, please amend as necessary. I have no other planned contributions in the short term. -- Zac Δ 14:48, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Posting discussion regarding the return to redirect

I am on a wiki-break so I will post a record of a discussion made on my talk page, concerning whether this article can be recreated as I attempted to do. See diff here for the state it was in when IRWolfie decided to turn it into a redirect that now leads nowhere.

The result of the recent AfD discussion Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Mundane_astrology on Mundane Astrology was merge to Astrology (or optionally History of Astrology). Add a section to Astrology and work from there, then when it's a decent size a discussion can reach a consensus on the issue. The current text does have several issues. Mostly the basing sections off items which don't have a necessarily clear link to the topic. For example, some of Ptolemy's text looks like it applies to Astrology in general rather than the specific subtopic. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Not unless you read it with your eyes closed. There is nothing on that page which is not directly relevant to the topic. The article refers to the second book of the Tetrabiblos, which is only about mundane astrology, and as the article says, the most important source of principle and technique. I read the policies and made sure I was following the advice given when someone wants to redevelop an article like this. The result of the process was applied to that old content; not this new content which doesn't have any of those past issues. You did the wrong thing - nothing prohibits the redevelopment of a page in this way. That's one of the reasons why the history of the page is kept in-tact, to allow future redevelopment. It's inevitable that page has to be recreated - of the 633 articles associated with the astrology project it is one of only 14 rated to be of top priority. I'll leave it to you to consider. If you think I broke a policy then I'll take it up on an appropriate board when I have more time. Or you could check the policies yourself, and use your common sense.-- Zac Δ talk! 20:37, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree in principle that mundane astrology deserves its own article. I think that IRWolfie's suggestion, to piggy-back mundane astrology on the astrology article for the time being, is better than sticking it onto the "history of astrology" article. I do have a question about sources for the mundane astrology article. It seems to me that the book "Mundane Astrology" by Baigent, Campion, and Carter is a natural source to use for this subject, but my impression is that others are inclined to dispute its reliability for wikipedia purposes. If anybody thinks this book isn't a reliable source, could you please say so and explain why.--Other Choices (talk) 00:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

IRWolfie; please confirm whether you still maintain there is a problem with regard to the relavancy of the text I developed for this topic. If not, please undo the reversion of the developed text into a redirect or explain clearly here why you believe there is some policy prohibiting this subject from having the opportunity to redevelop its own page. Thank you -- Zac Δ 15:16, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The WP:CONSENSUS on the issue was clear at the AfD, merge it to Astrology (or possibly History of Astrology). We can discuss a split again when the content is up to scratch. Also, discussions about the reliability of sources etc reach a much larger audience on the astrology page, making working on the content even easier too. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Baigent is a writer of pseudohistory, so the work is not reliable. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The decision of the consensus was followed through, though obviously in a thoughtless manner, resulting in the remaining content being plomped into the History of astrology page where its definition was not relevant. Its an exercise in silliness to suggest that all this content should go on the Astrology page first, in order to evaluate whether it should be split from that page to allow the further development of context I wish to undertake.

First you suggested the content was not relevant to this subject (!) now you imply that the content is not "up to scratch" - please specify why you doubt that.

The place for exposing a discussion on the reliability of sources to a much larger audience is on the reliable sources noticeboard.

I intend to reference the point currently substantiated by Michael Baigent's work to that of Francesca Rochberg, a reliable source, which can also be used to substantiate the comment supported by refs3 & 4.

Note that Other Choices post did not ask about the reliability of Baigent's text, but the well known work Mundane Astrology, jointly edited by Baigent, Campion and Harvey. This is not a good source for substantiating historical points, but as a notable and authorative account of its principles and practice it can be used to verify content that relates to those issues. -- Zac Δ 16:15, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I restored this re-created article, for the reasons given at the deletion review noticeboard here. As I mentioned there, I think the Baigent citation for footnote #1 is unreliabe, but it should be easy to find a reliable source that makes the same uncontroversial point. As Zac points out, the reliability of the Baigent/Campion/Harvey book is a different question.--Other Choices (talk) 02:36, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

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