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Can we consider Indian Astrology as astronomy?
Indian Astrology has mentioned about the basics of modern astrology. Apart from Varaha Samhita any other texts available on Indian Astrology/ Jyotish?

It is worth noting, the StackExchange for Hinduism has a tag for astrology.

The point of astrology is making predictions about human affairs from the positions of celestial bodies. This is pseudoscience: there is no empirically observed pattern (if we leave out the weather and climate effects of the sun and tides) and people usually just assign traditional interpretations. However, motivated by astrology people have been doing meticulous observations and improved observation methods for a long time: this is a systematic search for knowledge, science. So, yes, there are parts of astronomy inside ancient astrology. Fortunately they got out.

Quite similar situation seen in transitioning from alchemy to chemistry, perhaps.

We have ruled in this community that astrology of any sort, despite its historical entanglement with astronomy, is off-topic because of the pseudoscience mentioned by Anders. That said, if the questions are motivated by astrological sources but concern only astronomical phenomena, then they are on topic. Also, we have allowed questions about devices (such as symbols) that are in use in astronomy where the answer lies in the history of astrology.

While it is probably not very clearly stated, the site is mostly about mainstream science, i.e. mainstream science of the today. But in my opinion, that part what could be considered a rudimentary form of the astronomy of the today, I think it might be okay (for example: "Indian astronomists in b.c. <big number> observed ..., could it have been a supernova?").
Note, the distinction between science and religion exists only some hundred years ago, and only in our civilization. The people of the ancient times did not consider them "astronomists with religion X (here hinduism)". On this reason, the part what is today considered science, is on-topic on https://hsm.stackexchange.com (History of Science and Math), because this site deals better not only the historical knowledge, but also with the world-view of the people at the time.
The part what is not science today, might be on-topic on https://hinduism.stackexchange.com and or on https://mythology.stackexchange.com .
The part of what is considered "astrology" today, is probably off-topic network-wide.


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Interest in Photo of the Week?
We used to have Topic of the Week a few years ago but it lost steam after a few weeks. I've seen other sites have Photo/Screenshot/etc. of the Week and would like to introduce it to Astronomy. Any thoughts regarding this?
NB: Also, see Should we revive the Topic of the Week? and Monthly focus tag

I like the idea in principle, but... Are you thinking of restricting to users submitting their own personal astro-photos, or can they be any astronomical image from any source? You also might add to your question how the process works. For example Photography SE showcases photos, there must be a meta post that explains the mechanism; who decides what photo gets posted, who is responsible for deciding which one, etc. Note that proposals that make more work for moderators usually don't get very far! :-)

I think photo of the week would be more appropriate for chat than meta.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


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Are "vague" edit comments acceptable?
Often, I edit questions, and put a simple comment into the edit box, like "minor edit" or "major changes" and what not. Is this too vague and needs to be more specific, or is it fine?

More specificity doesn't hurt, but it's also not really necessary. It's usually pretty easy to see from the diff provided what the changes are. Really, the edit summary is most helpful for large edits to give a reviewer an overview of the purpose of the changes, to reduce the amount of processing necessary to understand what they are looking at when they scroll through the changes.

I occasionally use edit comments to make gentle hints to the post author, eg "Added attribution for material quoted from Wikipedia". ;)

@PM2Ring Yes, they can be helpful for that as well

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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A potential sign that Astronomy is about to graduate?
We've got a bunch of questions over the years about "Are we graduating soon?" and "When is the next moderator election?", etc. Just recently, I noticed that the sidebar for questions now contains a globe icon as well as the "Teams" ad/promotion. Is this a sign that we will graduate soon, or is this added by default in a new SE update?
Edit (10 seconds later): Also the UI for questions has been changed just a tiny bit.

See https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/362203/334566

No, this is a network-wide change to all beta sites.


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Are my comments being poorly received?
Recently, I left a few comments on different posts, and received negative responses from other users. In the past, I have left the same kind of comment before, without any complications. So is there anything that I'm doing wrong, and what can I do to redeem myself?

What did the negative responses say? In what way were they insufficient in explaining what the concern was? I know I've left some from time to time and often (but not always) they relate to what I thought was being overly tough on new users. Here are a few that I've found;

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Different but related: this question mentions the creation of the "rocket ship game tag" which seems off-topic in Astronomy SE.

@uhoh How do you put text over URL?

@User123 Use [Text](URL) in the Markdown.

@fasterthanlight Thank you! I didn't know this before.

@fasterthanlight if you look at my posts, that's how I do it there as well. I only use inline links in my posts. I don't use the links at the bottom, i.e. [text][1] + [1]: url This makes it much easier to copy/paste a block of text from one post to another without worrying about all those links at the bottom and numbers conflicting. some discussion here.

You weren't specific about the negative feedback, though uhoh's given some possible examples.  For myself, I like to periodically read the closed questions guidance and our code of conduct to remind myself what the site is about.  I also try not to vote or make decisions unless I am quite sure they are consistent with the linked guidance and precedent for the site.
I don't think you have to redeem yourself as I believe our community doesn't hold grudges!  I would suggest trying to use negative feedback to improve, if possible, without being so hard on yourself! I think you will continue to get positive feedback for thoughtful, helpful comments, especially on new users' posts.
Tomorrow will be another beautiful day on the stack exchange, so let's get out there and teach and learn some astronomy!

Me too, I every now and then close a question with the wrong (read: not fully thought-through) reasons, but I am thankful for careful observers (like @uhoh) to remind me if I did so.


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Reviving the Astronomy SE blog
Our blog, An Eye On the Universe, has been inactive for two years. I recently joined the short list of contributors (see these posts: 1 and 2), and have begun to contribute to the blog.
So I am wondering, is it a good idea to revive our blog, even though it is rather old and lacks contribution? If anyone is interested or have any questions, please post this in an answer.

How many blogposts have been contributed in total?

@uhoh There is one post (bar the welcome post) and one draft.


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Post your pictures of the Beaver Moon Lunar Eclipse here!
Last year I posted a place for Great Conjunction photos. As tonight's eclipse will be longest partial lunar eclipse in about 500 years, I just wanted to reach out and offer a spot to compile a list of some of your best photos! Please specify your camera specifications (shutter speed, ISO, etc.) , the time taken, and the photo (obviously). Enjoy the photos!

I have some modest photos, will post them shortly. I think it's great that you post these here in meta, thanks!

Taken at 4:32 AM EST (9:32 UTC) with my old 2007 Nikon D40. I've cropped the image to focus on the Moon:

Aperture size: f/4.5
Exposure time: 2.2 s
ISO: 200
Focal length: 100 mm


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Site customization ideas?
Just today, we graduated from beta! :D
@ConnorGarcia notes in his post:

Site customization, such as custom background and badge design isn't immediately planned but may be available in the future.

I'd like to just put out a place where any suggestions for site banner, badge design, or background could be accepted as proposals. Again, congratulations everyone on site graduation!

Keep in mind that SE has said that site design takes a lot of resources, and there are still many older sites (such as History) that have no custom design yet either, so it may be several years before site design is an option and at that point design standards may have changed.

According to the official announcement - https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/374096/236563 - site redesigns aren't happening at the moment.  It may be a while for any such suggestions to be implemented.


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Is it a good idea to create a much-needed tag and retag (almost) every post related to it to include this tag?
Recently, I created the tag hr-diagram as there are many questions regarding it.  I went ahead and edited a few questions to include this new tag. Would it be a good idea to retag all the 82 (and counting) results that include the phrase HR diagram, or should we keep them as is and let new questions trickle in with this tag?

Manually retagging more than 4-5 questions in a big batch is discouraged because unfortunately it clutters the active questions feed. But if you want to slowly work them in over time, I don't see anything wrong with that. Since you use an abbreviation you should probably create a tag excerpt that describes the tag and spells out Hertzsprung-Russell diagram.

Definitely agree with what called2voyage said. I think typical advice is to also do those batches on weekends where activity is low, meaning that you're not taking up space from as many recently-active questions.

@fasterthanlight here's an example. I tried to do it in a few "waves" rather than all at once for the reasons mentioned above. I found it helpful to work in chronological order (use "newest" when doing searches) and to keep a list of which posts were modified, just in case it's necessary to reverse something or make a further change in the future, as well as to keep track of progress and to allow people to yell at me if I did something wrong and to defend myself if they say I did but I didn't :-) (It's a big undertaking/site impact)


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When is the next Moderator Election?
Okay, so our newest moderator (HDE 226868) was appointed in 2018. So I am wondering, when will our next moderator election occur?

Beta sites don't have regular elections like graduated sites. Basically, elections only occur on an as needed basis. I've requested to have an election to bring on another mod, and the CM team says it's slated at some point in the future (no specific dates yet).


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Removing the [ar] tag?
This question used to have a tag called ar. I'm assuming this was a mistake, so I edited it out of the tags. Would it be possible to remove it?

Zero question tags are removed automatically.


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Can we have a guideline about astrology for the on-topic section in the help center?
As it stands now, the Help Center for on-topic questions does not mention anything about questions about astrology, which is off-topic such as this recent question (which might get deleted soon by the roomba). Can we have another guideline about astrology-related questions?

I adapted the text from our faq and added it to the Help Center:

What questions are off topic here?
[...]
Questions which require answers from astrology (e.g. horoscopes). However, you may ask questions that are motivated by astrological sources but concern only astronomical phenomena. Also, we have allowed questions about devices (such as symbols) that are in use in astronomy where the answer lies in the history of astrology.

Can we have a "community specific reason" closing comments for astrology questions just like we have for Earth Science type of question? Maybe something like "question related to astrology are off-topic ...."?

@NilayGhosh That's possible, yes. We have limited slots for those (2 of 3 remaining) so you'd need to make that a separate meta question for people to vote on.

@called2voyage Thanks. I have asked: https://astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/845/should-we-have-a-community-specific-closing-reason-for-astrology-questions


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Is it okay to seek website recommendation?
I need the data for a specific watchable astronomical event. But until today I couldn't find the data I want. Is it okay to ask users here if they know the source(s) of the data I need (website, book, article, etc.)?

The guidance for the tag resource-request (78 questions) is:

Questions asking "What is a good book about X?" or more generally, "What should I read to learn about X?", typically where there is not a single authoritative reference. Also requests for multimedia, like video lectures.

It doesn't specifically say "websites" there are many resource requests who's answers are websites, and there are certainly several explitic website requests which are well received and answered, just for example:

Is there a website that shows equivalent views through different telescopes?
Is there a website out there where I can find/compare data on stellar parameters for the brightest stars?
Is there any site with telescopes data?

and the community wiki answer to our canonical

Where can I find the positions of the planets, stars, moons, artificial satellites, etc. and visualize them?

is choc-full of websites.
So I would say
###Yes, absolutely!
Just make sure it's a good Stack Exchange question, and include some evidence that you've tried and failed, or what you found is inefficient in some way.
No "please find a site for me, I'm too busy to look" questions please!


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Is it justifiable to block someone for posting a factually wrong but still clear question?
My question has in fact two parts.

Does it mean you're blocked if you want to mention someone with a @ sign, but no sugesstions show up?

Is it justifiable to block someone just because they have posted a factually wrong question? While the question still is clear and answerworthy.

There's no way for one user to block notifications from another across the board, so your problem is likely just due to one of the technical limitations of pinging someone in a comment.
To start, there are only a small set of people who can be notified with @ in a given comment, effectively just those who have already engaged with the post in some way (e.g. as author, commentor, etc.). This has always been in line with Stack Exchange's desire to distinguish itself from a social network and make interactions focus on content, rather than people (see for example, the rule of thumb to "vote for the post, not the person"). It's similar to the rationale for not having a system for private messages. Sure, sometimes this means that someone won't see a question that might be within their area of expertise or interest (although the odds are much lower on a site as small as our own). On the other hand, it has the additional advantages of allowing folks to choose how they engage and to avoid harassment.
If the person you're trying to notify falls into that notifiable set of users but still doesn't show up as pingable, check the FAQ I liked to above to see whether you're dealing with any of the problems that occasionally spring up (e.g. trying to notify multiple people, running into an issue caused by punctuation in a username, etc.).

The user I was trying to ping had commented on his answer on my question after I commented on his answer. I tried to ping him with @x format. But the entire user's name didn't show up to click. However, I wrote my comment with the @x before the body, but when the comment was posted, the @x disappeared!

@SnackExchange Ah, users are always notified of any comments on their own posts -- and because of the this, the system cuts off the leading @x to save some space. So they should have been notified even though you didn't see the popup.


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Should we have a community-specific closing reason for Astrology questions?
Previous discussions:

Should we add non-physical and/or astrology questions to the off-topic list?
Can we consider Indian Astrology as astronomy?
Can we have a guideline about astrology for the on-topic section in the help center?

Point is astrology questions are off-topic. So, shouldn't we have a community-specific closing reason just like we have for Earth-Science questions instead of mentioning that "this question is off-topic as it doesn't appear to be scope of this site"?
*called2voyage motivated me to ask this as a separate question based on the recent discussion involving astrology questions

Ok, the close reason in my answer below is now active.

I think this is a good idea. Here's my suggestion of close reason text, adapted from the Help Center text:

Questions which require answers from astrology (e.g. horoscopes) are off-topic, unless they concern devices (such as symbols) that are in use in astronomy where the answer lies in the history of astrology. For more information, see the meta discussion.


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Why was my flag to an answer containing "advertisement content" declined?
I flagged an answer which contained advertisement to a certain website about coaching. The flag was declined. Nonetheless the answer was moved as a comment (which I don't have any problems with). However, the answer was later flagged as "spam or rude or abusive". It was accepted and that has led to getting that "answer"converted into a comment.

I have two queries:

Why was my flag declined when it had advertisement content? The "answer" could have moved to a comment then only (at least the first 3 (maybe 4) sentences).
Why it was later flagged "spam or rude or abusive" (and was accepted)? It was neither of them.

I had to do some digging to figure out the sequence of events (despite being the one who handled all of these), but I think I've pieced it together.

It looks like you accidentally flagged the question, rather than the answer; I declined the flag because of course the question of course isn't self-promotion (although there are other issues with it).
I actually didn't manually mark the two flags on the answer -- one as spam, one as not an answer -- as helpful. Instead, I directly converted the answer to a comment, which simultaneously automatically deletes the post. Because the post was deleted, the system also automatically marked the flags as helpful.

I probably should have manually declined the spam flag before doing anything else; fortunately, I think there was minimal harm done.

I am quite careful with raising flags, but if you say I accidently flagged the question instead of the answer, then it must be a mistake from my part (probably less coffee). And, yes there is no harm done. Just a small query from my side. Cheers!

@NilayGhosh Cheers -- I'm pretty sure this is what happened, but the interface could afford to be a little bit clearer about it. . .


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Should the wording on the 'close vote' window dialogue be changed?
If a question on Astronomy Stack Exchange is off-topic and we vote to close, we get this window:
Then, if we click on "A community-specific reason" we get this window:

This kind of implies that it might be an acceptable to close a question if it isn't best suited to Astronomy Stack Exchange.  But uhoh has made this strong argument in the comments here:

@ConnorGarcia we should only close questions when they are off-topic
where they are asked, not for "I think it's better asked elsewhere" by
itself. Some questions are on-topic in multiple sites and some are
off-topic everywhere. There isn't always a 1:1 correspondence between
questions and their sites. The OP decides where to ask. We can make
suggestions, and we vote to close if we are pretty sure the question
is off-topic locally.

Is the wording in the "close vote" window misleading?

The wording in the close vote windows is meant to imply: if the question is not suited for this site, then specify why. It is not meant to imply that a question is unacceptable here if the question is also on topic elsewhere. If you can think of a better way to phrase that to make that clear, then you may want to make a suggestion at Meta Stack Exchange for better visibility.

My understanding of SE's inner workings is limited. Is the particular wording under discussion here the same for all SE sites and so the suggestion would have to work for all sites? Or at least for all beta sites? Or is it something that can be implemented locally?

@uhoh As far as I'm aware that section is not tailorable. Certainly not at the mod level.

Since the OP has only been in Stack Exchange for two months, I'm thinking that they may not fully appreciate the monumental task of posting a question in meta asking for something to be changed that affects all sites. I do agree that "This question belongs on another site..." is suggestive and I think I've seen people cite the existence of that wording as defense of their own creative close reasons. This is a good idea, but if it's not presented properly and clearly in meta it might be quickly shot down. So "make a suggestion at meta" might understate the task.

@uhoh The OP (myself) is a total newb.  Just looking for some discussion/direction on why/how we should close posts and if the 'close window' verbiage is consistent.  I am going to seek to understand before I seek to change.  Though it seems to me the window would be tailorable at the Astronomy Stack Exchange level since they specifically call out Earth Science.


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Why do we care if Pluto is classified as a planet?
Why do we care if Pluto is classified as a planet? Classification doesn't change anything fundamental about Pluto, like the orbital parameters or composition. We can't hurt an inanimate object's feelings, correct?
In the case of our Solar System, do we expect the taxonomy to change as our understanding changes due to new discoveries?  I wouldn't think the taxonomy would at all drive or affect the science of Astronomy, but rather be driven by it.  I don't see how astronomers' execution of the scientific method changes at all depending on Pluto's classification.
Is it that Pluto scientists worried about reduced funding or status?
Note:  This question is not meant to provoke an argument of whether Pluto should be classified as a planet.  Instead, I am genuinely curious as to why it matters for the field of Astronomy.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Is it that Pluto scientists worried about reduced funding or status?

I did some searching to see if and how the classification as a planet would matter.
According to a piece by the Atlantic:

A planetary designation may be largely cultural, but that doesn't mean it isn’t meaningful. Funding for research relies on popular understanding. Surely it helps when an object of interest—be it a brontosaurus or a celestial body—is widely known.

I think this makes sense, it's the human factor. While Pluto does not care whether we call it a planet or a large-*** asteroid, the people who approve funding for space exploration do. Imagine you are a scientist pleading for funding before some government organization. The people who would approve your project may or may not be scientifically inclined. If the latter case, it makes a huge difference whether you wish to explore "the last, least explored planet on the solar system" or "some very popular rock on the Kuiper belt".

Is it that Pluto scientists worried about reduced funding or status?

While I have never heard of astronomers being so specialized as to be called plutologists, I do think this is the case. Our generation grew up learning in schools that Pluto is a planet, so for now research on Pluto may be safe. But consider Haumea and Makemake. Those guys could probably hold the keys to many secrets about the origins of planets and the early days of our solar system, even more so than Pluto. But the vast majority of people have never even heard of them... So trying to convince a panel that it is a good idea to send a probe in a Makemake flyby trajectory is a much harder battle than sending another one to Pluto.

IMHO, Pluto's reclassification was actually a promotion.  Rather than being the ninth (ho hum) planet, is the first object which was discovered to be in a solar orbit that has a resonance relationship with Neptune (or, I believe, any planet).  While there are today many known objects that have such orbital relationships, Pluto will now and forever have the distinction of being the first one discovered, which set the way for the discovery of the rest, much as Ceres has the distinction of being the first asteroid to be discovered.

@supercat It can be a floor wax and a dessert topping.

@supercat And as M. A. Golding mentions in his answer, Ceres was also originally classified as a planet. https://astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/a/677/34975

While it's possible that there could be legal or financial ramifications, I think the true reason is simply that scientists prefer their terminology to be precise. For instance, when they write articles that describe features of planets in general, they want their conclusions to be true of all the bodies that are in that category. And it would be bothersome if they frequently had to write "all planets except Pluto" to handle its differences from the other planets. I expect that they'd noticed that they often had to treat Pluto as a special case like this, so it made sense to recategorize it.
You can find similarities in other areas of science. For instance, anthropologists obsess over which genus early hominid fossils belong to.
Also, this isn't really just about terminology. Much of science is about modeling, and categorization is important in creating useful models. Of course, they could accomplish this with their own scientific jargon, and leave things as they are in casual language used in public media. But that also makes things more confusing.

It could matter one day on a legal point of view.
The exploitation of space resources is already subject to international treaties. For example the Outer Space Treaty, with an article that goes:

Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Note the use of the very broad "the moon and other celestial bodies", which encompass basically everything outside the Earth.
Some people are not so happy with these treaties, and have actually started to walk away from them (for example with the SPACE Act in the US). Because of this will to exploit space resources (whether we think it is legitimate or not), some day there might be a need for a new, more flexible treaty. The classification made by scientists could be used by policymakers to define what is exploitable and what is not. I can imagine that they could preserve the international status of planets to keep some people happy, but open asteroids to private appropriation and mining. Depending on its classification, Pluto could be open to exploitation by this new treaty.

Sorry if this sounds more like science fiction than astronomy! I am currently reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, so I got carried away a bit. :)

Why do we care if Pluto is classified as a planet?

The IAU doesn't care whether Pluto is a planet or not. They didn't change the classification of Pluto: They defined the word "planet."
There is no practical reason to aribitrarily assign specific objects to different categorgies. On the other hand, it facilitates communication if categories are defined in clear, objective ways so that everyone can immediately see what to call any newly discovered object.
The IAU was aware that there would be sentimental backlash if their definition of "planet" excluded Pluto, but they really had only three choices;
(a) Define "planet" in a simple, natural way that excluded Pluto, and tell the world that the solar system has eight of them,
(b) Define it in a slightly more aribitrary way that includes Pluto, and tell the world that we don't know for sure how many planets are in the solar system because there could be others out there waiting to be discovered, or
(c) Define it in a completely arbitrary way just so that we could continue to say that we have exactly nine planets.
Option (c) never was on the table. It would have been no use to the IAU at all. Option (b) was maybe a possibility, but it would be a compromise between science and sentiment. In the end, they decided not to compromise.

You can call Pluto a planet, and probably nobody will demand that you stop unless either they are a hopeless geek, or you are trying to publish an academic paper.

Essentially you will need to ask the individual people who want to see it classified as a planet - and the answer can not be objectively but will always reflect a personal view
However, obviously the majority of astronomers (or at least attends at the IAU assembly) did NOT care (enough) to see it as a planet. Scientifically it's just a category name tag we put on it, and it doesn't change its physical significance or anything whatsoever about Pluto itself.
So what you see and here here and other places around the categorization and definition of what constitutes a planet is a minority, yet a loud one.
So essentially it all boils down to human factors and animosities:

change-adversity: it was always this way, I don't want change
money: I want to make science in the Kuiper belt. I can sell a
planet better than one of possibly many dwarf planets.
attention: I do research in the Kuiper belt. Planets give me more
exposure and traction in the public
prestige: Doing planetary research may sound more relevant than investigations on one-of-many
remote ice- and dirt-balls.
history: I (or my institution / country / ...) want also be recognized as a discoverer of a planet

You can probably come up with more sentiments why one might want Pluto remain or become again a planet. And some of these sentiments and motivations may even be around inconsiously.
That said, I believe that even the notion about money or attention are not necessarily very well founded. The perceived controversy in the public about Pluto being a planet or not, or once having been named planet, gave the issues with the Kuiper belt objects MUCH more attention in the broader public than it would have gotten otherwise. So... maybe even this 2nd order phenomenon might play a role in this issue: just keeping up awareness and the topic in the public without actually being interested in a change back itself.

You omitted religion. We have had more than one user who ultimately admitted that their objection to the relegation of Pluto's planetary status was based on religion, specifically, Young Earth Creationism. I've seen this elsewhere as well. There is no place at this site for those who conflate big bang theory and evolution as one and the same. There is no place at this site for those who object to science in general. This is a scientific site. There are plenty of nonscientific sites within the SE network. They can go there, or to plenty of other nonscientific sites on the internet,

@David Hammen How would our classification of an object that was unknown before the early 1900's be of any concern to Creationists (or any other religion)?

@D.Halsey The key characteristic in the IAU definition of a planet that makes Pluto not a planet, the "clearing the neighborhood" clause, implicitly assumes the solar system is about 4.6 billion years old (which it is). Young Earth Creationists believe the Earth, the solar system, the entire universe, is less than 10000 years old. For them to acknowledge that Pluto is not a planet would mean their beliefs are wrong. So they insist that Pluto is a planet.

I note that Pluto is a planetary mass object (PMO), or planemo.

A planetary-mass object (PMO), planemo,[112] or planetary body is a celestial object with a mass that falls within the range of the definition of a planet: massive enough to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (to be rounded under its own gravity), but not enough to sustain core fusion like a star.[113][114] By definition, all planets are planetary-mass objects, but the purpose of this term is to refer to objects that do not conform to typical expectations for a planet. These include dwarf planets, which are rounded by their own gravity but not massive enough to clear their own orbit, planetary-mass moons, and free-floating planemos, which may have been ejected from a system (rogue planets) or formed through cloud-collapse rather than accretion (sometimes called sub-brown dwarfs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet#Planetary-mass_objects[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_definition_of_%27planet%27[2]
At the pressent time the planetary mass oobjects in the solar system includes eight objects classified as planets (including four terrestrial planets, two gas giants, and two ice giants), five classified as dwarf planets (including one asteroid and four trans Neptunian objects or TNOs), and nineteeen natural satellites or moons.  And there are some candidates for classification as dwarf planets among TNOs.
And I think that most professional astronomers, amateur astronomers, and science fiction fans can list most of those planetary mass objects from memory.
So if I was an astronomy student studying for an astronomy career around 2006 I might be a little annoyed by the redefiniton of a planet.  I might take the objection to increasing the number of recognzied planets in the Solar System and the redefinition of planet to avoid that as insulting to my ability to remember the names and data of a large number of objects.
Since the old definition of a planet left out the nineteen planetary mass natural satellites, continuing to use it would result in astronomy students and school children having to remember the names of only fourteen planets so far, with another five presently considered strong contenders to be classified as dwarf planets or planetary mass object, and the hypothetical and as yet unconfirmed Planet Nine.  So by 2021 there would be at most 20 objects listed as planets.
And possibly the largest trans Neptunian objects, the ones of planetary mass, could have been classified as a category of trans Neptunian planets, in a separate category from terrestrial planets, gas giants, and ice giants.
I also note that the dwarf planet and asteroid 1 Ceres, discovered in 1801, and the other three first asteroids to be discovered, were originally listed as planets.  So after Neptune was discovered in 1846, there were usually at least twelve planets listed in astronomy books.
Actually the fifth asteroid to be discovered, 5 Astrea, was discovered in 1845, and at least one asteroid was discovered each year afterwards, and those newer asteroids were aleo often listed as planets.  All the asteroids dicovered up to 15 Eunomia, discovered in 1851, were sometiems considered planets, until they were reclassifed as minor planets or asteroids in the 1850s.
So for a short period after 15 Eunomia was discovered, there were 23 recognized planets in the Solar System.
I also note that many science ficiton fans are familiar with many fictional planets, and that many astronomers who search for exoplanets around other stars may be familiar with many of the over four thousand exoplents which have been discoverd so far.

I think Pluto would be better classified as not just being a trans-Neptunian planet-mass object, but as the first discovered object in a class of object with a solar orbit that is resonant with that of a planet, just as Ceres went from being the eighth (ho hum) discovered planet to the first (hey, cool) discovered solar orbiting object that shares its orbital zone with other such objects.

My problem with the whole topic is that it is a big bikesched. Everybody has an opinion, we get a lot of chat, visitors and upvotes from it, but honestly it is not what I could consider an interesting Astronomy read.
The other side of the story is that it attracts visitors. It is not only useful for the site, but also the popularization of science is something what this site can do to make the whole world a little bit better.
Summing these together, I suggest to not have any specific rule about the topic.
If an essentially similar question was already asked, close it as a dupe. If not, allow it - it is still on-topic. Simply there are not too much essentially different questions about the planet-ness of the Pluto what was not already discussed.

Was this answer accidentally posted to the wrong question?  Should this answer have been posted to: https://astronomy.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/667/can-we-make-arguments-that-pluto-should-be-considered-a-planet-off-topic ?

@ConnorGarcia I tried to answer this, from the main site imported question, as a meta question. Although my answer would be the same also there.

Unfortunately, they closed it on the main site, migrated it here, and then closed here.  I think it was a legitimate question, but who knows?


text:
Etiquette for using comments to answer old, unanswered questions?
I like answering old, unanswered questions because there aren't many new ones I know enough to answer.  In many cases the answers are mostly laid out in the comments. I suspect no one then wants to answer the question because it may look like they are stealing the work of the commenters.  So, the question becomes an orphan (sad violin sounds). Is it considered poor form to use the comments to help create a thorough, well-referenced answer as long as credit is given to the commenter or commenter reference?
I've already done that here: Is the wind's intensity on Mars similar to Earth?
and plan to do it here: How are the atomic clocks synchronised between worldwide VLBI telescopes?
and here: What are the analysis steps in taking raw data from Kepler to a planetary system determination
Or does someone raise an objection to doing so?

You've posted some pretty excellent answers to new questions as well.

I've asked a similar question on Physics Meta a few months ago, the answer there was yes, it is encouraged

My goodness, the generation of (good) answer posts is what Stack Exchange is all about!
I would say, and I'd expect that most would agree that taking information left in comments and using it to generate an answer to a question is excellent form and is exactly what the commenter had in mind when leaving the information in a comment.
By all means, go for it!

update: Just spotted in Science Fiction SE, not exactly the same question but same sentiment in answering: What is the proper etiquette for answering old questions?

By all means, answer it! Unanswered questions are a blight that needs to be fixed!
(To more be more specific: if a question hasn't been closed, then old questions definitely need love. There are even badges specifically for providing good answers to old questions.) (emphasis added)

Thanks for this response.  I like having it up here to link to if I end up needing to.

@ConnorGarcia If it helps, I second what uhoh said.


text:
How could I use siunitx package in the form?
When using the SI unit in the sinunitx package on the astronomy StackExchange page, it cannot display the correct unit I was hoping for:
$1\mathrm{kg}$ instead of $\SI{1}{kg}$

you can't use latex packages, because this isn't latex. it is mathjax.

@JamesK It said that ``Astronomy Meta Stack Exchange uses MathJax to render LaTeX syntax'', so its not LaTeX? Isn't it like pfdTeX or XeLaTex? So the only way to type SI unit is by using \mathrm command? Thank you.

you can't use latex packages, because this isn't latex. it is mathjax

Astronomy Meta Stack Exchange uses MathJax to render LaTeX syntax.

So its not LaTeX.  It is MathJax which renders mathematical equations written in a TeX-like format to the screen.  In particular there is documentclass, no latex header (everything before begin{document}, so no \usepackage and no siuntix.
If you need it very much you can do
$$\newcommand{\kg}{\,\mathrm{kg}}  59\kg$$
That only has to be done once per page
$$78\kg$$

$$\newcommand{\kg}{\,\mathrm{kg}}  59\kg$$
That only has to be done once per page
$$78\kg$$


text:
Is "voids(s)" a synonym of "interstellar-space"?
Is the (newly suggested tag) voids a synonym of interstellar or interstellar-medium?
I am asking since I have not yet observed that term being used by astrophysicists, but that's just my  subsample.
PS: When searching for void I see 149 results (as of April 30th, 2021), but the picture is not conclusive here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_(astronomy)

@called2voyage I understand your comment as a no, which implies that I should carefully go through the 149 results and consider adding the appropriate new tag [tag:voids].

Yeah, sorry for the brief comment. I was trying to respond to something at work so just dropped the link quck.


text:
What is a healthy number of bounties?
I am slowly understanding what the beta-state means. I saw the Key Performance Indicators and I am trying to improve the ones in status "okay" by getting involved, e.g. asking or answering questions.
What I did not figure out yet is how many open bounties at a time are considered healthy. Personally, I feel that the usal one or two open bounties in parallel here are a bit few - but is there more info on that? I am trying to offer as many bounties as I can afford without loosing privileges. Or shouldn't I?

For what it's worth, the performance indicators are not really a great guideline for when sites will graduate anymore since SE has been changing how graduations work. Also, they  discourage specifically trying to improve the stats directly, as they find it leads to bad questions and answers. It's better to focus on maintaining quality when you do post about topics that interest you, and if you can bring more people (particularly experts) into the community that always helps too.

As far as bounties, I don't think there's any problem with offering as many bounties as you desire, but keep in mind the rep cost is steep. You don't get the rep back if no one answers, and you can't award your own answers.

Oh, and if you want to renew the bounty on a question you already offered it on, you have to pay the next level up in rep points.

@called2voyage I think it's double the rep each time (up to 500), not just the next level. See this answer

@uhoh Right, thanks for the correction!

@called2voyage Just to clarify: I am not making up questions *l'art pour l'art", but I am asking questions on topics I would have in pre-Covid times discussed with physicist and hobby astronomers in person.

That should be fine. Just want to make sure your expectations are realistic. The site is not going to be pushed to graduation just by asking a lot of questions.

@called2voyage Understood. I actually intended to ask if others could join me in offering some of their points in order to have some featured questions in the section "bounties". I feel that could motivate more users to participate more actively on astronomy SE.


text:
How could I calculate my (theoretical) candidate score automatically?
We did it! We had the first election (well, kind of) and we have a new moderator! I figured what the candidate score is

The Candidate Score can range from 0 to 40, and is calculated as follows:

1 point for each 1000 reputation up to 20,000 reputation for a maximum of 20 points.
1 point each for Moderation badges - Civic Duty, Cleanup, Deputy, Electorate, Marshal, Reviewer, Sportsmanship, Steward - for a maximum of 8 points.
1 point each for Editing badges - Copy Editor, Explainer, Organizer, Refiner, Strunk and White, Tag
Editor - for a maximum of 6 points.
1 point each for Participation badges - Constituent, Convention, Enthusiast, Investor, Quorum, Yearling - for a maximum of 6 points.

For badges that can be awarded multiple times only 1 point is granted for each badge type, thus ensuring a maximum score of 40 points.

My question: How can I obtain automatically the candidate score for a given user, without counting manually for a given user?

I found https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/298418/candidate-score?UserIds= which points in the correct direction but somehow I did not manage to query my userID for astronomy SE.

Hmmm, when I ran a query regarding your candidate score, it worked. Maybe you accidentally had the site set to SO, see the options below the Run Query button. You should get 13 as the output.


text:
Why don't question-askers accept answers?
Out of idle curiosity, I was looking through some of my (old) answers to questions which have been reasonably upvoted, were often the only answer, but have not been accepted.
Fair enough, you could argue that some of those answers fell short in some way, but on further investigation it seems there are a number of users asking questions who hardly ever accept an answer (and not just by me(!); they have accepted answers for <20% of their questions). For the record - on Physics SE I have accepted answers for 19/23 of my questions that have an upvoted answer, and 4/5 on Astronomy SE (admittedly I accepted a couple of these after review while writing this question!)
Why are some users just not accepting answers? Are the answers unsatisfactory? Are users just forgetting they've asked the question? I think if it is an old question and has upvoted answers, then it might be polite to at least indicate why the answer(s) doesn't meet your requirements, especially if you want answers to any more questions.

I've noticed this trend a lot recently too. I wonder if some newer users are even aware of what the accepted answer checkmark is for.

This post motivated me to check my own questions and accept several more answers!

I have to confess that I did not accept some of your (and other persons') answers although they answer part of my questions, merely to give other users a motivation to write a second answer, but this strategey does not seem to help much, so questions with a single answer are very unlikely getting a second, complementary answer, I feel. I.a.w. I suspect that there are more unaccepted answers for questions with a single answer than for those with multiple answers.

Aside from "ignorance of how SE is supposed to work", it's possible that the majority of askers are smart enough to realize the the entire SE "rep system" is meaningless fluff. (Note, the "majority of askers" is not the same as the "minority of askers who  ask the majority of the questions" - and who seem to also like playing the "meaningless rep" game.

@ProfRob Oh, Yikes! I see what you mean! Geez I don't remember doing that, it certainly looks that way. I usually consolidate my comments whenever possible but that juxtaposition looks more than awkward. Thanks for pointing it out - I've deleted it.

There are many reasons.
In favor of our members who ask questions:

Yes, we have a tour, we have discussions about how to write questions, and we have instructions regarding what to do when one does receive answers to questions.
There's a basic problem with this concept: Nowadays (and probably forever), nobody reads the instruction manual for anything.
Some new members simply haven't learned the protocol because they haven't read the instruction manual. When a somewhat new member who has asked multiple good questions but hasn't accepted a single answer, it can help, and has helped, to kindly remind that newish member of the site's protocols. The site does issue reminders for comments.
Sometimes the initial version of an answer is unsatisfactory. I myself have been guilty of writing initially unsatisfactory answers, and then improving them over time.
There are no reminders. Even worse, there apparently is no way to search for questions asked by a member that do not have an accepted answer. I have been awarded accepted answers years after the fact, and that was done by highly regarded members. Members sometimes happen to come across a question asked years ago and realize they had never accepted an answer.

Editorial comment: I get prompted on a regular basis across the SE to update my cookie selections. I suspect that if I even once clicked on the "Accept all cookies" option, I would ever be prompted to update my cookie selections again. That is not the option I select. It would be nice if SE also occasionally prompted questioners who have not accepted an answer to do so.
In disfavor of some members of our community:

Some new members are what I call "drive-by questioners." They expect instant answers, and if they don't get an instant answer, they go elsewhere. Instant answers just don't happen at Astronomy.SE, and at other corners of the SE network that aren't highly trafficked. It can take hours, sometimes days, before the first answer is posted.
Questions on rare occasions are asked in bad faith. A prime example: "Pluto should be called a planet. Do you agree?" Questions asked in bad faith are much more common on non-technical portions of the SE network. By way of analogy, reddit has an AITA subchannel. The questioner is rarely contrite when the answer is an unambiguous "yes, you are TA."

You're right there's unfortunately no functionality to filter on exclusively one's own questions where none of the answers have been accepted. However, there are a couple helpful tools. First, if you go to your user page and click on "Questions", you can at a glance see which ones do not have an accepted answer because the answer box will not be filled in with green unless it has an accepted answer.

The other way is by using the Stack Exchange Data Explorer: https://data.stackexchange.com/astronomy/query/edit/1425603. If you use this query, all you have to do is replace my user id (6) with your user id (can be found in the URL for your user page). The caveats here are that the Data Explorer updates weekly, so it's not going to have your latest questions, and it is not very friendly for non-technical users.

There might be one more reason.   StackExchange Astronomy is one of the few places where astronomy-dummies can get answers to our questions.  So those of us (myself included) who are learning about astronomy via the web or books rather than a classroom find this forum a godsend.
When the answers appear conflicting or is accompanied by a great deal of comments that indicate disagreement, I feel unqualified to check that one answer is more accurate than another.
There should be a way for moderators to check that a question has been answered, or over-ride my green check if I have accepted an inaccurate answer.

+1 I appreciate that predicament, but the "There should be a way..." will not happen. Voting is generally the best way a future reader can judge answers, even though it's not accurate, and comments offer further guidance though they may be confusing. Also check the dates, a late answer many years newer may have far fewer votes because the flurry of voting in the very beginning (first few days) never happens again. That's all there is, there ain't no more! The accept check mark is always strictly the view of the question's author (the "OP").

It's always been that way and changing it now after millions of SE posts would be confusing. Moderators have moderation skills but are not necessarily any more of an expert for any given question than anyone else. They are users like us but are generally a lot more skilled at (or at least committed to) moderation than the average person. We shouldn't assume they have any more expertise than any other commenter or voter, and when there's debate then there simply may not be any clear or 100% correct answer on the page. The way SE works as it is is it's imperfect yet captivating magic.

Maybe have a flag that indicates the question was answered without having to select a specific answerer?  That way the question doesn't keep climbing to the top as unanswered.  And as far as expertise goes, 99% of the moderators have forgotten more about astronomy than I will ever learn.   I am quite impressed by the results I get here.

SE already displays has/doesn't have an answer, number of answers, and accepted status on all questions https://i.sstatic.net/LeZoV.png and offers may ways to sort based on answer status https://i.sstatic.net/61MTb.png so I'm not yet sure what it is that you think should be done differently.

update: searching with:

hasaccepted:no user:me answers:1 has yielded 116 questions
hasaccepted:yes user:me answers:1 yields 371 questions

(the 1 is interpreted as one or more i.e. nonzero)
This suggests there may be some low hanging fruit for me, and anyone can apply this test to their own questions.

I can speak for myself, I'm not sure if I'm an outlier and I'm not sure if I'm an "offender".
Question and answer posts show up in people's searches, but they also receive eyeballs when they are in the active queue, and those eyeballs can result in new/different answers or helpful comments and votings.
I like to maximize eyeballs by spacing out events, and one way to do that is to not accept an answer for at least several weeks.
But because I am ephemeral in nature, I sometimes loose track.
Because of that, I sometimes go back and look for my answered questions where acceptance is indicated.
If I don't agree with an answer say at least 80%-ish, I won't accept it.
If I don't understand an answer then even if it's highly upvoted I won't accept.
Sometimes I'll accept an answer years later, and it's half-and-half forgetfulness and finally understanding the answer.
If there are two or more equally good answers in that both helped me equally and if one person is new low/rep, I will sometimes accept that one. If they are both high rep people and I can't choose, I don't choose.
mea culpa
I may have some answer-accepting to do here. I'll start looking. There's probably some booleans I can put in the search bar too look for my questions that have answers but no accepted answer.
I will get that round tuit and get on with it!
If there are some cases of unaccepted answers that need my attention/consideration please feel free to let me know!

You very recently accepted an answer that I supplied years ago. That late acceptance was not your fault. Given the emphasis on accepted answers, it should be very easy for questioners to find questions that they have asked, that do have answers, but that do not have an accepted answer. Even better, it would be nice if the system prompted questioners that an answer was supplied or a previously supplied answer has been updated to a question asked by the OP.

I know that SE is quite capable of occasionally prompting its users because the system regularly re-asks me to re-select what  cookies I will allow. I happen to choose the one option the SE network apparently does not like (necessary cookies only). Once a week or once a month should be good enough to remind questioners that they have questions for which answers exist but no answer has been accepted.

@DavidHammen I'd love for there to be an answered/unaccepted question explorer utility, or for a per-post alarm clock I could set that reminds me a few weeks later to revisit it.


text:
Does this answer your question?
This is the text that appears underneath a question when you flag it as a duplicate. I don't think it is helpful to the OP, especially if they are new.
The point is NOT that you think there is a good answer to their question in the referred to question, it is that it is a duplicated question.
In my view the text that appears should say something like "This question appears to have been asked before and has attracted one or more answers."

The current text is a bit rude and more than a bit blunt, especially as seen from the eyes of a newbie. A stated goal of the entire SO/SE network is to be more welcoming than in the past.

The language of the text has only recently been changed to Does this answer your question..., it used to say Possible duplicate... which, I think, was more polite.

Actually, years ago I thought the message was something like "This question has been asked before...." Anyway, does "text that appears underneath a question" = comment? The comment is autogenerated, but in a way that shows it being posted by a user - I think the first user to propose the duplicate. That user is then able to edit the comment for five minutes and customize it to something more appropriate for the given situation, or at any time that user can just delete it. I'm all in for a better message, but I think it needs to be a change across the entire network?


text:
Is it ever acceptable for answers to cut and paste answers from other sites?
I have noticed that a large (increasing?) fraction of Astronomy SE answers appear to be relying very heavily on simply cutting and pasting material from other sites.
Where this is done without attribution - this is clearly plagiarism and is beyond the pale.
However I have noticed some inconsistent treatment recently of answers which quote huge chunks of material from other sites with essentially no further value added.
In one case, I see that a moderator deleted an answer because the material came from a copyrighted source. In another case, an answer flagged (for exactly the same reason) has been left left untouched?
I am also concerned about block quotation from sites like wikipedia. Whilst this breaks no copyright rules it hardly reflects well on the Astronomy SE as a place for learned discourse. I have seen one egregious example where a question was asked, that could easily have been answered by looking at wikipedia. The question was upvoted considerably(?); then the question's author answered his own question by block-quoting wikipedia, and then this answer was heavily upvoted too(???).
It doesn't look good and it doesn't happen on Physics SE (or not to the same extent). I think it should be outlawed.

Also see Attribution of sources used in questions and answers

@TildalWave this covers unattributed plagiarism, which is always wrong, but that is not what I'm querying.

An answer that is just a copy and paste - even attributed - from somewhere else doesn't add any value. You might as well just add a link to that source as a comment. However, in terms of breaking someone's copyright - that's up to the copyright holder to contact SE and ask for the content to be removed. It's not something the community needs to or should be involved in.
By all means include a small section from the article as a quote, but add your own words to explain how that quote is relevant and how it answers the question. This adds value to the site rather than it just being a place you go to find out where to go to get the answer.

Astronomy SE will stand or fall on the quality and originality of its content.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Why has an answer that appears to be plagiarised been allowed to stand?
An answer to this question appears to be an unattributed copy of a space.com article.
I flagged this, but my flag has been rejected by a moderator.
My (perhaps limited) understanding is that whilst wholesale, attributed cut-and-pasting seems to be tolerated (though my personal view is that this is very poor and damages the reputation of Astronomy SE), unattributed plagiarism is outlawed and a potential copyright infringement.
Is there an explanation for why this post has not been removed? Unless the contributor owns the intellectual copyright to the original space.com article, then shouldn't it be replaced with a comment that provides a link to the material that appears to have been stolen?
See also Attribution of sources used in questions and answers and Is it ever acceptable for answers to cut and paste answers from other sites?

Please use flags for this purpose. Meta is ok, but flags should be your first line of defense. The post has been deleted.

@called2voyage "I flagged this, but my flag has been rejected by a moderator." It was deleted 2 days after this post and 3 days after I flagged it. Maybe I don't understand what rejection of a flag by a moderator means?

Strange, the flag doesn't show up in the moderator action history, but it does show up in your flag history, and it doesn't show as rejected. It says it was marked as helpful. You might have stumbled across a bug.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Congratulations to James(100)K
Congratulations to JamesK on his 100k-hood on Astronomy SE.
1452 answers (and 5 questions). It's a lot! Also - 2.2m "reached", which is an importantly large number.

@JamesK Congratulations!

Congratulations JamesK and thank you for so many clear and labor-intensive answers and for welcoming new users and helping them improve their questions. https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/important_person.html and https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/leader

Wow! Congratulations @JamesK I began adding my own stats and found I have reached 40,470 people across the sites I use most often. That's not even close to him!


text:
Can we please not make the terrible question "Why does gravity make everything round" this basis for duplicates?
We've had yet another reasonably-asked question closed as a duplicate of Why does gravity make everything round?
While the question in question has a somewhat reasonable title, it is framed around antigravity. The answer to the title is that gravity does not make everything round, full stop. The question does not focus on midsize objects (i.e., planets and stars) as do more reasonable questions on why some things in the universe are roundish.
That the title of the cited question is wrong (gravity does not make everything round) and that the body is very wrong ("I am studying ways to make an anti-gravity machine (!!)") suggests that the cited question should be the very last choice as the base question. (Base question: A question that asks such a centralizing question that other related questions can be closed as duplicates.)
Very few of the answers to the related questions focus on the potato radius (anything smaller is too small) or the most massive star (anything larger is too large). We finally have a question that asks about planets and stars -- and it was closed as a duplicate. This is sad.

On the SEDE I can see only a single question which is closed as the dupe of this one. (link)

I think we could tune the only question what this SEDE query found, reopen it, and make all the similar questions (including this terrible one) as its dupe.

I'd suggest the way to handle this is that the next time we get a suitable question of that type, "someone" should edit the question to include the supposed duplicate reference and an explanation of why they don't consider the new question a duplicate.
Hopefully that will stop the "close as dupe" effect, but keep in mind that the community is still entitled to close as duplicate - we can't force this issue.

terrible question

I'm sure I keep being told there are no terrible questions, and to some extent that's true.  Just because a question is based on misconceptions or something like that does not make it terrible - it's an opportunity to correct misconceptions (and others may hold those misconceptions).


text:
Can we make arguments that Pluto should be considered a planet off-topic?
It has been over 14 years since the IAU passed its definition of what constitutes a planet, and we still get arguments (mostly rants) against that decision. For example, Where to submit, or ask to submit, a proposal for a redefinition of a planet to the IAU? The question in question was closed (including by me, as a doxing request).
These people are not asking for a rationale for the definition. These people appear to approach the issue from a point of irrationality and intransigence. Moreover, whether or not one likes the definition, there is nothing we can do about it.

I'm pretty sure we all (aside from the ranters) already agree these are not good questions, hence the closure. If you'd like me to delete it as well, I'm good with doing that.

@called2voyage Go for the trifecta (negatively downvoted, closed, deleted).

All right, it's gone.

Related: Pile-on down voting...

I also added this to the topic guidelines in the Help Center:

My question about Pluto got removed. How is that off topic?
Was it really a question, or was it a rant about why you think the IAU decision to reclassify Pluto should be reversed? We don't welcome rants-as-questions here period, but we are especially tired of this particular rant. Please stop. If you don't think your question falls in this category, feel free to bring it up on meta.

You could add Michael for added emphasis: https://i.imgur.com/bNuFnju.gif


text:
Why was this question voted down?
This question asks how to obtain peridicities from a signal. It seems on-topic if very specific to me, dealing with one of the main activities of astronomy (signal processing). However, it was voted down.
I would like to understand why.

Drive-by DVs are frustrating but they are an inevitable part of the Stack Exchange system. Downvotes exist as a means for the SE community to "grade" a question's value. If you hover over the DV arrow, it says "This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful". There is no obligation for a user to explain why they think the question merits a DV, but we certainly encourage users to add a comment to indicate how the post can be improved. The object should always be to improve a question.
Regarding this particular question, there is (at time of posting this answer) a single downvote. If you want to understand the exact reason, you'll need to hear from the person who cast the DV, but I can hazard a guess.
The timeline shows that the DV was cast early, well before you had asked "Could you please define HTRU in the question, or provide a link to such definition?" Your very comment suggests that the question was lacking sufficient detail to enable a good answer, and was therefore "unclear". [If they had sufficient rep, the user who cast the DV could equally have cast a vote to close the question as "unclear".] In any case, while casting a downvote without explanation is never ideal, the DV itself wasn't without reasonable cause.
The question has now, thanks to your edit, been improved. If you feel the question now "shows research effort; it is useful and clear" (quoted from the guiding text for an upvote), you can cancel out the DV by casting an upvote yourself.
In fact, keep in mind that the person asking the question receives 10 rep points for an upvote but loses only 2 rep points for a DV: the SE voting system primarily treats DVs as an indicator (for improvement needed) rather than as a punishment. And now that the question has been edited, the user who cast the DV can, if they wish, cancel that DV. But again, I wouldn't hold my breath: most DVs never get reversed.
The best way to overcome DVs is to ask good, well-structured questions that attract upvotes, and just accept the occasional unwarranted DV as part of the SE ecosystem, like a briefly irritating flea bite.


text:
2021: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we say goodbye to 2021, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Astronomy over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
22
19

Users destroyed³
10
0

Users deleted
4
0

Users contacted
34
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
32
992

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
6
97

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
1
262

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
3
169

Tasks reviewed⁴: First questions queue
1
206

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
17
676

Tasks reviewed⁴: First answers queue
1
117

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
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Tags merged
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Tag synonyms proposed
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Questions protected
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Questions migrated
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Questions merged
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Questions flagged⁵
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Questions closed
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Question flags handled⁵
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Posts unlocked
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Posts undeleted
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55

Posts locked
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Posts deleted⁶
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Posts bumped
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Escalations to the Community Manager team
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Comments undeleted
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Comments flagged
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Comments deleted⁷
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Comment flags handled
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Answers flagged
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Answer flags handled
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All comments on a post moved to chat
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Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Astronomy without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2020: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing everyone a happy 2022! ^_^


text:
Should a few more users vote to accept the csst tag wiki and excerpt quickly to ensure that nobody else follows my lead and rejects them?
I just saw edits for the wiki and wiki excerpt for the newly coined csst tag that was first added to Details on the telescope(s) on the Chinese Space Station 天和
I reflexively rejected these edits

https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/25734
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/25735

The space station is not officially named the "Chinese Space Station" so the telescope is not officially named "The Chinese Space Station Telescope"

But much to my surprise and chagrin this naming convention has been adopted by Chinese academics:

Cosmology from the Chinese Space Station Optical Survey (CSS-OS)
Testing photometric redshift measurements with filter definition of the Chinese Space Station Optical Survey (CSS-OS)

where both Chinese Space Station Telescope or CSST, and Chinese Space Station Optical Survey or CSS-OS are used as apparently well-accepted names and acronymizations.
Question: I don't think I can retract my recommendations to reject those edits, so should a few more users vote to accept the csst tag wiki and excerpt quickly to ensure that nobody else follows my lead and rejects them?

Oops! Reading this 5 days too late...

It's been done, thanks!
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/tags/csst/info

Questions regarding the CSST, aka the Chinese Space Station Telescope or Xuntian.


text:
What are "recent hot answers"?
I just saw a reference to "recent hot answers" when checking out the newly coined csst tag.
Are hot answers in general, and recent hot answers in particular new SE things? If I wanted to go looking for some hot answers, can I search or filter for them?
Will there be a "Hot network answer" or an "HNA" list where we can look at other sites' hot answers as well?

It looks like this isn't anything new, just . . . something that was never well-publicized. It's been around since at least late 2012, and probably longer - so definitely not new.
I don't think you can search all of a site's hot network questions from this interface; you can do it per-tag by the link
https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/tags/tag-name/hot

and just substitute in the tag name for tag-name - or click the "more" you see at the bottom of your image. The default seems to show the hot answers from the last month, sorted by score, in most cases, but you also select day, week, year, and all time. But you can't sort by date or activity.
That said, you can use Data Explorer to solve the problem and perform a query of your own; this became possible a couple of years ago when entering the HNQ started to be logged in a question's history and is therefore in the PostHistory table. You could probably pretty easily modify Glorfindel's SQL query from that first link to take the returned list of hot network questions and show their answers instead, add fields to include or exclude certain tags, or sort by different answer features, like votes or recent activity.

Okay got it, thanks!


text:
Should we avoid calling questions that have answers in other SE sites as "duplicate", which already has a specific and different meaning in SE?
There is some healthy overlap between Astronomy SE and some other sites, just for example:

space telescope optics, operations and orbits with Space SE
astrophysics, cosmology, optics, etc. with Physics SE
historical phenomenon and theoretical development with History of Science and Math SE

When questions are asked in one SE site that have good answers in a different SE site, good samaritans often call attention to the existing answers elsewhere by adding a comment, like "related in X SE" or "answered in X SE" followed by a link to a question with applicable answers.
But recently two different comments called questions here "duplicates" of questions in other sites, and this word has a very specific and different meaning in SE. A duplicate question (at least currently) must be in the same SE site as the question in question, and duplicate is a specific close reason.
Calling questions on other sites as duplicates may confuse some folks, especially new users, that the question is somehow less than 100% legitimate and answerable here, and attract erroneous close votes or down votes.
Examples:

Space.SE duplicate: (link to Space SE) here

Duplicate of (link to Physics SE) here

Question: Should we in fact avoid calling questions that have answers in other SE sites as "duplicate", which already has a specific and different meaning in SE?

Who is the "we" in this question? Is it you, so you can enforce your views? Is this something you want moderators to do, so they can enforce standards, and maybe delete such comments? Or is it all members of the community? (And good luck with this final meaning.)

Of your two examples, the comment that points to a Space.SE Q&A as a supposed duplicate is not a duplicate. The Space.SE question asks what causes the diffraction spikes; neither the question nor answers address removing said spikes. The Astronomy.SE question specifically asks about removing them. This new question would not be a duplicate of the prior question even if that prior question had been asked on Astronomy.SE. Writing something along those lines would have been the appropriate response.

Regarding the latter example, that is a duplicate. One of the best and most prolific members of the Astronomy.SE community (ProfRob) answered the question over on Physics.SE. A copy-and-paste version of his Physics.SE answer would work quite nicely on the Astronomy.SE question, but why bother?

@DavidHammen It's great when "... good samaritans often call attention to the existing answers elsewhere by adding a comment, like "related in X SE" or "answered in X SE" followed by a link to a question with applicable answers." We should simply avoid saying those duplicates because the term already has an accepted meaning in Stack Exchange which doesn't apply.

Arguably, this question is a cross-site duplicate - https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/4708/236563

@Chenmunka Per the description there: "which belongs on another site" - no, this is on topic here; "same question is posted in two places at the same time" - also no.

In short, yes. I would advise against calling these duplicates.
However, I feel given the discussion here, this deserves a little bit more of an answer.
I don't think it's desirable or realistic for moderators or other users to police what people call things, but having meta discussions like this can help guide people's actions.
So what is the appropriate course of action?
If a question is a cross-post...
Flag it for moderator attention. If you cast a close vote, use the custom close reason and put "Cross-posted from [link]". If you believe a question is cross-posted, but can't recall from where, leave a comment but please don't close. It's important to verify that it's really a cross-post before closing.

If a question is not a cross-post, that is, it is not an identically worded question posted by the same user from a different site, then stop and reflect before taking action.
If it's from the same user, but the question has been meaningfully tweaked in a way that elicits information best provided by the expertise on this site...
Leave it alone. Unless the changes don't actually result in materially different answers (e.g. a resident astrophysicist like Rob already answered in depth on Physics in a way that addresses the altered question body for Astronomy), we allow this kind of inquiry here. If it is the case that it's already fully addressed elsewhere, then leave a comment saying so and flag for moderator attention. If you must vote-to-close, please use the "Cross-posted from [link]" format as that helps mods and other users appropriately determine whether it's an unnecessary duplication of effort.
If it's from a different user, but the answer sought is identical to an existing question on another site...
Handle with care. If it's really on topic here, the best course of action is usually to leave it open here, and allow our community to develop our own base of knowledge to answer the question. We can even use references from other SE site answers if applicable. If a Q&A covering this subject on another SE site is already so thorough, that it really can't be improved upon here, then flag for moderator attention. If you must vote-to-close, then use the custom close reason and put something along the lines of "While this is on topic on this site, I believe it would be an unnecessary duplication of effort to address this here." I do not recommend this. Question closures should really only be used for these cases: "the community has determined this topic is inappropriate here", "this question is definitively unanswerable or impossible to answer factually", or "this question could be reopened after some work".
What should really be done? Well, really we should simply be commenting and informing the asker of the Q&A that might address their question. If it does address their question, the asker can delete their question. If it doesn't, they can edit their question to clarify what additional information they're seeking. In extreme cases, I could potentially see a moderator deleting a question for the author. For example, if it looks like they're just trying to ask a question from another site to get rep or to self-answer with a personal "theory". That's why flagging for moderator attention is helpful.
If it's from a different user and the answer sought is not identical to that on another site...
This should not be considered a duplicate or a cross-post at all. That question should be fully welcomed on our site, and I'm not sure why anyone acting in good faith would want to turn it away, unless they misunderstood the question. If you treat a question as if it is identical and someone else in the comments points out that they believe the question is not identical, then you should either wait for the asker to clarify, or in lieu of clarification from the asker, vote to close as unclear.

But what if the question is not on topic here?

Then you shouldn't be closing it as a duplicate at all. You should be closing it as off-topic, with the explicit reason why it is not in scope here. If it is answered elsewhere, you are not obligated to guide the asker to it, but if you want to be helpful you can give them a link in the comments. The only time you should be concerned about an off-topic question being answered elsewhere is when the question is being recommended for migration to that site. In that case, you can flag for moderator attention and inform us of the existing Q&A so that we can take that into consideration when determining whether it's a good candidate for migration. (Sometimes, with the permission of the target site mods, we still migrate these so they can mark them as duplicates once they get there, as having different ways of phrasing a question can be helpful for people searching.)

But what if it's not a good faith question?

Then flag for moderator attention. It's unlikely that one of our other close reasons doesn't apply in these cases, but if they really don't or you don't want to take the time to figure out the best way to close, just pass it off to the mods. Moderators need to be aware of users acting in bad faith, so we can make sure that the behavior is addressed appropriately.

Why is this important?
It's important because overloading terms that have defined meanings on this site obscures communication and makes it harder to ascertain what is going on when there is a disagreement over a question. On Stack Exchange, a duplicate is a question that is on-topic on the site it is asked and has already been asked on that site. Asking a duplicate question is not in and of itself a negative activity. In some cases (but not all), it can be a sign that the asker was unwilling to do even a trivial amount of research before asking. Sometimes, though, it is because the question that was previously asked was hard to find. Questions closed as duplicates remain a part of the site, and they help people locate answers more easily by creating multiple points of entry.
There is no mechanism to close a question as a duplicate of a question on another site, and this is by design. If a question is off-topic, it should be migrated. The migration creates a link that helps direct people to the answer, similar to the duplicate process. If a question is on-topic, the SE philosophy is to leave that question up and allow the site to answer it on their own, in the belief that this gives the opportunity for others to answer who have different expertise.
Simply closing a question answered elsewhere with a custom close reason of "duplicate" obscures the real reason why you believe that specific question should not remain open here.

One more thing I didn't end up addressing in the answer: if you personally disagree with something being in scope here, but there is not a close reason for it and there is not an existing meta discussion about it, you should be bringing that up on meta. Closing a question as a duplicate of a question on another site just because you personally disagree with the community decision to allow that topic here is bad-faith activity. In that case, you are intentionally obscuring your real motivations to bypass the model the community uses to moderate the site.

Pro tip: If you're passionate about this issue, please keep in mind that we strive to create a friendly environment here.
If you see someone use "duplicate" contrary to the standard SE sense of the word, take a step back and make sure you really need to engage. Is it just a comment? Has the question received downvotes or close votes that seem unjustified? If not, it's best to leave it alone.

If someone has used "duplicate" as a custom close reason and you don't believe it is a cross-post, consider asking, "Is this off topic here?" or "I don't think this is the same user. Why do you think it's a duplicate?" to start a discussion to clarify intent, rather than "That's not what duplicate means here" which comes across as unfriendly and combative.

Here's a very nicely worded almost-example. I prefer "remind" over "engage" and linked to two of these in a short period of time (8 minutes!) by two experienced users. The concern expressed here is that it "may confuse some folks, especially new users that the question is somehow less than 100% legitimate and answerable here, and attract erroneous close votes or down votes." Similar concerns of other users seeing and picking up on the practice expressed here.

Basically new users pick up a lot of "how SE works" by following the example of more experienced users, so it's good if more experienced users stick to rules and guidelines and accepted norms, newer users can pick some of them up by some combination of emulation and osmosis

As was pointed out in the comment thread of the aforementioned question, the purpose of the terse comment was to point out that the answers there do provide an important addition to the question. @uhoh might have pointed out their own answer on the subject, I would have preferred it over being told how to walk and talk; the concerns were replied to and the intentions clarified. I don't know that this question has brought us as far; but some of my sentiments seem to be echoed. --- I'll say this here instead of there: 90 views, 5 score.

@Rob I'm not sure which question you're referring to, so I'm having trouble following your comment.

@called2voyage the first linked example, 2nd last paragraph of the question.

@Rob Ok, I understand your comment now, and yes, I agree. It was not a friendly way to approach the topic. Also, per my guidance here in the comments, it really didn't need to be addressed at all (only possible justification would be the single downvote on the question, but it was still positively scored).

@called2voyage I can certainly envision other ways to write the comment; it seems I'd just copy/pasted the earlier comment I'd left on another misuse of "duplicate" made 8 minutes earlier. That part is well-taken and taken to heart. But to " it really didn't need to be addressed at all" at this point I still disagree and for the reasons stated in my question here and in my two comments above (and links therein) which go beyond immediate evidence of downvoting.

@Rob My comment certainly could have been worded differently for sure to avoid the "how to walk and talk" aspect. Got it. To "the purpose of the terse comment was to point out that the answers there do provide an important addition to the question" that's great(!) and I've referred to such things in my question here as "good samaritans often call attention to the existing answers elsewhere". My comment there was to suggest alternative "tersities", like "answered in..." or "related in" so as not to make an OP feel like they've done something wrong (those with more personal experience...

@Rob ...having questions closed as duplicate react differently to the word than those that haven't) nor new users getting the notion that SE duplicates can be cross-site. As to "I don't know that this question has brought us as far" I do. called2voyage has taken the time and gone to great lengths to address several different aspects of this topic in a thorough and thoughtful way, and answers like this shape site policy for the future. As always, the purpose of SE questions is to provide an opportunity for the writing of good answers, which are of immediate use but also benefit future readers

@Rob final note; the way I think and express myself doesn't always align with neurotypical folks and while I'm sorely aware of that, the awareness is only the first step in closing the gap. I'm happy to delete the comment; haven't until now because I'd linked to it but now that there are answers here it's last remaining potential raison d'etre has expired. Is it okay with you if I delete it now?

In response to this comment, the reply was offered in this context, and was not made in response to a specific question, apparently. - You can cleanup, or leave this so others know what has already been covered.

Technically you are correct. We should avoid calling things duplicates unless they are clear duplicates, and if the duplicate is a carbon-copy of the same question on two different StackExhanges, we should not call them duplicates. We should call those out as cross-posting. Moreover, if the "duplicate" obviously is not a cross-post (e.g., nearly same question was asked years apart on more than one SE), it's not quite a "duplicate".
However, I think you are overreacting here, uhoh. If nearly the same question was asked on multiple SEs, and if the related question has answers that answer the question at hand, that is useful information. If the user who provided that information called it a "duplicate" rather than "related", so what? If someone feels strongly enough to post a custom reason to close regarding the duplication and enough people join in, the question is closed. You apparently do not like custom reasons to close. Other users disagree.
If on the other hand, someone calls out a question as a duplicate of a related question when in fact the new question is not a duplicate, does it matter that the so-called duplicate is not? And does it matter if the non-duplicate is on Astronomy.SE or elsewhere?
You are overreacting.

My reaction is appropriate and carefully calibrated. Stated concern: "Calling questions on other sites as duplicates may confuse some folks, especially new users, that the question is somehow less than 100% legitimate and answerable here, and attract erroneous close votes or down votes." Stated remedy: "...avoid calling questions that have answers in other SE sites as "duplicate", which already has a specific and different meaning in SE" My reaction: post a question in meta citing examples and suggesting a pretty simple remedy, use words based on their accepted meaning.

I'm looking forward to answer(s) from folks who have some actual experience having questions downvoted and closed as well. Invariably when people disagree with my statements about question closing and negative commenting under questions from new users, they turn out to be users with very few question posts themselves. The correlation is so high it can't be a coincidence.


text:
How to write and format tweet-based questions in Astronomy SE?
I've just asked What does this tweeted Astronomy Plot of the Week mean? What does it represent?
I'm totally confused by twitter and its re-twittering practices and formats. I've done my best here but this post seems to be two or three tweets deep. I'm not sure if I've got it right or not.
But the main question here is to ask for answers that provide general guidelines for how to write and format tweet-based questions in Astronomy SE?

Now that I understand your request better. Here's what's become the de facto standard for citing the text of a tweet elsewhere (using the tweet you used as an example):

From Twitter user BenneHolwerda (@BenneHolwerda):

And I think
@SabineBellstedt
and
@_jessthorne
summary graph deserves a spot for sure.

Jorge Villa
@Jurgenvilla
· Mar 9
If you work on #SED fitting you definitely must have this figure. Thanks to @_jessthorne who took the time to make it!. I've been writing a paper introduction and let me tell you it's extremely useful to develop comparisons between the different fitters

Source

In other words, pretty close to what you have but also credits the user who posted it.

Thanks! From time-to-time it's a challenge to articulate certain things such as cognitive "blind spots". Twitter and social media in general fall into my cognitive penumbra; this is a flashlight.

The first sentence in my question (i.e. before rather than after the tweet) is the same url as "Source" is here, I include the additional information "August 10 Astronomy Plot of the Week" to provide additional context, so I think that "crediting the user who posted it" was there already. I've adjusted the wording of that sentence a bit. The big difference is that I reproduced all of the links embedded in the text and you've left those out. Is that just a difference in our styles (or you're just a lot busier than I am) or should I not have done that?

@uhoh Looks fine to me, though you still don't really credit the user directly, just link to their tweet. Not worth nitpicking over though. The links in this case were all users and a hashtag, which can be easily found without a link, so I see them as optional.

Oh, "credit them" = "name them" rather than "cite them" with a link. Yes I see now, got it. Edited again. Thanks for your persistence.

I feel like, in general, the fact that the question was inspired by a Tweet shouldn't be relevant to how the question is presented. In this case, your question boiled down to "Can you explain this plot?", and for a typical question of that form, we'd expect the asker to link to the paper (here, Thorne et al. 2021, mentioned in this Tweet) and explain what they do and don't understand about it. Even if none of the Tweets in the thread link to the paper, it might be possible to track it down the same ways you'd try to find the source of any other diagram.
It would certainly be good to link to the Tweet if it provides additional necessary context or is unfortunately the only source you're able to find for the diagram, but those both feel like edge cases.

Thanks! Part of my question is about formatting the post properly, and this retweet is two or three levels deep so I'm not sure I've cited it correctly. So some advice about proper citing of retweets will be helpful to me as I'm totally befuddled by social media.

But certainly all of this is well-taken as well