User:Rursus/star name desinformation

Important sources:
 * All99 Richard Hinckley Allen: Star Names — Their Lore and Meaning, a criticised source that at the very least is usable for looking up when a name is not valid — in my opinion the source is unreliable for a correct etymology — it's still a valid lookup whether an arabic-, greek- or latin-sounding star name exists or not (more than 2000 names)
 * ICOP Islamic Crescents' Observation Project's (ICOP) star list
 * For the real foolhardy: Arabic Constellation (Names) including links to scans of al-Sufi maps – requires some Arabic language expertize but an amateur can see whether a star is named (a long string of letters) or not (one or two Arabic letters);
 * For star name vigilantes of first order: a net accessible copy of Book of Fixed Stars by al-Sufi – remember: al-Shamali and al-Janubi are not star names!


 * Kos02 CDS-arch cat IV/27: Kostjuk 2002 crossindex table 3: List of proper names for 345 stars from CDS (actually containing 1044 star names applied onto those 345 stars)
 * Bec50 Altas of the Heavens II – Catalogue, Antonín Bečvář, TABLE II, pg 347-352
 * Dav44 The pronunciations, derivations, and meanings of a selected list of star names, by George R. Davis Jr. in Popular Astronomy, Vol. 52, p.8 (1944), (gif version)
 * GibXX Star Names by Steven Gibson, adapted to corrections sent by prof. Paul Kunitzsch (Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning) current leading authority about the etymology of star names.
 * RidXX Popular names of stars by Ian Ridpath
 * HS09 (Un)Common Star Names by David Harper and L.M. Stockman, 1995-2009, also seems to lack odd names.
 * CDSD Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries
 * MW, for Sanskrit and Tamil names: Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary
 * BS28 Böhtlingk-Schmidt Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, Leipzig 1928
 * BR55 Böhtlingk-Roth, St. Petersburg 1855
 * AE Apte English Sanskrit Dictionary
 * Wil08 Wilson Sanskrit-English Dictionary 2008

AnonIPs related to User:Richontaban
In the early history of a star name the User:Richontaban made name edits "in cooperation" with a random IP with prefix 168.223.11, and curiously enough the most weird star names, f.ex. Biceps and Valthorz originated with either Sir 168.223.11 or User:Richontaban. Here the most IPs that has "contributed" to the science of far fetched and absurd star names:

125 128 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 187 189 191 195 201 202 207 212 220 223 225 235 239 242 6.12 182.13

Probably another incarnation of User:Richontaban
Also IP 199.44.190.11 was deliberately "doing funny insertions" into WP, curiously in same manner and in the immediate vicinity of User:Richontaban/168.223.11.X. (User:Skeptic2 discovered this)

User:Chermundy
A quite misdirected edit by User:Chermundy. He's prob unrelated to User:Richontaban, his contributions seems somewhat irresponsible but not systematically disruptive.

Possible misconceptions
The following might be former arabic descriptions that might be mistaken as names:

I found a source for "Khambalia" although not listed among your sources. It is listed as Virgo's left foot (lambda) in The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology by Vivian E. Robson. A quick search finds a preview of it, including the index, on Amazon.com.Imzogelmo (talk) 08:42, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Ilvon - fake star names
This is User:Ilvon's contribution to the fake star hunt-down. These star names are mostly originally from User:Richontaban. Somehow they're prob reintroduced in error. Most of them have already been deleted. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 16:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This table is only for discussion, please read the above sources more carefully. Cheers...

Hamalain
Yup, it was the guy you're investigating. (See my talk page for my last substantial edit--much of what I did later was based on what was already in the divided charts, just assuming it was right.) Here are the IP's I've found in that range editing these articles:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (part fixed), , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  ( you've fixed? ),, , , , (innocuous), , and apparently 6.12 or 182.113, so there may be a wider range of IP's. — kwami (talk) 22:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I added 191, 195, 201, 212, 242, 6.12 and 182.13 to my list. I'm going to take a look at your talk page. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 22:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * God, what a mess. I preferred it as a single article, and that made it much easier to police.
 * Since he's apparently not restricted to 168.223.11, it might be a good idea to expand your search to all of 168.223. (Maybe he went to the library or a cafe that day.) I don't recall any other IP addresses in that range that aren't suspicious, so it won't cost you anything. (Except for more crap to fix, I mean.)
 * To get the expanded list, all I did was go through the page history, then call up the contributions of all editing IP addresses in that range, then look at the page histories of any of those edits on stars, etc. Of course, there may be similar crap in all the mythological and botanical articles these IP's edited that you or I couldn't evaluate. This should probably be expanded at ANI for wider help. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * 185 (new), 188 (innocuous), 219 (new), 222 (innocuous, at least for the star articles), 231 (innocuous), 49.202 (outside the .11 range)


 * One to evaluate: 168.18.240.1 (slightly outside our IP range; also edited Puppis list)


 * A mess it is. I'm restricting myself to star names – he was (is?) also very active in other areas, making some perhaps constructive and some not so constructive edits, making it hard to monitor all changes in order to organize some reversion raid. And 168.223 and 199.44 are IP prefixes that for me by now immediately signals when googling article history pages. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3  !) 23:28, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Adding some more just above. — kwami (talk) 23:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Perfect. I saw that about "Al Fawaris" above. Now I'm going to leave this matter for two days, because of other pressing issues. I'll hope we'll resolve these troubles in a month or so, unless (as I suspect) the guy in question is wreaking havoc elsewhere on WP. Maybe we should also try to make a WP:ANI. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 23:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This is the last substantial edit I made to "Lists of stars by constellation", to which I had added a great deal of info, including names in the Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Greek scripts. I can't guarantee that I got it all right (assuming Allen was right, his transcriptions were sometimes difficult to decipher), or that no fake names had snuck in in the meantime, but generally anything in that version is probably (85%?) okay, whereas I'd be suspicious of things not in it, though of course there were plenty of later improvements too. — kwami (talk) 09:58, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Lambda Tauri
Looks like the same guy you've been discussing. I see "Elthor" in the starbox, but I can find nothing to source the name.--Imzogelmo (talk) 19:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the note. Our cleanups aren't always complete. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 17:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Pultar.org
The old hoaxes are returning:
 * Eta Aquarii, Hydria, Deli,
 * Iota Centauri, Alhakim,
 * Eta Aquilae, Bezek,
 * Lambda Pegasi, Sadalpheretz
 * Beta Arae, Vasat-ül-cemre, unknown since before.

The site pultar.org replicates the above WP:HOAXes and some editor(s) are reinserting them here.


 * Xi Tauri, Yshakaron

The site altiusdirectory.com replicates the above WP:HOAXes and some editor(s) are reinserting them here. This altiusdirectory.com links a lot to various topics in WP.

Take a look at:


 * Tau Pegasi, Salm (perhaps OK?), Kerb (unheard, but Allen might have it), Markab (heard of it, but applied to Tau Peg? Don't know...)
 * Mu Virginis, Rijl al Awwa (perhaps OK, but needs verification)
 * Delta Tauri, Eudora, is pretty certainly hoax
 * Mu Sagittarii, Polis, perhaps OK but the star is virtually never called "Polis" except as a subclause in Allen99, cleanup needed
 * Iota1 Scorpii, Apollyon (a demon from the Bible?), citation verily definitely needed!!

User:CarloscomB:
 * User talk:CarloscomB

How to name a star
List of invalid methods:
 * 1) don't use Wikipedia, we will delete it as a WP:HOAX, and we will become very annoyed,
 * 2) don't buy it from a company that allegedly "sells" star names, both Wikipedia and IAU will disregard such star names, and chances is that you will feel deceived,
 * 3) don't run a web campaign to convince IAU to name a star, this or that way, they will refuse to listen, don't use Wikipedia as a platform for this campaign, we will regard such campaigns as disruptive editing, and block (and perhaps ban) any editors partaking in such a campaign. It will be unpleasant, painful and shaming.

List of valid methods:
 * 1) research a single star extensively and scientifically properly by using telescopes and spectrographs, if the star appears like very unique and odd, chances are that your last name will be used to name the star, say Doe's Star if your name is John or Jane Doe, and you're reknowned as a nice and generous scientist to your colleagues,
 * 2) become an astronaut, jokingly name a star with your middle name backwards when communicating with the ground control, then die unexpectedly and tragically in your profession, then there are chances that that star will keep that joke name for some 40 years, if it didn't already have a name,
 * 3) if you're an assistant to a researcher and star catalogue maker, you might perhaps get away with such a practical joke too, but not if you're simply a planetarium lecturer,
 * 4) research antique catalogs, such as Almagest or Al-Sufi's Book of Fixed stars, and discover an already existing name or description on a star, and claim that the name already exists, then publish a very cheap and popular astronomy book, claiming precisely this name,
 * 5) claim that a certain star, such as Kappa Andromedae should have the name Honores (from Honores Friderici) by analogy of 53 Eridani being named Sceptrum after Sceptrum Brandenburgium, then publish a very cheap and popular astronomy book, claiming precisely this name.
 * ... or some such.

All kinds of astronomers use to ignore star names because it is hard to remember them. If the alleged name lacks any logical connection to the star, such as f.ex. Jimmies Rubberduck for Eta Piscium, then remembering the names will be perfectly impossible.