Talk:Irreligion in Wales

Content Fork - Possible POVfork
This article has just been created and the hatnote on the Irreligion heading in the Religion in Wales moved from Irreligion in the United Kingdom to here. I am concerned that this may not be the optimal re-organisation of information. Everything currently on this article could easily be (and largely already is) covered in Religion in Wales. That article describes both religion and lack of religion, and that is correct. It is where people will go to look for the subject. Having an article spun out from another just to allow it to be covered without covering the wider concept of diversity of belief looks to me like an obvious POVfork. If that is correct, this should be merged back into Religion in Wales where irreligion has a heading that could easily be expanded with the Welsh context.

Of course that irreligion heading does point to an Irreligion in the United Kingdom article, and although that could also be argued to be a POVfork, that article has the advantage of covering a tradition and history of atheism (Atheism in the United Kingdom redirects there). It presents useful information. This article could be viable too, by the same token, if there is a particular Welsh tradition of atheism and irreligion, distinct and separate from the UK context. For this, we need some secondary sources. A source saying it has not been covered by historians does not cover it. In fact, that seems to specifically suggest there is not a separate article here. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and not the place to right great wrongs. What we need is evidence from secondary sources that there is a subject here.

Specifically what will not do is simply copy/pasting chunks from the articles we already had. To be viable as a treatment of this as a subject with WP:SIGCOV in this context, we need sources and treatments. What are they?

Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Irreligion is now the biggest statistical group in Wales, and makes up a larger proportion than any other group. This article is not a POVfork and all the content is original (other than the pie chart which is the same). The article follows similar articles such as Irreligion in Ireland, Irreligion in the United Kingdom, Irreligion in Finland etc. I agree that the article needs further development and sourcing but it is already at a higher standard than others such as Irreligion in Ireland. Titus Gold (talk) 14:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * So to address each of points:
 * The fact that the latest census puts no religion ahead of any religion is not reason to create an article, in teh same way that we would not delete the article if the next census dropped back for any reason. The article has merit based on its content, and I have raised a specific issue with the content viz. the Religion in Wales article is the natural place to talk about irreligion unless we can show that the subject, in the Welsh context is independently notable.
 * The article as it stands today is just talking about current numbers.
 * Saying their are irreligion articles for Ireland and Finland is WP:OTHERSTUFF. In any case, the Ireland article (which is for the Republic) and the Finland article are both articles about a state. We have an article for the state, that being Irreligion in the United Kingdom, and the religion page now no longer points to that article (which does have something significant to say) because of an editor choice to create an article for the Welsh context alone. This is part of my concern - that an interested reader will not find the full historical context in these articles because we are directing them off into a different article without any clear articulation as to why we should do it this way. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:09, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * 1. This is not necessarily a reason, but providing context.
 * 2. I have added further historical and recent context.
 * 3. Wales is a country with a unique history e.g nonconformism perhaps contributing to non-religion, Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, statistics differ to England and Scotland and general UK figures. I'm happy to add a subheading or context of UK wide events but Irreligion in the United Kingdom if you read it is very England heavy and virtually all individuals mentioned are English with virtually no mention of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Titus Gold (talk) 15:40, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a great problem with this new article. It's cited to sources specifically about non-religion in Wales. There's also the precedent of the long-established and undisputed article about the United Kingdom. It may be excessive to include all this info in the Religion in Wales article. Sionk (talk) 19:27, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Not sure about this one, while it does not seem to have significant coverage at this stage, it is long enough to make a merger back to Religion in Wales a bit excessive and the sources used are related to Wales, although would prefer more development. Content here can be added to the UK article if there are concerns over its anglo-centricity. Overall neutral and waiting to see any further development of this article.  Dank Jae  01:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)