Talk:List of atheists (surnames R to S)

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Bad evidence
The "evidence" for Shaw's atheism is given as follows:

"All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of storytellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain."

This is a comment on existing official religions, not an expression of belief or not-belief in God. It just goes to show how ridiculous this article is. I nominate the whole thing for deletion. CharlesTheBold (talk) 01:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

George Soros
I removed George Soros because his presence in the list was based on flimsy evidence. Soros never said "I am an atheist"; rather, he responded "No" to the question "Do you believe in God?" Soros has not commented further on the subject.

Atheism is defined as "someone who disbelieves in every form of deity, not just the God of traditional Western theology". Soros was not asked whether he believes in multiple gods, he was asked only about the Judeo-Christian God. Binksternet (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Further, Soros once wrote in 1994, "I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes", which has been quoted a number of times, including in the LA Times. Soros has been criticized as having a god-complex, as thinking he is his own god. If it were true, that's not atheism, either. Binksternet (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Stavrokopoulou
Francesca Stavrakopoulou is a known atheist as well, with references in her article to support that. Is she not eligible for addition here? 99.129.40.75 (talk) 07:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

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Not list-worthy if no separate WP article?
My addition to this list was reverted with the reason that the person needs to meet WP criteria for notability (as reflected by having a separate article). However, I have seen many other lists which include people (or things in list of things such as com. satellites) without articles! Is everyone else doing it wrong? One example: List of astronauts by year of selection (See most recent years especially, but folks without articles are in these lists in almost all years.) Here is another random example... List of Grand Prix motorcycle racers  I'd like to see where this policy is stated. And if it IS the actual WP policy, man oh man do you folks have your work cut out for you fixing things! RobP (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * "Is everyone else doing it wrong?" Frankly, yes. Lists with red links exist in defiance of the way we'd like to do things. This one's truly rare: it's a big list that actually met the WP:WRITEITFIRST standard. There's probably not one single policy, guideline, recommendation, essay, etc. that isn't disregarded or violated in multiple places on here. Even though perfect compliance will never happen, we should still try. That's what I did here. See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.  City O f  Silver  19:29, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Your argument that 'Lists with red links exist but should not' is a mis-characterization of what we are arguing about. That is a separate issue, and not the one I am questioning. It is clearly possible to add an item or name without "a red link" - just as I have done after you pointed out that a red-link is bad. So the issue is just is it required or not for all list entries to have their own pages. WP:WRITEITFIRST does not apply if one does not attempt to use a wikilink. I still have not seem the policy specified that only items/people with WP articles can be in a list. RobP (talk) 19:41, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * So looking into this further as you are forcing me to do, the article you pointed to actually says:


 * "While lists (especially stand-alone list articles) can serve a navigational function, lists are primarily a form of encyclopedic content. Thus, an entry often may simply present encyclopedically relevant facts from the cited reliable sources and not link to a separate article..."  See here.  I see that as case close RobP (talk) 19:46, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Adding no-article listings is only possible because tons of these lists are edited by people who don't care that we don't want to do that. My understanding of WRITEITFIRST is that, if we allow red links, literally any atheist whose last name starts with an R or an S can list themselves here. Lots of people are atheists. Shouldn't we restrict inclusion here to notable people so we don't get lists with millions of names? Because the standard isn't this kind of link versus that kind; it's whether or not the person is notable. Specifically, see WP:NNC, which says that adding non-notable people to a list is not compliant with policy if that list has a specific exception "restrict[ing] inclusion to notable items or people." At the top of this page is the restriction, specifically the text "sortable by the field for which they are mainly known." (And the restriction is further established because before you added Segal, 128 of 128 listings were blue links. That's something to strive for, not ignore.)


 * And I'm looking at Segal's personal site, specifically her "bio" subsection, and I'm wondering if you could render all of this moot. If she had an article, I'd have no reason to try to remove her from here. Would you consider writing it? You shouldn't use her site as a source per WP:PRIMARY but if those media mentions are accurate, finding them and using them as sources should get her compliant with at least one of the standards listed at WP:MUSICBIO, specifically #1, #4, and maybe #6.  City O f  Silver  20:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That is an interesting suggestion to make a page for her - but I cannot spend the time doing that right now. And I think that is still skirting the point I am trying to make here. It does not seem to be clear WP policy to need an article to be in a list.  As you went back to discussing red links above ("if we allow red links, literally any atheist whose last name starts with an R or an S can list themselves here...") I am not sure we are arguing about the same point. Let me say again - I agree that red links are bad.  However, again, one can add a name without it being either a working wikilink or a red link (as I did in this case the second time). The template allows for that as I found out and used it.      The upshot is that there seems to be conflicting info regarding who is permitted in a list. I found this here WP:NOTESAL: "Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable..." Seems clear enough from that that Shelly would be an OK addition... But then the same sentence continues and muddies the issue and leave it open to interpretation: "...although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles." So there we are. Thanks Wikipedia for the clear guidance! RobP (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

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