Talk:Seth Andrews

Is a section on Criticisms appropriate?

This article included a section called "Criticisms", until it was deleted by Zero Serenity on 22 January 2017‎ with the comment "This section doesn't fit into BLP." However, it is common to include criticisms and WP:BLP explicitly says that "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone." So I am having trouble reconciling that position with the section blanking that was done here, and I would value other opinions - should there be such a section? --Gronk Oz (talk) 02:28, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely. Notable criticism should always be included. If the criticism is attacking the person, then we should probably discuss it first.Sgerbic (talk) 02:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I was the one who added the section and material in it and am shocked at this deletion. It is common for articles on living persons to have well sourced criticisms! RobP (talk) 03:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

The criticism should be something as a general thought as opposed to just one opinion that feels off. Its also a podcast which often fails the reliability argument. So under BLP this section makes no sense. Zero Serenity ^{(talk - contributions)} 03:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

@Zero Serenity: So am I correct in understanding your concern is that the section as it was did not reach the standard of being "sourced to reliable secondary sources"? --Gronk Oz (talk) 06:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Zero Serenity ^{(talk - contributions)} 09:25, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the section was/is trumped-up and relatively meaningless. It presented no criticism and was merely some sort of soapboxing. Softlavender (talk) 07:44, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Please explain: "trumped up" and "feels off" RobP (talk) 12:49, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

It presented no substantive criticism and was merely some sort of soapboxing. Softlavender (talk) 13:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

All of these are highly subjective slights - "trumped up" and "feels off" - and now "soapboxing"... whatever that means to you. This was a criticism of Andrews that cut to the very heart of his brand... the THINKING atheist. Again, for what objective reason is this not acceptable material for this page? If anyone else agrees that the removed material be reinstated, speak up now. RobP (talk) 03:35, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

'This was a criticism of Andrews that cut to the very heart of his brand... the THINKING atheist' -- Clearly this is not encyclopedic and violates BLP. As a member of homo sapiens, Andrews certainly thinks. -- Jibal (talk) 08:37, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Wholesale deletions of Public Speaking section

I just discovered that the Public Speaking section was deleted in one or more edits with little (or no) explanation. I am going to reinstate it now. Before deleting again discuss and get consensus here. RobP (talk) 16:28, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Once again the Public speaking section has been removed without just cause. Please explain here why this information is not valid on Andrew's page as it is a large part of what he does now. If there is no reasonable explaination forthcoming I will reinstate it shortly. RobP (talk) 13:01, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't do that if I were you. Why don't you communicate with the admins Drmies and DGG? As it is, your insistence on filling the article with promotional bloat makes it increasingly likely that the article will be renominated for deletion and in fact deleted once again. Softlavender (talk) 13:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm confused. Putting aside any issues of notability or soapboxing (I can see both sides so I will stay neutral) I can't see why a list of public conferences and conventions would be considered promotional. If this is what the guy does ie. if he's an author and public speaker then is it not part of his bio? If it's the wording which has a 'promotional bloat' then would it not be better to reword it? If it helps I can offer to look over this article and reword it? It kind of feels like people are getting annoyed with the style of the article rather than the content, so maybe me and Softlavender could work on it together. Mramoeba (talk) 14:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• It's blatant resume building, that's why. We don't list every public appearance a celebrity makes. If these events are notable, that means noticed by something bigger than a campus newspaper, then maybe--but in the meantime we're still dealing with a bloated article by a podcaster who self-published his two books and doesn't seem to have been noticed at all in reliable, mainstream sources. Drmies (talk) 15:20, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

The lede of course should summarize the contents of the page, and right now the description includes "...is a...public speaker on the subject of atheism." As this is a true statement, I would think info to back this up belongs on the page somewhere. For the record, I did not write the section - and I have no objection to it being modified to remove any perceived 'soapboxing', etc. RobP (talk) 15:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah I'm with you now Drmies, so maybe that public speaking section which people are deleting and putting back shouldn't be a section at all. So I just looked at it and maybe something like this is better: "Andrews is actively involved in the atheistic and skeptical movement and travels across America to give presentations on various topics related to atheism, religion, and skepticism. Together with activists Aron Ra and Matt Dillahunty he held the Unholy Trinity Tour in 2014 in the United States,[2] which they took to Australia in 2015.[15] Since 2011 Andrews has presented at national conventions and meetings across the United States. In addition to regional and national conventions Andrews speaks at local freethinkers groups for one-day events." And then maybe the most notable conference citations from before could be used as citations here but not mentioned (I'm in the UK, I have no idea which are the biggest but i've heard of The Centre for Inquiry and The thinking Atheist for example). How does that look? Mramoeba (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Mramoeba, as far as I'm concerned, and RobP, this applies to your statement about the lead as well, we can call him a public speaker if secondary sources identify him as such. What I would require, if I were running the joint, would be a source that says "X wrote some books and frequently speaks on college campuses" or something like that. If that sentence is found in a college paper which goes on to say that "X will speak on our campus tomorrow", that's not acceptable, because "frequently speaks" is then obviously pulled from the PR sheet or the Wikipedia article. We need an article from a paper or whatever that says "he's a public speaker". If we don't have that, we have no reason to put it in the lead either, since we're just copying the resume. Drmies (talk) 18:24, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Just loaded the section in question from History and took a look at the citations. It turns out many go to webpages which do not back-up the material the citation claims to be for. Others are insufficient. So whoever created this material did a sloppy job. There may be one or two citations there worth salvaging however. Mramoeba, do you want to take a crack at fixing the citations, finding better ones per Drmies's suggestions, and doing a re-write? RobP (talk) 19:49, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Well I don't mind, I can have a look but I might have to rely on you people to tell me if a source is sufficient (Thinking atheist is his own site for example). I can probably spot a self-placed piece but I imagine he is mostly written about in his own sphere which could be an issue. No idea at first sight whether there is enough for a page rewrite, bear with me for a week or so as i'm travelling at the weekend. Mramoeba (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Yikes Mramoeba. I only meant a re-write of the Public Speaking section. RobP (talk) 20:34, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Phew LOL, that will be easier Mramoeba (talk) 20:46, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

(Sorry, I don't know how to do that nice line thing to bring it back to the left hand side :D) Ok going by Drmies's advice I say don't reinstate the section. The three best citations I found are for the 'Unholy Trinity Tour', Richard Dawkins website newspaper and this one used in the original edit. The newspaper one discusses the tour properly, but the other two are more like adverts for it. As for his other speaking events, I only found the events' websites and blogs which isn't going to work. So I think one could maybe put in a sentence about that tour only using the newspaper ref. The rest of it isn't notable enough. Hope that helps. Mramoeba (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

OK... You folks win. I give up on the Public Speaking section. But I'm unclear then where to put the ref you (Mramoeba) listed. Right in the lede w/o any material about public speaking in the article? RobP (talk) 01:10, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

• We have a consensus from two admins (Drmies and DGG) and two uninvolved editors (Softlavender and Mramoeba) that there should be no "Public Speaking" section. I have however included a very short sentence in the article that he does public speaking, sourced to one of the already existing citations. We are not going to add extra citations for individual tours or engagements, because they are unnecessary and "blatant resume building", as Drmies says. Softlavender (talk) 01:14, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

That works. Thanks. RobP (talk) 02:17, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Status

Please see the comments at User talk:Staceydolxx/Seth Andrews. I'm trying to decide whether to nominate it for afd again; I think the basic problems are still present, DGG ( talk ) 09:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi DGG, thanks for keeping an eye on this. As far as AfD, if it gets nominated again, I personally will !vote keep, unless the article becomes more bloated. What seems to be happening is that fans want to add bloat, and uninvolved editors want to keep out the bloat. Right now, Drmies and I have removed the bloat. I think you are looking at this article only as a librarian, and noting only that the two books are self-published etc. However, that has no real bearing on notability when he easily passes GNG: Two full write-ups in Patheos, one in American Atheist, and two in Skeptic Magazine. That already passes GNG. As long as the fans stop now from adding anything further, I support the article because I believe the subject has notability. If however the fans add any more to the article, I myself will support deletion. It may come down to topic-banning certain editors from this article. Softlavender (talk) 02:29, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

How many photos is too many?

@Softlavender: I added a third photo to this article which you objected to and deleted with comment as follows: "article does not need three images; this is excess promotionalism. Choose two." So how did you come to the conclusion that two photos besides the infobox pic is one too many? I have seen articles with no photos and some with tons and everything in between - so how does a person know what is over the line? Certainly 3 doesn't seem excessive to me based upon other articles. See: Neal Dow from the main page today, with eight in all - one in each section (which I for one very much like)... or some others I just randomly looked at off the top of my head to have a wide sampling of types of people from different fields: Phil Plait (3), Mark Zuckerberg (5), Mother Teresa (9), John Glenn (17), Mr. T (3), Deepak Chopra (3), Carl Sagan (12).

So is there a WP policy in this regard linking an amount of text (or perhaps the number of sections?) to an "appropriate" number of photos? Or is this just a judgment call on your part? And if that is the case, how can any uniformity be had? Different editors will have different opinions.... and depending which articles a set of concerned editors patrol, the results will be very different from article to article (as appears to be the case).

Also, what are the rules about using a gallery instead of individual photos? Using a gallery would mean a bunch of photos by definition, and in your opinion, excess promotionalism. But what is the point of WP having a <gallery> tag to allow groups of photos, if just two photos per article (besides the one in the infobox) is considered too much and "overly promotional." Rp2006 (talk) 20:42, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

It's clear you and several other editors are using this article to promote and puff up the subject, which is of borderline notability. If you continue to do this, I will bring this previously-deleted article to the attention of admins, and the likely result(s) are that either it will be severely trimmed, you and other editors will be topic-banned from the article, or the article may even be sent back to AfD. Softlavender (talk) 00:12, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, @RobP: it's not as straightforward as just counting the number of photos: each photo should be there because it illustrates something pertinent about the subject. I have not been able to find any specific guidelines (yet), and I expect that judgement will always play a part, but the Manual of Style offers some pointers at MOS:IMAGES. In particular, "images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative." It is always difficult to compare the contents and layout of one article to another, but I have two observations about the FA Neal Dow: firstly, that is a much longer article so there are only mostly no more than two photos on the screen, and secondly the photos cover a range of related subjects, and are not all photos of the person himself. Finally, the removed image was lower quality than the others on the page. --Gronk Oz (talk) 02:59, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Why was my contribution to religious/political views removed?

I was flagged by Softlavender for appearing "to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Seth Andrews," but I didn't revert anything. I added an additional piece of information based on the most current interview he did regarding his political/religious views and how his political views changed when he left his faith. Given that the article is about an atheist activist and political commentator, I believe his political opinions are extremely relevant information. And given that it's from an interview with the actual subject of this article and that he himself re-tweeted the interview, it's fair to say it's a reliable presentation of his beliefs. Is there actually a good reason why my contribution was taken down? I would like to reinstate it. Would this be better to put under a new section labeled "Political Views?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whitehandnerdy (talk • contribs) 22:25, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Four Horsemen/New Atheism

Regarding this edit. What's the problem here? The edit summary alluded to BLP concerns (self-identification) but obviously that doesn't pertain to Hitchens. Hitchens is undoubtedly a New Atheist, is he not? If this is a problem I can quickly produce The Oxford Handbook of Atheism and a review of Why God Won't Go Away: Engaging With The New Atheism by Alister McGrath ("'the New Atheism' comprises the recent works of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens"). Or am I missing something? - Bri.public (talk) 23:00, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

"New Atheist" is often a pejorative term. Just as we don't refer to religious people as "fundamentalists" unless they self-identify as such, self-identification is required for a term like "New Atheist". Joefromrandb (talk) 23:05, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Have not seen it used pejoratively before. Requiring self-identification by the deceased doesn't sound reasonable. FYI, also in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at University of Tennessee: "The New Atheists are authors of early twenty-first century books promoting atheism. These authors include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens." Sounds pretty definitional and uncontroversial to me. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:50, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Have a look at the New Atheist article, and you'll see cited examples of it being used as a pejorative. The notion that it's okay to use without self-attribution because he's deceased is too bizarre to merit a response. Joefromrandb (talk) 03:46, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

The thinking atheist tv show with davies?

Was there such a thing? and if so how do I find it? פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 01:31, 12 July 2023 (UTC)