Talk:Ariane Sherine

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles

Atheism Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Atheism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of atheism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AtheismWikipedia:WikiProject AtheismTemplate:WikiProject AtheismAtheism articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

For more information and how you can help, click the [Show] link opposite:

If you would like to participate, you can edit this article and visit the project page.

Quick help

Recent activity

To do

Join WikiProject atheism and be bold.

Add a userbox to your page ({{User WikiProject Atheism}} or {{User WPA2}}) and attract potential members.
Help with articles.
See this month's adopt-an-article.
Help out with this to-do list.

Be consistent

Use a "standard" layout for atheism-related articles (see layout style, "The perfect article" and Featured articles).
Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use {{WikiProject Atheism}} or see info box)
Ensure atheism-related articles are members of Atheism by checking whether [[Category:Atheism]] has been added to atheism-related articles – and, where it hasn't, adding it.

Maintenance, etc.

Find sources for all positions of an article (see Citing sources and atheism references).
Try to expand stubs. Ideas and theories about life, however, are prone to generating neologisms, so some stubs may be suitable for deletion (see deletion process).
Watch the list of atheism-related articles and add to accordingly.
Always write for an encyclopedia.

Articles to improve

Agnosticism

Create

Articles on notable atheists

Expand

an atheism stub

Immediate attention

State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
False choice into False dilemma: discuss whether you are for or against this merge here
Clarify references in Atheism using footnotes.
Secular movement defines it as a being restricted to America in the 21st century.

United Kingdom Low‑importance

	United Kingdom portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Comedy Low‑importance

	Comedy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Comedy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of comedy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComedyWikipedia:WikiProject ComedyTemplate:WikiProject ComedyComedy articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Journalism Mid‑importance

	Journalism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Journalism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of journalism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.JournalismWikipedia:WikiProject JournalismTemplate:WikiProject JournalismJournalism articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women writers Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women writers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women writers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women writersWikipedia:WikiProject Women writersTemplate:WikiProject Women writersWomen writers articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Countdown

Was she really Countdown champion? The UTube link seems to show her in Countdown, but doesn't prove she was champion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaris678 (talk • contribs) 21:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Race

I don't know why the entry on race has been removed. Is it because there was no citation. How about this article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5488849.ece

About 2/3 of the wasy down she says "As a mixed-race kid..." Or is her own self-definition insufficient? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaris678 (talk • contribs) 21:45, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

She is Human; using the term "race" to speaking of ethnicity is shocking. Furthermore, "ethnicity" is too ill-defined to be of any help, so it is better to say nothing than to sound racialist or worse. Rama (talk) 22:00, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. I thought you might say something like that, which is why I didn't change it back. I agree this topic can move between the offensive and the meaningless quite easily. Sounds like your issue isn't specific to this person though. Is there some kind of Wikipedia policy on this? Maybe there should be.

I don't really know why you think the word race is so shocking in itself. However, I agree that race is something hard to define and that trying to do so can cause offense without actually illuminating anything, so I can see that it might be a good policy to avoid the whole area unless there is a good reason not to.Yaris678 (talk) 23:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good idea! Let's just abolish the word "race" and there won't be any racism any more, right? And while we're at it, let's abolish "ethnicity", too. Let's just pretend everybody in England, or the world, for that matter, has exactly the same colour of hair, skin, eyes, speaks exactly the same language, etc. - and we're all going to be friends. Simple as that! Jimmy Fleischer (talk) 12:38, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly wasn't suggesting that. But maybe Rama was. But I do think you are getting yourself into a minefield. How specific should you be? How do you agree on terms? I might use the word Semitic to describe both an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab but either could be offended by the term.

I could be described as white, Caucasian (though I’ve never been near the Caucasus), White-British or maybe even mixed-race since the British survey currently allows you define your ethnicity as White-Scottish, White-Welsh etc. Personally I would consider Scottish and Welsh to be nationalities rather than ethnicities, but obviously someone disagrees.

I notice the Manual of Style Biography Section doesn’t have anything to say on the subject. Presumably nobody has thought of anything sensible to say.

Yaris678 (talk) 13:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@Yaris678: I know you weren't suggesting that, my comment was in reference to Rama's. With all due respect, I see no problem with the term "race" at all. To quote the lead of Race (classification of human beings): The term race or racial group usually refers to the concept of categorizing humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics.[1] The most widely used human racial categories are based on visible traits (especially skin color, cranial or facial features and hair texture), and self-identification. "Race" is also a category of the US census, see Race and ethnicity in the United States Census. Ariane referred to herself as "a mixed-race kid", as referenced above. Of course, Rama is entitled to feel "shocked" by all this, of course. Just like the rest of us is entitled to think this is ridiculous. I hope she reads this discussion and will write something funny about it some time... ;) Jimmy Fleischer (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Thought for the Day"

I wonder if we need (or are even allowed) to quote the "Thought for the Day" in its entirety? I would say let's quote just a few key statements instead, but then I'm finding it hard to single out any. After all it's pretty generic stuff - the sensation, if any, is not in what she's saying, but in the fact that they're letting her say it at all on this sort of programme ... :| Jimmy Fleischer (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. We certainly don't need to quote it in full, and WP:QUOTE backs that up. I'll work to summarise it - if editors are finding it hard to single out useful quotes, then the current article is even less use to a reader. --McGeddon (talk) 22:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Was this actually the Thought for the Day - was there no religious speaker that day? Richard Dawkins did an atheist TFTD a few years but it wasn't at the usual time and there was a "normal" TFTD as well. If it didn't replace the regular TFTD, then it wasn't the first. Apepper (talk) 14:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you in two ways.

1. Yes, it wasn't actually Thought for the Day. It was on Saturday afternoon not a weekday morning.

2. I have a vague recolection of Dawkins doing something too.

That is why I changed the text on 11/01/09 from "Sherine was asked to give the first ever non-religious Thought For The Day" to "Sherine has given a non-religious equivalent of Thought for the Day". However, on 13/01/09, this was changed to "Sherine gave the first non-religious equivalent of Thought for the Day"

I think this later version still addresses point 1 by stating that it was an equivalent - i.e. not the actual thought for the day. Or do you think it should be made clearer?

Do you think we should remove references to it being the first? It would be handy if we could find a reference to the Dawkins Thought.

Yaris678 (talk) 21:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further to the above, Dawkins gave a "Thought for the Day" back in 2002 (as this BBC article describes). He wasn't in the usual TftD slot and, as I recall, it was billed as TftD-like rather than TfdD (despite what the BBC article says). Either way, insofar as it was part of the Today programme, it was more TftD-like than Sherine's slot. Anyway, I'll see about rewording the article to reflect this. --PLUMBAGO 13:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nice one. Yaris678 (talk) 21:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Atheist's Guide to Christmas

Is is worth adding this tome to her biography? Ariane has conceived the first Atheist Charity book which did make it to the Amazon best sellers list. Skeptic sid (talk) 19:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does she describes herself Atheist today?

If not, than that the categorization should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.67.131.95 (talk) 15:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ArianeSherine/status/1214635830125498370

--Traiano91 (talk) 20:56, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comments

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:15, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Ariane Sherine. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110929065308/http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/the-atheists-guide-to-christmas-aka-the-atheist-book-campaign/ to http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/the-atheists-guide-to-christmas-aka-the-atheist-book-campaign/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:47, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]