Talk:Billie Jean King/Archive 1

Larry King relation?

She wasn't married to the Larry King from CNN, was she? That's where that link goes. Adam Bishop 21:10, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No, don't think it's "the" Larry K, no, so I deactivated the link. A search on Larry King shows no Billie Jean among his numerous previous wives... --Wernher 23:53, 24 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's a different Larry King. (Anonymous User) June 1, 2006

Gay Icon Project

In my effort to merge the now-deleted list from the article Gay icon to the Gay icons category, I have added this page to the category. I engaged in this effort as a "human script", adding everyone from the list to the category, bypassing the fact-checking stage. That is what I am relying on you to do. Please check the article Gay icon and make a judgment as to whether this person or group fits the category. By distributing this task from the regular editors of one article to the regular editors of several articles, I believe that the task of fact-checking this information can be expedited. Thank you very much. Philwelch 21:04, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't see it in the article and I can't find a link. I know she's married... to a guy, so I really couldn't tell you. IronCrow 16:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

US Open played on 4 surfaces?

This is stated in the article:

"She is also the only woman to have won the US Open singles title on all four surfaces on which it has been played (grass, clay, indoor, and hard)"

When was the U.S. Open played indoors?

I guess it's possible (due to a rain out), but I don't recall this ever happening. Usually, something similar is said about Jimmy Connors, but I've never seen more than 3 surfaces referred to.

Actually it was only three surfaces. 1887-1974; grass courts, 1975-1978; green clay courts, 1979-Present; hard courts. (Anonymous User) June 1, 2006

The US Open men's final was played indoors in 1969 when the incessant rain made the grass court unplayable. I don't know of any instance when the women's final was played indoors, but even if it was, King didn't win it. She only won on grass. She never won the singles title on any other surface. King did however win US Open titles on 3 surfaces. Singles on grass in 71, 72 & 74; Mixed Doubles on clay in 76 and the women's doubles on cement in 1978 & 1980. 64.175.36.97 (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Portrait photo uploaded

Uploaded a black&white photo of Ms. King and removed the "picture wanted" template. --Chris 19:34, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Where tennis is headed

I like what Billy Jean had to say on television the other day, about how tennis could benefit our youth and that she would like to see more youngsters participating in tennis.

I agree 100% of what she had to say and I too think that more young people being active in tennis would lower the obesity rate in children. 207.200.116.130 16:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)Theresa Casey

Seventeen poll

Does anyone know whether the poll was of all the different editions of Seventeen or only the US/UK edition? Nil Einne 19:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Dates messed up?

The first paragraph says that she was born in 1943. It later says that she was the "World #1" in 1941, and a few other dates. This is impossible, because she was not born yet. does someone know how to change this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.131.167.227 (talk) 19:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

Weird Person #1

“King was born Weird Person #1.”—WTF? Pauldwaite (talk) 13:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• note - this old post was pertaining to vandalism in Nov 2007. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:28, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

About the Trivia section

Would like to see a consensus from other editors besides Tennis Expert and myself Cr8tiv over the link to Look alike contest. This article is very important to me as I am documenting underground lesbian Herstory that includes Ms King's popularity as a costume in Lesbian Bars. Other editors to well known Lesbian pages such as kd lang and Eleanor Roosevelt have not objected to this inclusion in the Trivia section. Billie Jean is an icon to the Wiki LGBT world. Please chime in and voice your opinion. Cr8tiv 4:30 June 4 2007

If I can be blunt, without meaning to be rude: first, trivia is widely considered across the Wikipedia community to be non-encyclopedic and its inclusion is generally discouraged, so it should go on that ground alone. Second, while Billie Jean King may be a lesbian meme, that is not, strictly speaking, about her. Hence, this reference should not be here. Feel free to add it to pages on lesbian subculture linked to this article. But this needs to adhere to Wikipedia policies, such BLP, BIO, etc... I am removing this pointless and unencyclopedic reference. Eusebeus 16:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

OKAY! One voice heard from. I have reinstated the link to Look alike contest Lets here from more than three Wikiies to get a consensus, not just the FINAL opionion of Eusebeus. Enjoy the free speech of Wikipedia before Guiliani and the Republicans take over. GO HILLARY CLINTON and VP Obama Cr8tiv 17:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I kinda agree with Eusebeus, trivia isn't to be included in an encyclopedia. Obama for president! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.134.13.97 (talk) 00:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Remove, per Eusebeus and WP:TRIVIA. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 18:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

So, Trivia sections are not so great - its usually one of the first things I try to dump from an article. But when I do remove a trivia section, it is typically because I have integrated the trivia into the article. If Ms. King has ever commented on her popularity as an LGBT icon and/or popularity for look alike contests, you should be able to incoporate it into the article proper - perhaps the personal life section. So I guess I say... No to the trivia section, but yes to including that bit of information if done with continuity. ZueJay (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
That's Four Wikis...HaHaHa!

Would prefer a different photo

Thanks for the photo, whoever uploaded it. However, I think it would be much more appropriate to have a photo of her during her prime, during her tennis career, and preferably in tennis gear. Those who have never heard of her (I'm educating some young Brits about the Battle of the Sexes) would benefit more from that than from this one now in place. A photo of her in her athletic prime should at least be somewhere in the article. (Don't ask me to find one -- images are not my expertise.) Thanks! Softlavender (talk) 08:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Peanuts

I'm pretty sure I heard that one of the characters in Peanuts was based on Billie Jean, she wasn't just referenced. Does anyone else know anything about this? Skittlesrgood4u^{Talk Page/Contributions/Sandbox} 17:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is too big

See Wikipedia:Summary_style and Wikipedia:Article_size for tips. Specifically the parts about long articles not being "readable and easy to navigate". Maybe a summary of her life, and in a clearly separated section, a more compact history, by decade, only pointing out the notable things.

Also, considering someone put a lot of effort into making it, maybe there is tennispedia or some website you can paste all the to-be-pruned information under GFDL licence. 128.208.35.188 (talk) 18:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The article is not "too big" because tables are not counted when evaluating the size of articles. Tennis expert (talk) 21:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Biggest article I've ever seen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.45.77 (talk) 05:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Its bigger than UK, USA, Queen Elizabeth, World War Two, EVERYTHING?! Its damn crazy. Why is there a year by year account for 3 decades! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.151.87.47 (talk) 00:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

rofl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.74.21.37 (talk) 02:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, And when I trimmed it a tiny bit, it got reverted. Back to full size. Collect (talk) 02:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I strongly object to your wholesale deletion of the following well-referenced material:

(1) "Speaking about the lawsuit in 2007, 26 years after it was filed, King said, "It was very hard on me because I was outed and I think you have to do it in your own time. Fifty per cent of gay people know who they are by the age of 13, I was in the other 50%. I would never have married Larry if I’d known. I would never have done that to him. I was totally in love with Larry when I was 21." (from TimesOnline-20071209")

(2) "Julie Heldman, who frequently played King but never felt close to her, said about King's personality, "One of the reasons I've never gotten close to Billie Jean is that I've never felt strong enough to survive against that overwhelming personality of hers. People talk about me being the smart one. Let me tell you, Billie Jean's the smartest one, the cleverest one you'll ever see. She was the one who was able to channel everything into winning, into being the most consummate tennis player. From Sports Illustrated and [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristien_Shaw-Kemmer French Wikipedia, another frequent opponent of King, said, "For a time, I think I was as close to Billie Jean as anyone ever was. But as soon as I got to the point where I could read her too well, she tried to dissociate the relationship. She doesn't want to risk appearing weak in front of anybody. She told me once that if you want to be the best, you must never let anyone, anyone, know what you really feel. You see, she told me, they can't hurt you if they don't know. from sports Illustrated. King once said, "Victory is fleeting. Losing is forever." from allthingswilliam. 75.63.7.15 (talk) 05:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

An encyclopedia article does not need every single quote you can find from or about the subject. Second, the lead is not the place to put lots of praise or condemnation from others. see WP:LEDE "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text be accessible. " Collect (talk) 11:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are citing WP:LEDE for this article. Maybe you're confusing this article with Martina Navratilova. But because you brought up the issue here, your remedy for not liking certain information in the lead of the Navratilova article was to delete the information completely. Instead of doing that, you should have proposed to move the information elsewhere in the article. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water", in other words. It's very doubtful that this article (Billie Jean King) has "every single quote" about King that could be found. Hyperbole like this is unconstructive and often leads to disruptive disputes, which I know you've experienced elsewhere and don't want to happen again. 75.63.7.15 (talk) 20:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• I agree this article is way too long. I suggest we revert back to the version from December 2007 before User:Tennis expert (now retired) ballooned its size up to the present version. Eusebeus (talk) 18:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I stand corrected, Tennis expert is now editing from the anonymity of the IP above. Eusebeus (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

And even trivial edits get reverted by that editor (sigh) Collect (talk) 00:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• He's generally a valuable editor, but he has some rather regrettable ownership issues. If you agree, I suggest we rollback this article to the version it was last year before he ballooned its size to its current ridiculous level and then simply revert changes as needed. However, we should let the discussion remain open for a few more days to attract additional consensus. Also, we can do an RFCU for anon IP edits in the event of 3RR issues. Eusebeus (talk) 01:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You have my support to be sure ... Collect (talk) 02

03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

WRT this debate, cf this comment from our unhappy friend 75.63.7.15. This discussion has served a purpose, however, insofar as the article is now shorter. Serious ownership issues remain and I am still in agreement with Collect that too much trivia mars the flow of this article. I therefore agree that we make the cuts Collect suggested above to trim for length. 18:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Tennis expert's creation of a spin-off article seems to be a sensible move. I don't find the year-by-year account too long as it is well-organised but it might accompany the stats in an article called Billie Jean King's playing career or some such, so providing the stats with some accompanying narrative. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

First step would be to have a series of articles "Tournament record of (name)" allowing the biographical articles to actually be biographical instead of all-inclusive sets of every fact available (short of actual scores, thank goodness). Second would be to remove "puff" -- that is material which is not actually biographical. Collect (talk) 19:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

This article is still too big. It's an encyclopedia entry on a person, it should be about a page or two long. Tennis expert can write a whole book about her I'm sure, but we can't leave it here, it doesn't belong. This is where people go for concise encyclopedia entries, not her life story. Nobody is going to read all this, they will just get frustrated and look elsewhere. Not to discount the work done, it's a lot of details. How about putting it here: http://tennis.wikia.com/index.php?title=Billie_Jean_King&action=edit&section=&preload=&editintro= Habanero-tan (talk) 11:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Please note the discussion here in terms of a perceived similarity in the editing patterns between User:Tennis expert and 75.63.7.15 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (both of whom edited in the above exchange).  HWV258  03:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The possible sock made iterated warnings to me -- seems that the warnings would have been better aimed at the sock, as I cannot believe that the person making them did not know he was using an IP address in a deliberate manner to appear as though he were two people. Collect (talk) 10:35, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think splitting the article is a good idea. It's clearly way too long, but the tournament record is well-referenced enough to be valid. ··gracefool☺ 13:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

At the time of posting this and disregarding list pages, this article is the second closest to the center of the Wikipedia. Top three pages based on average number of clicks to any article: United Kingdom: 3.67; Billie Jean King 3.68; United States 3.69. Source: http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~mu/wiki/ 216.57.96.1 (talk) 19:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

BJ King in manga series "Ace wo nerae!"

I don't know where (and if at all) I should put this on the page, but BJ King has been portraied in the hugely succesful tennis manga Ace wo nerae!. At first she only has a few cameo appearances, when the characters are talking about the leading tennis players of the world and is depicted as an idol for them. In later volumes the main character gets to meet and play against her. A couple of chapter also depict a match against Chris Evert in great detail.
I think it's an interesting evidence of King's popularity back in the 70's. Also Ace wo nerae! isn't just any sports manga, but one of the most popular mangas ever, which inspired a legion of girls to start playing tennis - not just in Japan but everywhere where it was released.
Plus, if her being mentioned in the Peanuts is worth a paragraph, this certainly should be worth it! ;) 83.181.85.76 (talk) 15:44, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Top 50 - how old?

How old was Billie Jean when she was in the Top 50 WTA rankings for the last time/week? I believe it was in 1984. Thanks! Naki (talk) 16:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Michael Jackson song

Did the MJ song "Billie Jean" address a real rumor of a relationship between the singer and BJK? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.20.243.213 (talk) 16:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Michael Jackson wrote in his 1988 autobiography that his producer, Quincy Jones wanted to change the title of the song so that people would not associate it with Billie Jean King, but MJ refused. But he said the song had nothing to do with Billie Jean King. 84.225.138.185 (talk) 07:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Too many long quotes

There's too many long, conversational type quotes in this article that give it the flavor of a memoir. There are even block quotes from people who are not the topic of this article. Please see WP:quote for instructions on how to summarize and when block quotes are permitted or not. I am happy to help and to discuss here as needed. Cheers! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 17:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Please remember that this is a biography in an encyclopedia. It is not a memoir or tell all book. Therefore, a person's career does not need a long section about their personality as told in long quotes by the subject and their friends and associates IMO. I'm going to ask for opinions at WP:BLPN. Feel free to join the discussion here. -- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:20, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

BLPN post

• The article begins with a section on her "personality" and features 6 paragraph long, block quotes. I find this grossly inappropriate and would like to remove all of the quotes. Any thoughts, suggestions, opinions?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 19:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I find the quotations give a very descriptive idea of Billie Jean's personality. But they do seem to be overused here per WP:QUOTEFARM and, with some consideration, could be replaced with a more summary style. Imo the information they contain is helpful and appropriate in this article so I don't think the information should be deleted in its entirety, just summarized.Coaster92 (talk) 03:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
    • @Kiethbob - I agree it is excessive - and likely a bit of possible copyright violation - trim away - Youreallycan 05:19, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
      • posted here on talk page by -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Too much detail

I've added another tag to the article as this BLP consists mainly of details about each tournament for every year of her career. These details should be move in to an article that lists all her tournaments and matches and this article should be a summary of her career and her life. I'm open to discussion on how best this can be accomplished.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:39, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Olympics

Why didn't she ever compete in the Olympics? Tad Lincoln (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Tennis wasn't an Olympic sport during her playing career. It returned to the Olympics in 1988, long after King retired. 64.175.36.97 (talk) 15:59, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Updated image

OTRS received a professional image from Billie Jean King Enterprises, Inc. I've taken the liberty of replacing the existing image with this improved one.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:10, 28 February 2013 (UTC)