Talk:Billie Jean King

Archived 2003–2015
Just a note that 2003–2015 has been archived. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:42, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Good Article goal
With a new movie coming out about King's life, this seems like a great opportunity to improve this article and hopefully push it towards Good Article status. Anyone is welcome to participate. Below are some of my observations about what could be improved in this article as a jumping off point.
 * Find sources --all non obvious facts should be sourced. This article has a lot of facts which are currently not sourced.
 * Remove scores --per peer review, scores should be removed from the body of the article unless they are a record
 * Make prose less list like --a few early career sections, other activities, and awards are very list like. The prose could be refined.
 * Trim excess or repetitive details
 * Improve cohesiveness of the article
 * Improve headings
 * remove/paraphrase block quotes--one or two block quotes would be fine but the article relies on them very heavily.

Please feel free to add any thoughts. Knope7 (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've condensed the personal life section, removing all but one of the block quotes. Perhaps that last block quote can be paraphrased, but I'll leave it for now to see if there are other opinions.
 * I'm also drafting the early part of her career here. I think for early years its probably easier to not go year by year. I'm also removing mentions of some specific regional tournaments that do not appear significant in part because there is an article devoted to her statistics. Knope7 (talk) 03:36, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Update: I have created an "In popular culture" section drawing on some things already in the article and adding a few others. Playing style and personality should probably be rewritten eliminating the quotes. If anyone is looking to jump in and do some writing, that could be a good section for someone to pick up. Sourcing for that should be easy as a lot of the sources used elsewhere in the article describe King's personality too.


 * Sourcing remains an issue, and is another great area for other editors to get involved.


 * I'm also currently considering moving the first few paragraphs of "Career," which talks about some of King's biggest career achievements and turning it into a "legacy" section. I'm not always fond of legacy sections or living people but I do think moving the material into some sort of achievement section later in the article would help the flow from Early life into Early career. Knope7 (talk) 20:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I have gone ahead and combined a few of the early years of King's career into a shorter overview. I think this makes sense as it allows for more focus on the peak of her career and avoids devolving into a list of tournaments and their results. I am not opposed to adding back some of the detail, particularly if sourced, so please feel free to add if you think anything important is missing. Knope7 (talk) 20:21, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Interview with King on National Public Radio's Fresh Air
King offers some insights as tho why she worked for women's equality in tennis. Some of this should be included in the article. She says that when she was 12 she decided that if she became the best tennis player she would work for change in the sport.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2021/08/21/1029711660/fresh-air-for-aug-21-2021-billie-jean-king-kenan-thompson?showDate=2021-08-21

Removal of longstanding info on title numbers
I'm at a loss on why one of Kings most vital stats is being removed. It has been here for well over a decade, is used by the WTA and Tennis Hall of fame. I'm talking about the removal by a new editor of "King won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. Why on earth would this be removed? The Tennis Hall of Fame talks of the feat extensively! The [www.wtatennis.com/players/110100/billie-jean-king#bio WTA tells of it] in her bio section. It heads the Billie Jean King website. The History Channel looks at it as important.

We seem to have a newer editor who is also editing as an anon IP removing it as useless wording that no one cares about. Baloney! It's a huge part of her persona that is sourced everywhere. The Tennis Hall of Fame tells of her 20 Wimbledon titles too. Those weren't just in singles... they are a total of all her Major titles there. I have no idea why anyone would remove these accomplishments from here... and also from the Serena Williams article. It is supposed to be their job to bring it to talk if someone disagrees with their removal of longstanding consensus. They may not realize that fact even though I've explained it to them over and over... so here we are. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2023 (UTC)