Talk:Helen Wills

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Biography assessment rating comment[edit]

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Edofedinburgh 04:09, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Move and Copyright[edit]

I discovered that the original article was copied from InfoPlease, a copyrighted source, which is forbidden on Wikipedia. However, I have already modified it somewhat and will soon rewrite more substantially, so I am not raising a Copyright objection at this time.

However, I intend to move the article to "Helen Wills Moody" because that is the name by which she is most well known these days. This even applies to her entry in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, even though she had already remarried, to Roark, much earlier than her induction. Of course, a redirect from "Helen Wills" will be automatically created.
Any Objections?
Joe Kress 01:53, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

I would have kept it as "Helen Wills." (but I'm not going to change it unless there is a strong groundswell). It's like Chris Evert or Chris Evert Llyod. Facts are: (1) She called herself Helen Wills in all of her books and most of her magazine article, (2) Her legacy gift to Cal-Berkeley was as Helen Wills, (3) Her intros vivos scholarship at Cal-Berkeley was as Helen Roark, (4) local monuments such as playgrounds, etcetera, established in her lifetime are as "Helen Wills" (5) The majority of her wins (just slightly) were as Helen Wills or Helen Wills Roark, (6) Her Wimbledon records list her as Helen Wills, (7) Although the International Tennis Hall of Fame article Headline is as "Helen Wills Moody," it refers to her exclusively as "Wills," likewise the NYTimes Obit. Further the ITHF alphabetizes her as "Wills (Moody Roark), Helen", (8) Britanica lists her as "Helen Wills," and (9) the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame lists her as "Helen Wills Roark" (I know its a big honor amongst all her other achievements, but she was inducted during her lifetime and with her blessing).

There is a lot of stuff out there which refers to her as "Helen Wills Moody," but Wills' choice appears to have been to drop the "Moody," and should be honored unless there is a definitive reason why not. Swlenz 21:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what to believe. Helen Wills may not have been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1969, but in 1959 together with Bill Tilden?? I´am writing some tennisarticles in the Swedish Wikipedia and found both years. User:Rapsodin18.50, June 11, 2005

It was 1959. Swlenz 21:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Intro[edit]

Recent edits have caused the Introduction to be clunky. The article now starts off with a name 'Helen Newington Wills Moody Roark' which Wills never used. I realize that it is nice to get all the aka's in. But the previous intro did a better job. Additionally, stating the various names Wills used in her lifetime makes that article more searchable. In other words, someone knowning just a little bit can find her more easily on the Web. It is important that the two names she was best known as (and all the historic records refer to), 'Helen Wills' and 'Helen Wills Moody' be featured prominently.

This also comports with Wikipedia naming standards, i.e., how best known, how did she refer to herself, etcetera. Regarding how she referred to herself, see my previous comments in the above section.

I am accordingly going to revert the intro to its previous form. Swlenz 23:13, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me try one more time. Wills was a dominate player from 1922 until her retirement in 1938. Even though she lost twice in 1924, once in 1925 and three times in 1926 (twice after her appendectomy), she was dominating, although not so much as her complete dominance between 1927 and 1932. Between 1922 and 1938, Wills played in 23 major tourneys and the Olympics (which replaced the French in 1924), she won 20 times, finshed second three times, and had an appendectomy. (I am excluding Wimbledon 1926 because although entered, she did not play, again because of her appendectomy). That Lenglen dominance overlaps the early years and that Wills didn't play much after 1933 does not alter the fact that she was a dominating player until she retired.

Thinking a bit more, I guess what piques me was word choice and the multiple meaning of the word dominate. I know what was intended, but saying Wills "dominated" women's tennis for a particular period which excludes a large portion of her career is like saying that Tiger Woods only dominated the golf world in years that he is ranked number 1 when in fact he is the dominant golfer of this era. That Lenglen was also a dominant figure for part of this era is not a problem. They both dominated the Tennis landscape: They were superior to their cohorts. Swlenz 20:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Date delinking[edit]

There's no need to make this article "the line drawn in the sand" in terms of fighting the movement toward having no dates be linked. The constant reversions of work by date delinking editors and delinking bots isn't going anywhere. Let's keep dates the way they have appeared in books, magazines and newspapers for centuries: normal text with no links. Binksternet (talk) 05:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. I've also created the redirects, and renamed the proposed destination as a disambiguation. UtherSRG (talk) 03:35, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Helen Wills Moody → Helen Wills – relisted --Mike Cline (talk) 14:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC) This tennis player first gained fame as Helen Wills, her maiden name. In the second half of her tennis career she married Moody in 1929 and she was called several things:[reply]

She then married Roark in 1939 and was known as:

The name "Moody" was often used even after she was married to Roark. In 1980, the Los Angeles Times wrote that "No one ever said Helen Moody without the Wills" but of course they can easily be proved wrong by pointing to other sources.

The one common strain running through all of these names is the maiden name: Helen Wills. Many observers continued to call her that throughout her life. Binksternet (talk) 03:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Oppose - My understanding is that she won roughly half her tournaments as Helen Wills and half as Helen Wills Moody. I'm not gungho either way but I'm not sure we really need this to move. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Chart editing[edit]

Just so we understand, I'm certainly not against references for scores... it's great. But the singles chart was numbered for victories and the overlinks of players and events was already done. Please add the refs without disturbing other's work. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind... I went ahead and added all the same refs to the original chart. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:13, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop putting the wrong names in the tables, if you're unfamiliar please read MOS:BIO Section 2.1.2 Changed names. Also, please stop removing the links to tournament editions for the years, it's helpful to be able to link directly to those pages. Column headings don't need a redundent "in final" as the tables are"Grand Slam finals". Thank You. Tennisvine (talk) 20:05, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Then put the links in without wrecking the rest of the table. I already did your reference work for you because you seemed not to bother or care enough to do it yourself. I'm not doing it again. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Fyunck(click) Please stop replacing women's maiden names with married names in events prior to their marriage in the tables, if you're unfamiliar please read MOS:BIO Section 2.1.2 Changed names. Also, please stop removing the links to tournament editions for the years, it's destructive. Thank You. Tennisvine (talk) 14:22, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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