Talk:Billy Woods

(Redirected from Talk:Billy Woods (rapper))
Latest comment: 5 months ago by Gråbergs Gråa Sång in topic Billy Woods’ facelessness

Untitled edit

Here find a good reference on most things related to Billy Woods: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/_Bear_/a_complete_guide_to__billy_woods/ DOOZ (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2014 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 9 December 2022 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. It was satisfactorily demonstrated that the Billy Woods rapper is the most sought-after, not only of Billy Woods entries, but of all William Woods entries, most of whom aren't called Billy anyway. Thus there seems a consensus to move when viewed through the lens of evidence and policy.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)Reply


Billy Woods (rapper)Billy Woods – This person is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the name "Billy Woods". Though there are lots of other individuals listed at William Woods, the only other people to go by Billy specifically are Billy Woods (Irish footballer) and Billy Woods (New Zealand footballer). Both have dramatically fewer pageviews than the rapper (see comment below), and are retired from professional play, indicating that their views are unlikely to increase much in the future; meanwhile, the rapper's average pageviews have been steadily increasing for roughly five years, making it unlikely that his lead in pageviews is a short-lived spike. ModernDayTrilobite (talkcontribs) 19:06, 9 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

  • Nominator comment: Linking pageviews here. ModernDayTrilobite (talkcontribs) 19:06, 9 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment: It is really not so easy to know whether a common hypocorism has been used for someone or not. The article title is not really a very good indicator. Encyclopedias and other reliable sources may tend to be written with a relatively formal tone and thus avoid using nicknames. One thing I notice is that the William Carlton Woods article has an infobox entitled "Billy Woods". The dab page also mentions a Billy Woods who was an English footballer and played in the 1949–50 Rochdale A.F.C. season. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
    Good point – I've just done a quick spot check of the other figures named William Woods, to check whether I've missed any other claimants to the "Billy Woods" name. From my look through the articles, and a handful of references for each, it seems like William Carlton Woods is the only William-titled article where the subject also went by Billy. William Carlton Woods pulls an average of just 19 monthly pageviews (vs. over 3000 for the rapper), so even after reviewing the evidence more broadly, I think my original argument continues to hold true. (You're correct about the English footballer as well, but I deliberately omitted him from my nominating statement since he doesn't have his own article.) ModernDayTrilobite (talkcontribs) 21:32, 9 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
    FWIW, I'll admit that the English footballer is a trivial mention and the "Billy" in the William Carlton Woods article is unsourced. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. Very definitely not the primary topic. There is no primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:45, 14 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment: Woods (the rapper) is empirically the primary "Billy Woods" with regard to usage, as evidenced by pageviews posted by User:ModernDayTrilobite. While Woods (the rapper) still leads with the inclusion of the many "William"s, his lead ceases to be as magnitudinous.
I think it's worth noting Winston Smith has a disambiguation page, despite Winston Smith (Nineteen Eighty-Four) being 10x more viewed than the next most viewed Winston Smith.
If the Winston Smith disambiguation page is correctly implemented and should serve as a precedent, and if Billy Woods should not be considered distinct from William Woods, then I oppose. Anonymous526 (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. As Anonymous526 suggests, even if we pretended that every entry at William Woods (disambiguation) was Billy instead, the rapper still has about 65% of the page views (massviews). In reality that's a massive underestimate because most are not known as Billy Woods, and ModernDayTrilobite's page views link is more accurate. Adumbrativus (talk) 19:31, 24 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Subject name: Uppercase or lowercase edit

I was wondering about the article's capitalisation of Woods' name. NPR [1], Rolling Stone [2] and Pitchfork [3] all spell his name in lowercase. Compare, for instance, Wikipedia's article on bell hooks: Her name is also lowercase, even in the article title. I believe that, for consistency, woods' name should be lowercase too. Opal|zukor(discuss) 18:05, 4 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

It's definitely a bit of a gray area, in my opinion. The most relevant guideline would be MOS:PERSONAL, which tells us that we should use a stylized lowercase name if it has received regular and established use in reliable independent sources. This pushes the question to: is the lowercase form of his name used enough to constitute "regular and established" use?
My initial gut feeling was that he wouldn't hit that mark, but I took a look through the article sources and now I'm not as sure. There are definitely some sources, especially older ones, that continue to capitalize his name (e.g. Exclaim in 2012, Rolling Stone in 2017) - but it does seem like the lowercasing is becoming increasingly widely adopted by reliable sources. In the face of this sourcing, I think adopting the lowercase does seem to be the correct call. ModernDayTrilobite (talkcontribs) 20:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Billy Woods’ facelessness edit

Billy Woods is known for remaining faceless, but an image of him performing exists on Wikimedia Commons. As per Wikipedia:UNCENSORED, the addition of his photo is a constructive edit, and helps the article. Do not remove his photo. Roasted (talk) 22:22, 5 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

I just removed his photograph. The subject prefers not having his picture online. Yes, we are UNCENSORED, but we don't need this picture. It costs us nothing to remove this as a courtesy in the spirit, if not exactly the letter, of WP:BLP. And yes, it will still exist elsewhere online: WP:NOTEVERYOTHERSITE. --A. B. (talkcontribsglobal count) 21:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
We don't need this picture but we do if possible need a picture, do you have a better one you can suggest? Preferably one which shows the subjects face clearer (that is the standard criteria after all). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:50, 21 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Billy_Woods. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:21, 21 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Noting that if we're keeping that image, the caption should say 2022. Can't change it atm because protection. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:21, 22 December 2023 (UTC)Reply