Talk:Bill Tilden

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--Inappropriate subheading-- "Prison terms" is an inaccurate subheading. The section is not primarily about prison terms, as indeed Tilden was incarcerated for surprisingly short periods. His pedophilia is a "given" as anyone who has read Deford's biography is aware. I attempted to correct the subheading to "Arrests for Pedophilia" and added information from DeFord's biography clarifying his last incarceration, but someone removed it.soverman 06:45 (UTC) 10/02/06

• • He was sentenced to a year in prison and served 7 1/2 months.

• • He was arrested again on Jan. 28, 1949, after picking up a 16-year-old hitchhiker and making advances. The new charge could have been prosecuted as a felony, but the judge merely sentenced Tilden to a year on his probation violation and let the punishment for the new molesting charge run concurrently. He served 10 months

• • If you had bothered to read the above two paragraphs, you would have seen that the length of the terms served were already there. You simply added the same info again. Hayford Peirce 18:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• • There's a brilliant quote about Tilden - "He wasn't a homosexual. No way. He just liked young boys" - I'm paraphrasing. I'll try to find it somewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.189.236.142 (talk) 16:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• • • That quote is completely inaccurate, because a 16 year old is not a "young boy". The age of consent in most countries (and in most US states) is 16. No country has an age of consent within prepubescence.

Bowers's statistics against Kramer's

• • • • I prefer Bowers's statistics to Kramer's : in his 1934 report Bowers wrote THE FIRST TILDEN-VINES TOUR ... Thus Ellsworth Vines became the winner of the initial transcontinental tour, 11 matches to 9 while Kramer asserted that Tilden won this first short tour.

• • • • All the statistics giving a 51-7 tally between Budge and Tilden in 1941 do not take into account the fact that John Nogrady played 7 times instead of Tilden who had injured a leg in a car accident.

McCauley wrote in his 1941 report : According to Al Ennis, the tour's advance and publicity man, the final engagement in Birmingham on May 10 brought the tour's performances to 61, a number closely consistent with all other solid information. Hardwick won three times (Boston, Phoenix, and Columbus, Ohio), so that the final count of victories was 58-3 in Marble's favor. My tally of documented outcomes shows Budge ahead of Tilden, 43-5 in matches won plus one tie. (Tilden won in Detroit, Fort Worth, Dallas, Memphis, and Maywood-Chicago.) There were also 7 cases where Nogrady played instead of Bill and another 5 cases where scores are unknown. If we accept the general understanding that Tilden won a total of seven times, then the final tally would have to be 46-7-1, Budge over Tilden.

Carlo Colussi 11:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The Tilden/Nabakov connection

I don't know if it's worth adding (there's no trivia section, and perhaps rightly so), but Vladimir Nabakov gave the name Ned Litam to the tennis coach Humber Humbert picks for Lolita in the novel of the same name - i.e., an anagram (is that the word?) of Ma Tilden, which was Big Bill's other nickname. PiCo 16:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Very, very bad article

This article is obviously somebody's term paper. It contains no references and is filled with opinions, unsourced assertions and plain gossip and hearsay too numerous to list. Tilden is important and deserves to be an article, but not this one. I've attached the appropriate tags. Please, whoever wrote it, provide sources and cut the POV. — J M Rice 16:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

If you check out the version at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Bill_Tilden you'll see how the article was originally written -- before imbeciles dumbed it down to what now appears to be the standard third-grade Wikipedia reading level for its users. 71.198.106.106 16:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I was gonna say, that first section, the one in which I was most interested, is filled with contentious statements but cites no sources. I mean, I want it to be true, it's a cute story, but there's no sources. Wikipedia is all about sources, people! Oh and that citizendium link provides NO links at all! It WAS more orientating, however. In any case, I'm surprised such a prominent figure and potential gay icon hasn't drawn the more savvy editors. :( --Plavalagunanbanshee (talk) 00:44, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

pedophilia convictions vs. ephebophilia

SatyrTN, why did you revert my chapter heading correction? The original chapter heading is doubly wrong, firstly because pedophilia isn't a legal term, so he couldn't have been "convicted" of it (indeed, the correct names of the offenses are mentioned in the chapter), secondly - and more importantly - because Tilden was an ephebophile, not a pedophile. (84.178.45.125 (talk) 05:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC))

Golden Vigin of Sports?

What is the golden Vigin of Sports? golden era? golden virgins of sports? There's an error here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.28.47 (talk) 22:45, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Relationship to Samuel J. Tilden?

Is there any, or is it just a coincidence? I don't think the last name Tilden is very frequently used, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.164.224.208 (talk) 22:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Pictures removed from Germantown Cricket Club?

Not true. Tilden's pictures are prominently featured in the club as well as on their website. 141.151.94.197 (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2011 (UTC)RMDreyfus 7/9/2011

Portage, Indiana

Is everyone at WP out their minds? Some vandal changed "Beverly Hills" to "Portage, Indiana" at some point and no one has noticed it?!!!! Yeah, sure, Bill Tilden spend a year in jail in INDIANA???? Hayford Peirce (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

LOL...and it's been there for 2 1/2 years. date vandalized. I think everyone here is guilty. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I've just reread the lengthy chapter in DeFord's book about Tilden that deals with this case. The boy was precocious, and sexually aware, and what might be called "a slut", but there is no evidence at all that he was a prostitute. I've checked back a certain amount through the History of the article, but I can't find the specific place where the prostitute statement was added. I'm 99.9% that *I* didn't do it, because I wouldn't have had any source for it. This should be corrected too, I would say. Hayford Peirce (talk) 22:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't have the book (I don't think). If it's not in there could you please correct the section. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:03, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Help copy edit this page and add sources

A conversation was taking place on a personal talk page on deletes, edits, sourcing and such on this Bill Tilden article. I removed some of the flowery wording and since they would no longer be direct quotes I also removed the individual author's names. I just wanted new editors to know what has been talked about in recent days to get the ball rolling, but please chime in if sources can be found or more encyclopaedic writing can help here.

• enormous chunks are being chopped out.
• what was removed is most unfit for an objective encyclopedia article. As you seem to know your tennis pretty well, maybe you would be able to improve it? I'm not generally in favor of removing large sections of an article, but in this case, I think any serious editor would agree with the removals.
• I wholeheartedly agree with all the changes made. The article has long been tagged as violating Wikipedias policies. removals were all of uncited claims.
• Everything that has been removed from the Tilden article is easily found in Frank DeFord's biography, which is the first book cited in the bibliography.
• we use inline citations
• perhaps we should move this conversation to the Bill Tilden talk page
• Unless it's a living person my first choice is to ask for citations instead removing entire paragraphs. Most of the stuff eliminated is fairly well known however it was not sourced properly here. People do seem to notice a "citation needed" tag and might have looked for a source had it been used before removing completely. I'm not talking about the rewriting or rewording to sound more encyclopedic, I'm only talking about complete removal of sections. Roger Federer has separate articles on every year he plays, Serena has documentations about every blowup and cuss word she uses. Bill Tilden, The greatest tennis player in the first half of the 20th century by multiple news polls, has two articles here. Per tennis guidelines Tilden may eventually have one article for each and every year he won a Major title plus separate articles for after he turned pro. Using specifics, I agree that items like "He reportedly had no sexual relationships with women at all and apparently very few sexual encounters with members of his own sex...etc" should not be here unless sourced. Period. But removing things like his finger amputation, the tennis books he authored, his matches with Budge, the short stories he wrote, his davis cup records... Those things could have been rewritten, but complete removal was overly aggressive. I'd have used the "fact" tag on them. So copy editing yes... (flowery words needed to go too), but some of what was removed was a bit harsh. I've noted that many good editors at least try to add a source or two while helping to edit an article. It may not be required but it is certainly good wiki-etiquite to do so.

This should be enough to help everyone see what has going on before and help make this a great article. Please comment and help us out here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 10:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I did use "cite needed" tags, against my better judgement, in lieu of removing several statements. The sections I did remove were so full of puffery and peacock terms, that "fact" tags would not have solved the greater problem, which is that this article was largely a fansite. As Weakopedia pointed out, this is not Citizendum. I disagree that I was "overly aggressive". I think I used considerable restraint. I am not usually in the habit of removing whole sections of an article; in this case I feel it needed to be done. Anything that I removed can certainly be returned, referenced and minus the puffery. Joefromrandb (talk) 16:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

POV Tag

Is the POV / Neutrality tag (Jan 2010) still needed for this article? After the considerable edits done (see for example above section) the article now appears sufficiently neutral in tone to warrant removing the tag. Agree / disagree? --Wolbo (talk) 10:57, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

agree Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Statistical comparisons

It is dishonest for Wikipedia articles to do raw comparisons of stats from players who played before the Open Era to players who played after. Bill Tilden might have won 7 U.S. Open titles, and have a higher winning percentage than Borg or Nadal, but he did not play the best players in the world, day in and day out, therefore his statistics are not as impressive as they seem. When he was an amateur, some of the best players had turned professional and could not play him, and when he turned pro, he could not play the best amateurs. If he had played in the Open Era, he would have certainly had a lower winning percentage, and likely would have not won 7 U.S. Opens. This is a problem with all articles about pre Open-Era players.174.73.5.74 (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Some of his records and stats are aknowledged by the USTA for the then US National Championships here: http://usta.usopen.org/US-Open/history/ they stand and also here by the ATP here: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Performance-Zone/Performance-Gland-Slams-Career-List.aspx and here: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Performance-Zone/Performance-Grass-Career-List.aspx so what your suggesting is prior to 1968 you ignore all known stats and records because the tours players tournament organizers etc were all inferior in quality OK so if we take that line then all Grand slam records and stats prior to 1968 should also be discounted as they were amateur events of less quality than today in your opinon? --Navops47 (talk) 04:01, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

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Sexuality and Morals Charges

This section mixes two issues: societies views toward homosexuality and the changes that have occurred and to sex with a minor for which attitudes regarding which are not discussed. Regardless of this there are criminal charges which were determined in a court of law and for which Tilden for found guilty and, as a result, incarcerated. So this is about a persons criminal history - by all means discuss this but as it is not solely an issue of homosexuality but involves issues such as age of consent and pedophilia then they too should be addressed. Antipodenz (talk) 08:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

All time consecutive match wins

The entry related to "consecutive match wins, all majors" is a Grand Slam record so it is not needed to relate it to Majors unless it wanted to qualify this in some way e.g. For the two tournaments entered. Saying "all Majors" implies that this streak was collated by attending all Majors available during the period and this was not the case. Better to drop the "all Majors" term. Antipodenz (talk) 09:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Records missed or not fully recognised

It is a gap in this article that the triple crown is not mentioned. Tilden was not just the first man to achieve this (according to list in Grand Slam tennis records) but he backed that up with repeating the feat the following year. To date two men have achieved this in Grand Slam tournaments (Frank Sedgeman in 1951/52 and Neale Fraser in 1959/60). Next he wone 21 total grand slam tournament titles. At some point he surpassed the previous most titles for men (not sure when) and his total of 21 stood for sometime (also not sure when). Also noting his singles records for consecutive matches etc won it would be interesting to see what the tallies were by including his men's doubles/mixed doubles achievements. A timeline for doubles and mixed doubles would add considerably to this is someone has the detail etc. Antipodenz (talk) 05:37, 26 September 2021 (UTC)