Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Beyoncé/2

Beyoncé

The following discussion 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.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN from 2008

Result: Consensus to keep. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:42, 24 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After giving this some thought, I'm not convinced the article still meets GA standards. Starting a reassessment that probably should've been initiated earlier. Along with talk page complaints about it reading like a fan page (as of this diff), here are some issues I found from a glance:

"Early life" goes into excessive details about heritage. We could just stick to a general summary where her ancestors came from, and maybe mention some relatives outside of her sister and their parents who have articles.
The 2019 version of The Lion King doesn't need to be linked more than once within "Career" section (the 2018–2021 section is ideal when that's the first mention). It's also unnecessary to link things like Destiny Fulfilled and "Instagram" under "Fashion lines" after previous sections already do so.
I doubt there's any need for a whole quote box on Black Is King for "Videography and stage"
There's various redundancies when talking about Ms. Knowles' marriage with Jay-Z (who seems to be her only publicly known non-platonic relationship). When largely intertwined with both of their careers, it would probably be best to integrate details into the "Career" section and perhaps have a "Life and career" section (which I believe this article once did many years ago before getting restructured). Since she's also worked professionally with both daughters they have together (not sure about their son), such a rearrangement could also help avoid repetition of such endeavors.
Under "Activism", the tone of "our" from "persistent in our societies" is inappropriate
The whole "Interests" subsection seems trivial
"Music video" is a very commonly known term that doesn't need linking per WP:OVERLINK
Within "Legacy", it sounds like fan puffery to say "artistic innovations"
Lots of incorrect formatting (e.g. The Wall Street Journal is missing italics from the "Fashion lines" subsection while About.com, Box Office Mojo, Chime For Change, CNN, NPR, and Recording Industry Association of America shouldn't use them at all for citations, Elle is wrongfully written in all upper case)
I would try to find stronger sourcing than BuzzFeed, "Fashionlooks.com" Metro, and "quotefancy", also there's some dead links that need fixing/replacing

The above isn't an exhaustive list of the problems this article has, and others are free to list other qualms they have. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 01:51, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

icon, i think i'll have to take this on. 750 h+ 13:20, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SNUGGUMS i think i've addressed most your problems (not sure about the fourth problem), but if anyone has any issues feel free to list them but i'm leaning keep. 750 h+ 01:38, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Things definitely look better than before overall, so kudos on that. In case it wasn't clear before, I meant that "Marriage and children" could easily be interspersed throughout "Career" given how much Beyoncé and Jay-Z have worked together both after and before getting married to each other. Doing this would make it less likely for any mentions of the pair's collaborations to be repeated throughout the body. To a lesser extent, their 3 kids have each also worked with both (and I have since found out that son Sir also appeared in the Black Is King movie along with both parents and his sisters). The rest of "personal life" could be rearranged without being subsections of that. Nevertheless, I do recommend waiting for others to leave comments before we close the reassessment, and on another note it's needlessly repetitive to use "Knowles" more than once in the opening sentence. Maybe later I'll dig deeper into the page. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:17, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. I also just realised i haven't fixed the dead links, so I'll get to that. 750 h+ 12:56, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I added some cn tags to uncited statements in the article. Per WP:FORBESCON, some of the Forbes references should be replaced if the author is identified as a "contributor". The article, at over 14,000 words, is quite long and I think there are some sections that can be spun out or written more concisely as it is too much detail for this article. "Production" (under "Artistry") is just two block quotes, and should use summary style instead. I'm not sure "Interests" is encyclopedic and I think it can be removed from the article (random hobbies are probably too much detail for this article). I'm also skeptical that "Wealth" is encyclopedic, and I think there can be a discussion on its inclusion in the article. Z1720 (talk) 15:39, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I do believe details on net worth are good to have, even if not necessarily under a "Wealth" heading. Feel free to suggest other places it could be mentioned. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:53, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SNUGGUMS: Is the wealth related to a significant milestone for Knowles? If so, it might be best to most the most notable aspects to the "Legacy" section. Another suggestion is to put the notable wealth milestones in the "Career" section when a wealth milestone happened. I do not think five paragraphs discussing her wealth is necessary in a Wikipedia article. Z1720 (talk) 00:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It minimally led to her and Jay-Z topping a Forbes "World's Highest-Paid Celebrity Couples" list, making a Guinness World Record for "highest-earning power couple", and first billion-dollar couple in the music industry. Solo achievements include being the "world's best-paid music personality" in 2008 and topping the 2014 Forbes "Celebrity 100 list". These were no small feats. I do however see what you mean on five paragraphs being overkill and trimming that down wouldn't hurt. Outside of what I named here, we could just stick with high rankings on earnings/net worth lists. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 00:36, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Will be starting extended work today. Hope end of May is a good deadline 750 h+ 14:29, 28 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720: i'll get to this soon, please ping me if i don't start on this soon. 750 h+ 13:31, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SNUGGUMS: hmm i don't really see anything from "marriage and children" that should be moved into the "career" sect. what do you think? 750 h+ 02:52, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since Ms. Knowles wed Jay-Z in 2008, I would recommend mentioning that along with giving birth to Blue in the 2008–2012 section (especially when giving birth in the end of that range) and maybe her miscarriage. Twins Rumi and Sir can first be introduced within 2015–2017 based on when they were born. There already is a mention within the latter section of how pregnancy concerns were why she dropped out of performing at Coachella in 2017. It also talks a bit about being married to Mr. Carter. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 11:26, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think that information is better in the Personal life section: if consensus is to mention it in the Career section, the information should be removed from the subsequent section. Z1720 (talk) 13:19, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, I was hoping to avoid redundancies of collabs and relationship info with such a move. We currently have different places where Jay-Z is mentioned as her husband, and seeing that under 2015–2017 without a prior indication of when they got married would likely make readers unfamiliar with such details ask when that happened. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 14:32, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720: i think i agree with SNUGGUMS. i think all of the other sections in the personal life section should be moved to the public image section.

also on that note, i've taken the article down to 12.5k words. 750 h+ 10:02, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When politics and activism feel like separate matters from a public image, I boldly separated them into another heading. Hopefully this doesn't look bad. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:22, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone for your fantastic work. I think separating them with headings is a good idea. Right now, the article has "philanthropy" as its own section. Should this be put under "other ventures"? I also think the philanthropy section has too much detail in some places: her specific dollar contributions might not be necessary considering the size of the article and I am more interested in the initiatives of the organisations she is supporting. I also looked at "Politics" and the article has details about what Beyonce and her back-up dancers wore when they performed at Clinton's celebrity rally: I think the article should include Beyonce's participation at the event but the outfits are too much detail. I think these are examples of some places where the article can remove or spin out extra details so that readers can find the most important information more effectively. Z1720 (talk) 12:59, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SNUGGUMS and Z1720: article is now 12.1k words, a 2k+ word decrease. i'm moving towards a keep, but what do you both think of its state now? 750 h+ 04:45, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This has definitely been changed for the better overall. While not a make-or-break, her outfit for File:Beyoncé at Super Bowl XLVII halftime show (4).jpg blending into the background makes the image a subpar choice. I haven't yet decided on whether to keep as GA. On another note, is it known when she got engaged to Jay-Z? The details of their relationship pre-marriage are murky compared to 2008 onwards, and I'm not certain when the two first began dating, especially when they often appear to remain private on such matters. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 04:55, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SNUGGUMS: i've replaced the image. seems that they got engaged in June 2007 and started dating around 2000/2001, so i'll add that in. 750 h+ 11:50, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; File:The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour London (1).jpg fortunately avoids a blending issue. When unable to find any other glaring omissions with the Jay-Z details being added (all I knew for certain about their relationship pre-engagement was being friends for at least a year beforehand), I'll say keep as well. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 16:21, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720: ? 750 h+ 12:01, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@750h+: The article is still too long for me to recommend a "keep". After a quick skim, I noticed lots of places with too much detail that could be cut. An example is the fourth paragraph in "Fashion lines" about her partnership with Adidas: there are sentences about the announcement about when she is releasing the fashion line which are not necessary, and instead the release date is more important. Also, the paragraph talks about the stock price of the company going up, which is not significant to her biography. How I would phrase the paragraph is: "In April 2019, Beyoncé became a creative partner with Adidas to continue developing her athletic brand Ivy Park and to create a new clothing and footwear line. It launched on January 18, 2020, and the collection was previewed on the Elle January 2020 issue. By February 2023 the line was struggling financially and the partnership ended the following month." This is one example of how information can be trimmed to the most important information, and is not exhaustive to that one paragraph or section. I suggest subject-matter experts go through the article and consider other text that can be cut or moved for being too much detail. Z1720 (talk) 18:37, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i think now the length is fine, 11.2k words (given this article was once (14k). it's now similar in size to Lady Gaga and Mariah Carey 750 h+ 23:57, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I'm interested in this article so I've done a few things for now: I've removed the "Atomic Habits" sentence since it is totally irrelevant and is cited to the book itself, which is a self-helping book not a music book. The "Wealth" section was extremely bloated so I've adjusted it to include the most important information. I've also adjusted the "Legacy" section and the "Activism" subsection. Medxvo (talk) 00:40, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've also adjusted the "Artistry" section. Medxvo (talk) 15:06, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've now adjusted the "Public image" section, which also had several uncited statements. After taking a look at the other sections left in the article, I'm not seeing outstanding issues, so I'm also saying keep. Medxvo (talk) 20:43, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. As a casual editor of this article, I agree that some of the sections and especially the lead is a bit too bloated and the word count is too high. I'll be broadly going over the article starting with the lead to trim down and make it more reader friendly. However, I'm still voting Keep as I feel that the writing quality as is is still better than a lot of other music BLPs; references are pretty consistent and the prose is generally not too peacocky. PHShanghai | they/them (talk) 01:45, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i think the lead is of fine size, maybe the last paragraph could be trimmed but i think most of the lead is fine. 750 h+ 03:55, 20 May 2025 (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.