Talk:Lucy Beall Lott

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Did you know nomination

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by JuniperChill talk 11:35, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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Beall Lott in 2021
Beall Lott in 2021
  • Source: https://people.com/health/model-24-rare-skin-disease-bares-scars-to-raise-awareness/ "Expected to die at infancy, Beall, now 24, defies all odds ... modeling jobs for publications like Vogue Italia and Cosmopolitan UK... With a first master's degree in art history from the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art already under her belt, she's looking forward to earning her second, in medieval art history, in June, from the University of Cambridge."
(To cite that she got it: https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/en/persons/lucy-margaret-lott "Master of Philosophy, ‘With Sorrow Thou came and with Sorrow shalt Wend Away': Images of Parental Grief in the Wall Paintings of St. Stephen’s Chapel., University of Cambridge Award Date: 2 Jun 2023" )
Moved to mainspace by GRuban (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 49 past nominations.

GRuban (talk) 13:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC).[reply]

  • Hi GRuban, article moved to main space on 28 June; article is well written and exceeds minimum length; a large number of sources are cited, most are of good reliability, some citations to Youtube, Instagram, Twitter etc. but these look to be acceptable within WP:SELFSOURCE; image is excellent, taken by a professional photographer who has stated it to be "released under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" on Instagram; I have checked and hook facts are verifiable from a number of sources in the article; hook is interesting.
My only comment is that you take a quick look at the Earwig report for this article. While not excessive there is some similarity in wording that can be avoided, particularly from the Times source - Dumelow (talk) 07:11, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dumelow: Thank you, I did overuse exact phrasing a few too many times, mostly fixed I think. --GRuban (talk) 18:40, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi GRuban, yes it looks to be picking up mostly common phrases and proper names now. Good work on the article - Dumelow (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. It was simultaneously inspirational and terrible. --GRuban (talk) 20:26, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]


Tone tag

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@AirshipJungleman29: this edit Can you be more specific about which phrasing you object to? I'd love to fix it. --GRuban (talk) 22:03, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi GRuban; as mentioned in the edit summary, it starts with the opening paragraph, which should identify the article subject. More relevantly to the tag, examples of a more informal tone include:
"She was expected to die in infancy, then by the age of 18. She did neither." written to impress rather than inform.
"Instead she became an international advocate for her condition, a fashion model despite her scars, and an academic earning multiple degrees in Medieval Art History from top British universities." Vague to the point of promotional; better to describe the advocacy and modelling she has done. The last bit duplicates the third lead paragraph, which says "She has a joint Bachelor's Degree from the University of St Andrews, two Master's Degrees from the University of London and University of Cambridge, and is pursuing a doctorate".
In the body, we have phrases like "When people ask Beall what she means to do with her degrees, sometimes her answer is to become an art history professor, and other times that she didn't think she would be alive that long.", "trying not to let her skin's fragility get in the way of leading a normal life", or "She says her scarring never fazed him.", which are more narrative than encyclopedic.
There is also "That year Beall's story was retold internationally, including Brazil, Chile, Norway, and Venezuela." which gives the impression that she was the subject of sustained coverage in these countries, instead of (by the looks of it) single churnalist websites publishing articles on her.
It's mostly a good article, but sometimes it's veered too much into the sanctimonious. The facts are extraordinary even if written out plainly; we do not need to do more than that. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:46, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, will work at. --GRuban (talk) 01:34, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@AirshipJungleman29: OK, I rewrote the lead basically completely, to be more specific, removed the six international magazines, and removed two of the three "more narrative" phrases. But I would like to keep the "what she means to do with her degrees" line in some form, because I see it as meaningful, not just conversational: for most people, it's obvious why they want to get advanced degrees, it's an investment of multiple years of their life to help them in their future career that will hopefully be multiple decades. However she is very aware that she does not necessarily have multiple decades, she has outlived her projected life expectancy by 50% already. She is hopeful, but realistic. --GRuban (talk) 14:38, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@AirshipJungleman29:: I saw your "Thanks", which was nice, but not completely clear - are my changes sufficient, and should I remove the Tone tag, or do you have other suggestions? --GRuban (talk) 20:46, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks better, I think. I’ll try to have another look later; if I don’t get back, just remove the tag. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly how the article reads to me, even after the changes. But I will leave it for now. 84.245.121.68 (talk) 22:13, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Vigilantcosmicpenguin edit

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Namely this edit: My apologies for reverting the whole thing, but there is just a lot that I disagree with.

  • Her middle name is absolutely used, it's what she uses for her academic career, the main reference is right in the title of the St Andrews page about her, which this edit also removed (!), but also the name on her degree: [[1][[2]
  • The accusation of "WP:Coatracking about EB" is a bit offensive, I'm afraid. EB is not a "tangential subject" in her life, it's really the reason for her notability; she isn't just an academic and an activist and a model, she is an academic who was projected not to live long enough to go to college due to EB; and she is an activist in that she talks about her life with EB; and she is a model who is distinctive due to having EB. And our sources recognize this, all of our source articles about her devote non-trivial passages explaining about what EB is, because it's a rare disease, they can't assume readers already know what it is. That means we need to as well, that's called WP:WEIGHT (part of WP:NPOV, a policy, one of the Wikipedia:Five pillars), we need to cover "all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources". When reliable sources write about Lucy Beall Lott, they write about EB, so we need to as well.
  • The reason we refer to her as "Beall", rather than "Lott" or "Beall Lott", needs to have its explanation linked at the very first mention, that's our practice when it isn't necessarily obvious.
  • The quotes: I've been complained at for using unnecessary quotes in my articles before, and told to paraphrase more, so I did that. I don't think any of these quotes are deathless prose where the actual words matter, rather than the meaning. I'd actually be happy to make the teenage/legs bit more specific if I didn't think the same person who complained at me for having too many quotes last time would complain again. If there is anywhere I specifically seem to be misinterpreting the quote, please say and will fix. (Also the change stuck in a "u after one of the quotes, probably not intentional.)
  • Stephen Hawking is worth a half sentence as a reason she values Caius. She is very aware she has a disability.

--GRuban (talk) 13:25, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GRuban: Apologies for making a ton of changes at once. Glad to WP:BRD about my edit.
  • Her middle name absolutely should not be in the article; this is a matter of privacy. I think you should familiarize yourself with the WP:BLPPRIVACY guideline, including WP:BLPPRIMARY, which states, Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. You bring up the fact that her middle name is used on her degree, but a degree is the kind of "public document" that is forbidden by BLPPRIMARY. The St Andrews website is also a primary source that should not be used for this. Every university student has their full name listed on their university's website; this does not mean that they want it to be public information. We should only use Beall's middle name if it is mentioned in either a high-quality reliable source or a public-facing post by Beall that is clearly meant for everyone to see.
  • It seems I was wrong to bring up WP:COATRACK, as you're right that EB is very relevant to this article. What I meant is that the article's description of EB could be just a bit more concise. In my edit, I only removed two statements about EB: EB is a rare condition affecting an estimated 500,000 people worldwide […] treatments are mainly supportive, dealing with the symptoms and wounds. I believe these particular details are not as relevant to Beall's life as, say, the description of blisters. Newspaper articles about Beall include these details to provide context to readers, but that is not necessary for Wikipedia, as readers who want context can click on the link to recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.
  • Your point about her surname makes sense; we can do it that way.
  • This is really just my opinion, but I think the paraphrasing of quotes is just a bit awkward as it's so close to the original quote. You say that people have complained about excessive use of quotes, but perhaps you may be overcorrecting here? Excessive quotes from secondary sources may be a problem, but if Beall herself says something, the best way to describe what she said is with what she said.
  • I don't think the statement about Stephen Hawking is faithful to the source. The source says “I will be attending Gonville and Caius, which is the same college Stephen Hawking attended,” she said. The statement we make in this article goes beyond the statement in the source, so it is original research/original synthesis. This article states that Beall particularly valued going to the same college as Hawking, and brings up that Hawking was disabled, neither of which are in the source.
— Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 18:34, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for writing back! OK, I think we can meet half way. Let me go one point at a time.
  • Middle name - clearly the university website doesn't list her full name, since it doesn't say Beall (or her other middle name, she has several). Also, she doesn't mind. But I'm willing to give on this point in exchange for some of the others, her middle name isn't vital to the article. --GRuban (talk) 18:59, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean when you say "she doesn't mind"? If Beall has made it clear that she's okay with her middle name being public, then it's absolutely okay to include. If she uses it in a social media post or something then we can use that as a source. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 00:24, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In email. When I was starting the article, I wrote her and asked: "Would you object if I wrote a Wikipedia article about you? Would you be willing to release some images so we could use them in the article?" I try to do that when I write about living people; not everyone wants the sort of publicity that a Wikipedia article gets. In my experience maybe half the people I write to respond, and out of those 90% are OK with it, but three of those I wrote have so far said no, so you won't find their articles written by me. She both responded and was happy to have an article, so I pressed my luck and asked more questions. Among other things she volunteered that she actually had yet another middle name, and that she tried to use it in the St Andrews profile but it was not put up, possibly because that made her name too long. I didn't use it in the article since I couldn't find it published anywhere. This one was published so I used it. I haven't done a thorough survey of her Instagram posts, don't know if it's in there somewhere. She hasn't responded for a few weeks now (even though I did triumphantly crow to her that the article seems to have been translated to Spanish and Arabic and the "Did you know" got more views than any other for this month!) so I can't guarantee if I ask her to put in a post she'll do it. But again, it's not a huge deal, her notability and resulting quality of the article is not really affected by how many middle names she has, unlike the academic-activist-model-with-EB bit which is quite important. --GRuban (talk) 14:37, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, this isn't a situation I've ever encountered before. I've had a situation where a representative of an article subject confirmed a middle name, but that wasn't the subject themselves. I don't know if there's any precedent for an article subject specifically indicating, in a private correspondence, that they're okay with having their middle name in the article. I guess it's probably okay to include it, although I personally would be cautious and wait for her to mention the name publicly. — Vigilant Cosmic Penguin 🐧 (talk | contribs) 19:19, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stephen Hawking - drat, I used the wrong ref, then. Here, this is the one I should have used: https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/news/beauty-life-and-art and the relevant text is “I was so beyond thrilled because I knew so much about Caius already, especially because of Stephen Hawking,” adds Lucy, who is enjoying the college experience. “Even though we don't have the same condition I saw that he was a disabled academic and that I could also be an academic even though I was disabled. It was really humbling to be able to go to the same college that he was a fellow at. It was really amazing.” Thanks for noticing. --GRuban (talk) 14:52, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and this can be an example of where I think it is better to paraphrase rather than give her direct quote. My half sentence , which she particularly valued as this was the college for which the disabled physicist Stephen Hawking was known is much shorter than those four sentences of quote. --GRuban (talk) 15:04, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Two questions

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  1. Why is there no mention of her father?
  2. Why is that first source quoted verbatim (no pronoun between "legally" and "name" and "Beall" not being capitalised), despite the fact that such quotes are usually rewritten for readability? 2001:8003:540F:6001:D845:3F33:7480:39BB (talk) 08:10, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    1. I couldn't find any reliable sources writing about her father and her together - unlike her mother, who is mentioned by name in several of the best sources. I asked and she told me his name and profession, so I searched, but I just could not find any articles that mention both of them. I get the impression he is not involved in her life; I think "estranged" is the current term for this sort of thing.
    2. By "that first source", you mean the comment "yes legally name is still Lott but I prefer beall"? I thought I needed to quote it, because it's kind of out of place; most of that Instagram post is about her modeling, and if I didn't point it out readers might miss it. There are only ten short words in the quote, and, I'm afraid, between the various grammar errors, if I were correcting it, I'd be changing more than half of them! The essay Wikipedia:Quotations says both things at once, both "Any alterations to quoted material must be clearly marked." and "Trivial spelling or typographical errors that do not affect the intended meaning may be silently corrected." - is it "trivial" if I'm changing half the quote? Since it's not used in the article body as such, only as a source in the references section, I decided to keep the spelling and grammar as she has it so as to avoid that dilemma.
    I do think I need it in some form. One of the first questions I asked when she replied was what to call her; at first, I had the impression that she used "Lucy Lott" for academics and "Lucy Beall" for modeling. You'll notice "Lucy Margaret Lott" in her St. Andrews page, "Lucy Beall" in the Vogue article, "Lucy Beall-Lott" in a couple of other places, which I think is outright wrong, but also not correcting in where those sources are in the reference section... In the end I picked Lucy Beall Lott for the article name, but "Beall" for the short form in the article, not least because it is shorter than "Beall Lott", and because she said she prefers "Beall" over "Lott". --GRuban (talk) 04:06, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]