This article was nominated for deletion on 5 January 2016. The result of the discussion was Speedy keep.
A fact from Melissa Bachman appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 January 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that to get her first job in television, Melissa Bachman worked four months for free, drove 150 miles (240 km)* daily, and supported herself as a waitress?
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Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion
On February 3, User:Tadeusz Nowak made a series of edits over 15 minutes that I'm afraid I disagree with. Per WP:BRD, we should probably return to article to the "status quo ante" as we discuss, but that's just an essay, though a long standing and influential one, so if Tadeusz disagrees I won't press the point. Anyway, let me address the changes individually.
In the lead, Tadeusz changed "Melissa Bachman ... is an American hunter" to "Melissa Bachman ... is an American trophy hunter".
First, that doesn't really describe her as well as just "hunter". After all, she does a lot of things associated with hunting, especially teaching others through her programs, seminars, and instructional videos. She isn't really famous for the trophies she has taken - though no doubt she has taken trophies - as for the hunt itself. She's only had one record setting trophy, and she's been hunting all her life. So changing "hunter" to "trophy hunter", incorrectly limits her scope. Second, the term "trophy hunter" is mostly used as a derogatory by those that don't like her. We should certainly mention it in the section about criticism of her hunting, but not use it as the primary way to describe her in the first sentence, that would clearly be taking a stand against her, we don't do that. Finally, and most important, the majority of sources for the article do not describe her as a trophy hunter, merely as a hunter. We go by the sources.
Also in the lead, Tadeusz inserted " She became known in 2013 when a picture she posted on Twitter of herself next to a dead lion with the comment "what a hunt!" went viral on social media and was widely condemned by animal welfare advocates.[1]"
First, "She became known..." is simply not true. She was known before then, with multiple in depth articles about her before the incident: Rochester Post-Bulletin, 2012; Bow Adventures, 2012; Quincy Herald-Whig, 2013 - the last specifically describes her as "Celebrity hunter". Second, putting this in the lead gives it undue weight. The lead should summarize the article, so we should certainly mention that she has been attacked for her hunting, but the details of this incident should be in the body. This wasn't the only time she was attacked, or the first time. Third, it really didn't have much of an influence on her. Compare, for example, to the other incident detailed in that section - then, she was uninvited from a major TV show - here, nothing happened, she wasn't banned from SA, no one stopped viewing her show, likely no one started viewing her show. Fourth, it didn't really have a long term impact on how the world sees her. There was certainly international news coverage of the incident, but it stopped very quickly; all the articles about it are from November 2013. Meanwhile, her show has gone on for years, and recently expanded internationally. Look at the continuing indepth articles about her: St. Cloud Times, 2014; Chaska Herald, 2015 - one doesn't even mention the incident, one only briefly. Again, we go by the sources. If they don't think it was a big deal, we shouldn't give it so much space in the lead. Finally (and this time, least important, this is only cosmetic), the Independent ref was already in the article, we shouldn't duplicate refs.
Again in the lead (what is this with making all changes in the lead, anyway?), Tadeusz changed "she has received personal online attacks" to "She claims to have received personal online attacks".
That's specific insertion of a WP:WEASEL word where it wasn't needed. Note that Tadeusz didn't source that "claims" - that's because they're not "claims", as Bachman didn't claim anything; as the article says, she didn't say almost anything in response to the incident. They are specifically backed by sources that are in the article. Here they are being quoted: multiple wishes for her death...; gang rape and beheading... and those sources write those are just a random sampling. A writer for The Guardian describes these as "horrific sexist and misogynist remarks", which is putting it mildly. I will discuss the other changes, but I think I'm going to make an exception here, and remove this "claims" change entirely, without discussion, per the WP:BLP exception to edit warring. This is horrible.
Finally, a change to the article body. Putting a {{who}} tag into the sentence: "International commentators[who?] claimed that the online anger directed at Bachman was extraordinary, sexist, and misogynist,[2][3] and that evidence showed that banning hunting drives species extinct much more than controlled hunts do.[4][5]"
Well, as you can see, that sentence is sourced with 4 sources. 2 from South Africa, one from the US, one from the UK. 3 countries (on as many continents), clearly international. And yes, all 4 mention both the horrible attacks and the benefits of controlled hunts, just 2 focus more on one than on the other, so I thought they would be more appropriate split. So "who" is clearly answered. If others really want, I can find even more reliable sources writing this, but I somehow thought 4 would be enough. --GRuban (talk) 15:34, 4 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 months ago3 comments2 people in discussion
@Tataral: In this edit, User:Tataral added Autobiography and Conflict of Interest tags. I would be very interested to know why she believes this article was to a large extent written by the subject. See, I always thought this article was mostly written by me! This can be seen from the article edit history. I have never met the subject, have no particular interest in hunting, and wrote the article not due to her request or specifications, but to the fact it was listed on Wikipedia:Requested articles. Before I saw it there, I had not known her from Adam, and I wrote the overwhelming part of it without any input from her. I did, after writing most of the article, in 2016 or so, contact her and ask if she would be so good as to release images for the article, which she was kind enough to do. Then again, just last year or so, I wrote her when I heard she had married, which she confirmed, and released more images, all of which I put in the article. I have received nothing from her except those images, the confirmation of that information, and possibly appreciation: she is not the most effusive person, but I gather she must at least somewhat like it, since she at least didn't object.
So, I am reverting the tags, and am very interested why Tataral thought they were appropriate, especially without contacting the editor whom she presumably thought had the conflict of interest; whether that was me, or any other editor, for that matter. I see that Tataral put the tags on this article in 19 June 2024, and did not edit anywhere on Wikipedia for 2 weeks before or after that date. So ... why? --GRuban (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
The article reads like a hagiography and contains an excessive amount of intricate detail about her personal life, including the lives of her dogs, stepchildren, and so on and so forth. She is best known for the intense backlash she faced in South Africa and other countries over a tasteless photo of her having killed a lion some years ago. Beyond that, she isn't a very notable or well-known figure. It's also curious how onesided and overwhelmingly positive the article is, especially considering the highly critical reception of her actions
It's a WP:BLP, we don't make those into hit pieces, as that link says. You will notice ALL of those links are from 2013, covering a single incident in her life; this is the article about her life, not just that one incident. She is notable from her career, which has lasted almost two decades, not for shooting one lion; you'll notice that the sources in the article from either before or after 2013, which are plentiful, and more than enough for Wikipedia:Notability, devote little or no coverage to that specific hunt. So that incident is covered both proportionately and in depth, even if I do say so myself: the death threats, the Ricky Gervais, the international coverage, all of that. Hagiography? You'll notice I even found and wrote about an earlier notable incident of criticism of her career that that you don't mention - but I do. I wrote about everything I could find, in proportion both to its coverage and its effect on her life. That's what we do. And, of course, even if you don't like the style -- which, if you like, I'll glad to discuss with you, until we will hopefully be able to reach an article we can both agree on -- that is no reason to call it either an autobiography or a COI article. Those are very different things. --GRuban (talk) 13:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
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