Talk:John Mellencamp

Edit dispute

I removed the following material from the lead section:

Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis said: "Mellencamp has created an important body of work that has earned him both critical regard and an enormous audience. His songs document the joys and struggles of ordinary people seeking to make their way, and he has consistently brought the fresh air of common experience to the typically glamour-addled world of popular music."[5]

In 2001, Billboard magazine editor-in-chief Timothy White said:

"John Mellencamp is arguably the most important roots rocker of his generation. ... John has made fiddles, hammer dulcimers, Autoharps (sic) and accordions [into] lead rock instruments on a par with electric guitar, bass, and drums, and he also brought what he calls 'a raw Appalachian' lyrical outlook to his songs. Mellencamp's best music is rock 'n roll stripped of all escapism, and it looks directly at the messiness of life as it's actually lived. In his music, mortality, anxiety, acts of God, questions of romance and brotherhood, and crises of conscience all collide and demand hard decisions. ... This is rock music that tells the truth on both its composer and the culture he's observing."[6]

Former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty said of Mellencamp:

"John is one of the great American songwriters and a great rock spirit. He's always been somewhat feisty, and his 'Authority Song' tells that story. But that's a good thing. That's rock 'n' roll at its very core."[7]

Johnny Cash called Mellencamp "one of the 10 best songwriters" in music.[8]

Editors 75.132.39.167, Gsquaredxc, and Snowycats each reverted my edit with no explanation whatsoever. As I stated in an edit summary, this material is included in its entirety in the body of the article. It makes the lead section a bit lengthy and a bit too laudatory. 24.29.56.240 (talk) 19:25, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The reasons why I reverted your edit are as follows:

1. Your account has previously been warned 12 times.
2. You did not provide explanation, the edit I reverted had this as an explanation: Undid revision 985806583 by 75.132.39.167 (talk).
3. You did not post anything relating to the removal on the talk page as would be customary to do if reverting an edit that has sourced information.
4. You do not have an account which is why I found it on RTRC.

I also explained fairly well why I reverted your edit using the uw4-vandalism. The edit was not without explanation.

Along with this, Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines states "Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection." Please do not remove notices from your talk page with the reasoning "remove BS warning that has no basis in reality".

I cannot speak for Snowycats, however I do believe than an accusation of wikihounding is unfair as "Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. In fact, such practices are recommended both for Recent changes patrol and WikiProject Spam."

As for 75.132.39.167, please link a source for when this user reverted your edit. In fact, you reverted 75.132.39.167's edit, which is the edit that this dispute is about.

In the future, please explain your changes in the edit summary as well as explain in the talk page before you make considerable changes. Please do not make large deletions, then tell others to contest them in the talk page. Gsquaredxc (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Gsquaredxc, you are correct that 75.132.39.167 did not revert my edit. That statement was an error on my part.

The fact that there are warnings on my talk page has nothing to do with this edit and is not a reason for reverting it. Neither is the fact that I am an IP user. So I don't know why those things are part of this discussion. I stand by my use of the term "Wikihounding". Also, if you don't want me to remove notices from my talk page, please don't post baseless accusations of vandalism or other baseless notices on my talk page. I have never vandalized a Wikipedia page.

Now, could we get back to the topic at hand? I think the article is better with a more concise lead section that doesn't include the challenged language. 24.29.56.240 (talk) 05:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

The article should explain how Mellencamp dodged the draft and avoided Vietnam (the biggest issue for any healthy male his age back then). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.27.38 (talk) 16:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Mellencamp marriage and fatherhood: Something is wrong here

The following currently appears in the article:

"When Mellencamp turned 18, he married his pregnant girlfriend Priscilla Esterline.[citation needed] Mellencamp became a father in December 1970, only six months after he graduated from high school.[citation needed] "

Well, the math doesn't add up. This article gives Mellencamp's DOB as October 7, 1951. "When Mellencamp turned 18" would then be Oct 1969. At that time, says the article, Priscilla was already pregnant. Yet the child was born December 1970, 14 months later.

Either the first pregnancy ended prematurely and the child born in December 1970 was of a different pregnancy, or else there is a mistake in the above-referenced part of the article.

The lack of citations is not a point in its favor.

That said, I don't want to just remove a major part of his story, so I did not edit the article.

But if anyone can make sense of the above, please do.

Thank you,

2600:1017:B828:3CE:0:53:8158:1701 (talk) 10:01, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

The unsourced claim has been removed. - FlightTime (open channel) 00:48, 24 September 2022 (UTC)