Talk:Michael Jackson

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Frequently asked questions

Many of these questions arise frequently on the talk page concerning Michael Jackson.

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Q1: Should the article mention reports that Michael Jackson was Muslim? (No.)

A1: No. The article should not mention reports that Michael Jackson was Muslim. Jackson had not publicly spoken about his exact religion in a number of years and only spoke about spirituality in general terms. The specific reports of a conversion ceremony for Jackson have been denied by his New York lawyer Londell McMillan.[1] They were also denied by Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens [2] and Dawud Wharnsby [3] who were allegedly present at the ceremony. The Michael Jackson memorial service did not involve any Islamic rites. Without further details from his family or representatives, it will not be included in the article.

Q2: Should the "Jacko" name be mentioned in the lead? (No.)

A2: No. The "Jacko" name should not be mentioned in the lead. Past consensus goes against such inclusion. The name is a derogatory term used primarily by US/UK/Australian tabloids. The slogan is discussed in the relevant section of the article.

Q3: Should the article mention that Jackson reportedly had cancer/blindness/liver disease/AIDS, etc.? (No.)

A3: No. The article should not mention that Jackson reportedly had cancer, blindness, liver disease, AIDS, etc. Until such claims are confirmed by a Jackson representative it will not go in the article at all. These claims are largely fabricated by tabloids.

Q4: Should the article mention that Jackson reportedly had a secret child called Omer Bhatti? (No.)

A4: No. This claim was denied by Bhatti [4] and only a DNA test would resolve the matter.

Q5: Isn't Jackson the seventh child of the Jackson family, not the eighth? (No.)

A5: No. Marlon had a twin, Brandon, who died shortly after birth. This makes Michael the eighth child.

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Michael Jackson is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 25, 2010.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 27, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
January 31, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
February 1, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
March 8, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
September 18, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
November 23, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
May 11, 2007	Good article reassessment	Kept
January 18, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
January 24, 2008	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
April 18, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
April 25, 2008	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
July 3, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
July 28, 2008	Featured article candidate	Promoted
April 23, 2009	Peer review	Reviewed
News items involving this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on April 22, 2004, and June 25, 2009.
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on August 29, 2019.
Current status: Featured article

Michael Jackson's religion was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 16 November 2009 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Michael Jackson. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

While the biographies of living persons policy does not apply directly to the subject of this article, it may contain material that relates to living persons, such as friends and family of persons no longer living, or living persons involved in the subject matter. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons must be removed immediately. If such material is re-inserted repeatedly, or if there are other concerns related to this policy, please see this noticeboard.

Michael Jackson Top‑importance

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Biography: Actors and Filmmakers / Musicians / Core

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	This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers (assessed as Low-importance).
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Business Mid‑importance

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Pop music Top‑importance

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R&B and Soul Music Top‑importance

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Record Production Mid‑importance

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Dance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Dance, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Dance and Dance-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DanceWikipedia:WikiProject DanceTemplate:WikiProject DanceDance articles

WikiProject Dance To-do list:

To nominate at WP:FAC:
To improve to Featured standard:
To nominate as a Good article:
To expand: 18th century dance - 20th century ballet - Bolero - Choreography on Broadway - Dance education - English ballet - Indian classical dance - Italian ballet - List of dance companies - Meg Stuart - Opera ballet - Sasha Waltz - Scotch reel - Set dance - Physically integrated dance
To cleanup: Contra dance - Salsa (dance) - Dandiya - Lead and follow
To unbias:
To check for copyvios:
To merge: List of dancers and List of dance personalities‎ as per AfD discussion
Substubs needing expansion: see /substubs
To destub: Amir Hossain Babu - Canada Dance Festival - Dance etiquette - Flash dance - more
Needing references: Chorus line - specifically verifying that each girl actually started out as a chorine
To create: Broadway dance - Country Western Dance International - Dance and cinema - Dance and society - German folk dancing - Latin swing - Post-structuralist ballet - Push (dance) - Salon dance - Shuffle dance - Swing boogie - World Dance Alliance - Xavier Le Roy - more
Wanted Pics/Graphics: Category:Dance articles needing images

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Janet Jackson Mid‑importance

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Spoken Wikipedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles that are spoken on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Spoken WikipediaWikipedia:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaTemplate:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaSpoken Wikipedia articles

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

McCullagh, Declan (June 25, 2009). "Michael Jackson's death roils Wikipedia". CNET Networks.
Rawlinson, Linnie (June 25, 2009). "Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him". CNN.
Boyd, E.B. (June 27, 2009). "Wikipedia Tech Team Learns About King of Pop, Rock, and Soul Death When Their Servers Crash". Mediabistro.com.
Shiels, Maggie (June 28, 2009). "Web slows after Jackson's death". BBC News.
Cohen, Noam (June 26, 2009). "With Jackson Entry, Wikipedia May Have Set a Record". The New York Times.
Cohen, Noam (July 19, 2009). "Wikipedia May Be a Font of Facts, but It's a Desert for Photos". The New York Times.
(none) (August 17, 2009). "The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008". The Daily Telegraph.
"Edits on Winehouse, Skrillex and Wile E Coyote: The role of a Wikipedian". Metro. October 12, 2012.
"The most influential person on Wikipedia is someone you've probably never heard of". Washington Post. June 11, 2014.

The use of the contentious topics procedure has been authorised by the community for pages related to Michael Jackson, including this page. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be sanctioned.

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This article has been viewed enough times to make it onto the all-time Top 100 list. It has had 133 million views since December 2007.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2009, 2010, and 2011.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 4 times. The weeks in which this happened:

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Contradictory information in Death section

Currently, the death section says:

Jackson died from cardiac arrest, caused by a propofol and benzodiazepine overdose.

…and then says…

Murray had administered propofol, lorazepam, and midazolam; his death was caused by a propofol overdose.

Which one is correct? Nosferattus (talk) 18:22, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lorazepam and midazolam are both classified as benzodiazepines, so while both passages are technically correct they could use a rewrite to avoid confusion. 98.159.215.35 (talk) 19:10, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

main template image change suggestion

I saw a pic on MJ's zhwiki main template and frankly looked better than that pic on the current main template on enwiki, so i think we can change that pic to this on the left. Coddlebean (talk) 08:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions needed at MJ the Musical

Editors disagree about whether a Guardian review of MJ the Musical should be included in "Critical response" section of the MJ the Musical article. More voices would be appreciated. Thanks. Popcornfud (talk) 13:54, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox Image

The image in the infobox is low quality and grainy. I have found a good alternative to it, taken at (arguably) Michael Jackson’s peak. Shall we use this as the replacement?Wcamp9 (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This looks doubtful as a public domain image. It seems to be a publicity photo and is probably copyrighted.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did not upload this, so I would not know the real licensing. For now, though, should we make it Jackson’s main image Wcamp9 (talk) 17:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not without verifying it is free of copyright. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 17:47, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A Tineye search shows this photo appearing on Alamy as a stock image.[5] This means that it is almost certainly copyrighted. The image was uploaded by User:ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter who is now indef blocked, and the claim of public domain always looked dodgy.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:52, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Read the licensing for this image, the uncropped version:

Wcamp9 (talk) 05:27, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I saw this, but it was almost certainly given the wrong license at the time of upload. It is very unlikely that a publicity photo of a major pop star would be public domain. At the very least, it would be copyrighted to the photographer who took it. Without a clear indication of no copyright by the photographer, it cannot be used. This looks like an image found in a web search that has been wrongly licensed, and the presence of the image on Alamy confirms this.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:56, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar error

There is a dangling modifier in the "Artistry" section of this article - "he later said that as a small child, his mother would wake him whenever Brown appeared on television". This error can easily be fixed - I'd suggest something like "when he was a small child..." 173.95.86.246 (talk) 16:06, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done You are correct, that's a dangling modifier. Fixed. Popcornfud (talk) 16:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]