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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Pop 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
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Wanted Pics/Graphics: Category:Dance articles needing images

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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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Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 March 2024[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

MissGoldLover (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Could we add that Michael was born at St Mary Mercy Hospital in Gary (source: Katherine's Book). It hasn't existed since 1995.[reply]

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. M.Bitton (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox photo[edit]

Can we get another infobox photo? The current one is black and white. I've been thinking of uploading a new photo. Ccole2006 (talk) 03:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thriller sales[edit]

thriller sold 100 million records but in this page it is written only 70 million 2409:40E3:69:C437:BCD6:5260:C92:EB22 (talk) 15:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done 100M has previously been rejected as a dubious inflation. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The threshold for album sales is the certified amount is at least 30% of the claimed sales. If sales were certified up to 70 million, then it would be reasonable to add back the 100 million. But as of right now since Sony has yet to provide the certifications or means for how they came up with that figure, so even most fans chock it up as inflated Never17 (talk) 22:04, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Worldwide sales[edit]

The worldwide sales for Michael Jackson need to changed from 400 million to 500 million, to reflect the list of best selling artists page. As a consensus was already reached that he was long past the time for the figure to be updated Never17 (talk) 22:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done I have recently made some minor improvements to the article, including the update of that figure, as well as fixing some references that lacked the authors' names. Salvabl (talk) 22:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Great work as always Never17 (talk) 22:32, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Errors in references to The Mercury News[edit]

Hello. There are two references to The Mercury News in this article. One is from 1988 and the other from 2010. The name of the newspaper in those years wasn't "The Mercury News", but "The San Jose Mercury News", so its name should be changed in the references. And one title has another error: the abbreviation for the United States should be capitalized. KamilaF89 (talk) 01:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Forbes List of Highest Paid Dead Celebrities Error[edit]

It says that Michael topped the list from 2013-2023, but he was placed 3rd in 2021 and 6th in 2022, according to Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailfreeman/2021/10/30/the-highest-paid-dead-celebrities-2021/?sh=237eb8783839

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2022/10/31/the-highest-paid-dead-celebrities-of-2022-a-writer-earns-half-a-billion-from-the-great-beyond/?sh=6f61cae22bb3 206.223.171.76 (talk) 23:12, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2+ 2A00:23C8:A69E:C301:DC0D:77E0:EAB:BA3D (talk) 13:31, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 April 2024[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Change Joseph to Joe.

Michael Jackson's middle name is Joe, not Joseph.

This comes from court documents. Mjsmyidol (talk) 00:13, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Which document(s) are you referring to? Last I checked, "Joe" was an alternate middle name used while the more formal "Joseph" was his legal name, but either way links would be helpful. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 00:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lead section concern (again)[edit]

Hello. I noticed the nickname "King of Pop" is emboldened and not link. Do you think it should be linked to Honorific nicknames in popular music without being in bold face? Other singer article FAs like Mariah Carey, Regine Velasquez, and Kyla are linked to the aforementioned list of nicknames in music without being in bold text. What can you say? ScarletViolet (t • c) 12:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From what I saw in a previous edit summary, the lack of a link is because "King of Pop" already redirects to this page. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:28, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]