Talk:Billie Jean

Allowing Internet forum posts from Billie Jean's recording engineer, Bruce Swedien as sources for this article

I propose that Bruce Swedien comments from the website GearSlutz.com be allowed as sources for this article for the following reasons:

1. GearSlutz.com is the leading forum for professional audio and recording engineers worldwide with over 85,000 members and 3 million posts since it began. (Rated by Alexa as one of the top sites on the Internet).

2. Gearslutz.com contains a sub-forum of the "best of the best" as chosen by the site's moderators where only posts from respected industry experts (currently numbering around twenty) are allowed. (One of the site's guest moderators includes legendary producer, Robert "Mutt" Lange.)

3. Over 150 of Mr. Swedien's posts on GearSlutz.com appear in that site's Expert sub-forum, including the one's related to the recording process for "Billie Jean".

4. Mr. Swedien has been a member of the above forum since 2005 with over 370 posts, where he has written extensively about his work on Thriller and other Michael Jackson albums.

5. The information contained in these posts are not available elsewhere, and never once has his identity on the above forum been questioned.

6. Wikipedia makes an allowance that what might otherwise be "questionable sources" are allowed:

Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves

Policy shortcut: WP:SELFPUB

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

the material is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources.

7. Mr. Swedien's comments meet the above guidelines as they do not not involve events not directly related to the author, there is no reasonable doubt as to their authenticity, and the article is not solely based on them.

8. For these reasons, I believe Mr. Swedien's forum posts on Gearslutz.com fall within Wikipedia's guidelines for verifiability for self-published work, and that his comments regarding the recording process for "Billie Jean" be allowed to stay.

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Not consistent

First states that Billie Jean is based on a real-life experience then says it's not in entry-although it still needs citation:

The song's lyrics refer to a real-life experience, in which a mentally ill female fan claimed that Jackson had fathered one of her twins.

"There never was a real Billie Jean. The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years. I could never understand how these girls could say they were carrying someone's child when it wasn't true."[6][7] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.69.176.203 (talk) 10:54, 31 August 2009 (UTC) --74.69.176.203 (talk) 23:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)