[WikiEN-l] Rumours

Sat Feb 12 12:24:14 UTC 2005

I have just moved one 'rumour' of a proof off [[Riemann hypothesis]].

I'm not sure quite what the treatment should be - say by analogy with [[cold
fusion]]. This is not really a NPOV difficulty, but about encyclopedic
nature.  I suppose I have tended to duck this sort of issue in the past.

Well, if we have Wikinews, scientific rumours can be news.  After some
length of time, a rumour of some breakthrough that gets no further support
becomes stale and ... well, and what?

Options are

-just to drop rumours after a few months
-not to feature them in the first place
-create separate 'rumours' pages where there seems to be a need.

I feel the first, if vague, is probably best.. If there was a sound basis in
the first place for mentioning it, a rumour can be moved to a talk page when
it becomes more apparent that it was optimistically slanted.

Not reporting any unconfirmed stuff looks too rigid to me.  If the criterion
were publication in a refereed journal, that could take forever, in
wikitime.

The trouble with separate pages is that attention-seekers will pick up on
them, and self-promoting rumours are the bane of academic life.

Charles

Charles