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