Forum:Major overhaul for "List of rumors"

Forums: Index → Proposals → Major overhaul for "List of rumors"

This is a closed discussion about an accepted proposed change on SmashWiki. It remains for archival purposes. The closing administrator adds: "Serpent  King 08:53, March 13, 2021 (EST)"

There's been a discussion going on at Talk:List of rumors about cleaning up the rumors page; specifically, splitting the Ultimate section into subsections to address its increasingly ballooning length. However, I believe this is merely a "band-aid" solution to an already very apparent issue, and discussion on the Discord has agreed with me: the rumors page needs a serious overhaul. I believe there are three major issues with the page, as outlined below:

1. Rumors are treated like a play-by-play with up-to-the-minute detail. This is mostly because people use SmashWiki as a sort of "news source" for these types of things, which we shouldn't be covering to begin with: we focus only on official information.
2. Listing in-progress/unproven rumors leads to endless, undue speculation. Plenty of times I've had to truncate information that, for example, speculates on what characters a leak could be referring to even after it's already been disproven. See here and here for examples. SmashWiki is not speculative, period.
3. Rumors are added regardless of whether they are notable or not. The Ultimate section especially is filled with rumors that are dead-on-arrival and now remain there as a sad archive of what people used to believe, however implausible. In most cases, these are not worth noting after they're disproven.

I do not believe that the rumors page should be deleted, because it is a notable aspect of the fan community just as much as leaks are; instead, I want to propose solutions to each of these issues that could be strictly enforced to make the rumors page a more objective overview of the subject. Here is what I believe could help resolve the issue:

1. Rumors should only be listed once they are disproven. The most important guideline. Leaks are only listed once they're proven, right? This rule would allow the page to be written without the clouded judgement of an unproven rumor, and also make it more apparent which ones are notable and which ones are passing speculation.
2. Rumors should be written about from an objective, neutral standpoint with emphasis on citations. This one is self-explanatory, but important; all info on SmashWiki should be written from an unbiased standpoint, and rumors are no exception. No speculating, just the facts about the rumor and whether it was true or not.
3. Only the most notable rumors should be added. This one is the least clear of the three points, as there's no real "rule of thumb" for what makes a leak notable, but it is noted in the page's guidelines and should be emphasized, especially regarding the current state of the page. While something like the Grinch Leak is notable, as it was covered by major news sources and is remembered as an especially elaborate hoax, I'd say over half of the existing rumors are not notable.

This, I believe, would greatly improve the quality of the rumors page and make it useful as an actual resource of notable rumors rather than a running news bulletin for any rumor that pops up. This is my first time writing a major proposal, but I feel like this is important for such a contentious page. If you have any comments, please direct them below. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 21:20, January 21, 2020 (EST)

Support

1. As outlined above. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 21:20, January 21, 2020 (EST)
2. Support. I especially have noticed the third point in the first set, because not all the rumors are notable. Sure, they gain traction, but that's only because the community is larger than it's ever been. This whole thing needs to be cleaned up. Aidan, the Rurouni 21:31, January 21, 2020 (EST)
3. Support. The page will only get worse after the 2nd Fighters Pass is released, so best to do something before that happens. Gizmo (talk) 21:40, January 21, 2020 (EST)
4. Support, especially since (from memory) at least 2 talk posts were made talking about cleaning up the section. CookiesCreme 21:42, January 21, 2020 (EST)
5. Support as per the reasons above. DekZek 21:43, January 21, 2020 (EST)
6. YES. So much that first point. It drives me crazy to no end seeing IPs turn Vergeben's page into a fucking news report instead of a proper Wiki article, and I support any attempt to squash that kind of prose. If it can't do that, it hardly deserves its own section, let alone an entire line break. - EndGenuity (talk) 22:49, January 21, 2020 (EST)
7. Support the page is only going to get harder to navigate over the next two years if it isn't cleaned up. The One IP Dude (talk) 12:13, January 22, 2020 (EST)
8. Support cleaning up the page by splitting up disproven and proven articles or deleting irrelevant articles is good because it cleans up space and there will like hundreds of more leaks in smash by MandyCan or Vergeben and it will get extremely disorganized with Fighters Pass vol. 2 upcoming til 12-31-2020. S3AHAWK (talk) 02:13, April 18, 2020 (EDT)
9. Support Why hasn't this already been done, that page is a mess lol Pokebub (talk) 03:13, April 25, 2020 (EDT)
10. Support. Seems like something that really should be common sense to me, lmao. I think we could def benefit from making this an official policy of sorts. Acgamer28 03:04, May 13, 2020 (EDT)
11. Support per all 46.229.158.109 04:17, June 15, 2020 (EDT)

Comments

Leak has a similar, though not as atrocious, issue. Half of the leaks on the page are just release dates of content we already knew was coming, leading to the page becoming bloated. Should this also be accounted for? 72.203.118.154 22:34, January 21, 2020 (EST)

I would say it's also worth reevaluating, but that wouldn't be a major change so much as a little bit of cleanup here and there. You can bring it up on that article's talk page if you'd like. ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 22:43, January 21, 2020 (EST)

With the first Fighters Pass wrapped up, we're on our way to rumors about the second volume, so I'd like to bump this proposal. Are we in agreement to start a cleanup? ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 22:32, January 28, 2020 (EST)

All for it, although a cleanup has already started. The One IP Dude (talk) 12:52, January 29, 2020 (EST)

This only concerns one article. It should have been posted on that article's talk page. Serpent  King 21:05, June 24, 2020 (EDT)

I would've done that, and there was already an ongoing discussion there, but there wasn't any real progress being made, so I wanted to make a general proposal to bring more attention to it. (To be honest, there isn't a whole lot being done now, either, but at least more people are aware that there's a problem with the rumors page.) ~ Serena Strawberry (talk) 21:14, June 24, 2020 (EDT)