What is the criteria for a rumor to get posted on the main page?

[vniow]

Not sure where I should post this but here goes..

Basically all I want to know is what it takes for a rumor (not a news story) to be posted/linked on the main page?

There's been a lot of stuff from MacBouidille recently and arn himself has said that with a lot of those rumors from that site, he has no 3rd party evidence or additional info confirming them, they're just posted because the rumor community has is following them and Macrumors keeps everyone up to date, other times they're posted with conformation that arn has some additional info behind it...but whan I really want to know is how do we know?
Sometimes its stated outright that Macrumors has additional sources that confirm a particular rumor and sometimes it doesn't, so how do we know what has additional confirming evidence and what doesn't if its not outrightly mentioned?

[MrMacMan]

Many, probably 99.9999% of us don't know who are these people are who arn gets the information from, but inless arn states there has been a rumor or a shread of evidence from 'a source' no one really knows.

Arn will probably clue me in on this also.

edit: as arn has posted, all rumors should be taken as a grain of sand.

[King Cobra]

That is the ultimate rumor question: How do we know where to find the facts and the rumors?

I guess you can take the easy way out and say that arn does the work, and we read it.

Or perhaps we could think a little. Perhaps someone from Apple violated their NDA and spilled the beans.

Remember those prototype PowerMac pics about the updated Quicksilver? They were real. arn got them from somewhere.

Let's think further. What if this wasn't such a leak. How does the news get about? Perhaps arn is a spy playing both sides: Rumors and facts, and he knows both. Perhaps he can leak any information whatsoever and be able to disguise it as someone else's work so he cannot be sued.

A brilliant plan at that. :D

[MrMacMan]

/methinks arn is acually an apple PR employee and just hypes all of the new products coming out. ;) :p

joking

[arn]

Hmm...

Well - for the most part, it should be obvious. If I've heard confirmation, I usually mention it explictly.

The most obvious example is this article (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/04/20030410185159.shtml) on ThinkSecret's rendering. Note the bold and the certainty.

Certain sites - such as ThinkSecret - generally get first page coverage because I feel they have generally been accurate.

Sites that have had consistent misses or stories that don't provide much extra information over what is already out there, will more likely get Page 2 coverage.

Sites without well-known track records tend to get first page coverage if the rumors are of significant interest. (MacBid, MacPlus)

If I don't add commentary, I think you can generally assume that there is no additional information available. (such as this MacPlus.org story today).

arn