Accuracy of Rumour mongers

[Denzark]

I was reading through a now-closed thread on Chaos supplements, and someone osted the following interesting link:

[url]http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/448304.page[/url]

Which shows rumour mongers against accuracy.

Now I know this is slightly flawed as a measure of effect for the following reasons:

1. Whilst it would be possible to verify the data therein, ie who posted what and when, I for one don't know for certain as I don't follow everyone's postings. So for example if the author poppoed in that Rumour monger A popped in a rumour about a life-sized bust of the Emperor's testicles coming out in October, and actually Rumour Monger A said no such thing, I wouldn't know the difference.

2. I don't know how they account for whether or not the rumourer is publishing their own-acquired rumours, or just re-publishing someone elses.

3. I don't know how they acount for when a rumour thread like the ones on BoLS, is updated in the same thread - is that one count or is it one per update?



However i find the data interesting. Of note, our Eldargal is rated as 50% accurate, with BigRed batting about 33%.


How does anybody else rate accuracy of the rumour millers?

[eldargal]

My entry has an inaccuracy:

New WOC Character that is an elf FALSE

I never said this, I said there was a female witch character spotted that may have been for WoC or it may have been an Elf, not that it was an Elf WoC. If somsone with an account on Dakkadakka wants to point this out to someone that would be nice, not a big issue though.

[Denzark]

And thats what I mean by point 1 - I cannot speak for the veracity of the 'ratings'. I definitely can't go on dakka to tell them though - I am monogamous in my wargames sites

[Psychosplodge]

But the car park lap is accurate? O_O

[Kirsten]

pics!

[Cap'nSmurfs]

To be fair to BigRed, he's an aggregator rather than a rumour monkey himself. What you tend to see here is what other people are saying; thus the low strike rate because there's an awful lot of guff out there.

[eldargal]

But the car park lap is accurate? O_O

No it isn't, but the Repanse de Lyonesse bit is.

Well, the rumour is accurate but I've lost faith in that particular source so I expect it will be false in the end.

[daboarder]

To be fair to BigRed, he's an aggregator rather than a rumour monkey himself. What you tend to see here is what other people are saying; thus the low strike rate because there's an awful lot of guff out there.

Yeah you have to use your head when reading through that list, Bigred and faiet are both more like news anchors, in that they report the info they don't investigate it so to speak. Its mostly good for picking up on those habitual liars like Stickmonkey. Also good to keep as a record for those people that spoute a load of crap and then try to claim later that it was "all just speculation" ala thedarkgeneral/

It also doesnt take into account things like "I rumour there will be a plastic kit released" thee "obvious things are often attributed as true, when its still likely they are entirely guess work.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

Right. The trick with rumours is to develop your own sense of what you believe and what you don't. Personally, I tend to be sceptical of stuff we hear a long way out from release; stuff which is a perennial rumour and a perennial no-show (Blood Bowl, plastic Thunderhawk - until I see otherwise, these things are on the same level of reality as my personal unicorn army); stuff which is coming from a single source which nobody else seems to have cottoned on to (man I'm so excited for the new Codex: Hrud!!!!); stuff which feels like community groupthink ("everyone else is getting a huge walker so therefore Space Marines must also"; this one turned out to be a misunderstanding of what the Centurions were); and finally, stuff which seems like a mishmash of drastic, uncharacteristic changes which people are curiously positive about (that bogus 6th ed "leak").

Not that any of the above means that the rumour is necessarily wrong. I'm just generally sceptical when it comes to rumours, the above are Warning Signs, as far as I'm concerned.

[Mr Mystery]

God I hate going on Dakka. It's like a Dementor. It just sucks all happiness from you.

But interesting nonetheless.