I started this site 9 years ago, more as a joke than anything. I stole the idea from the likes of macrumors.com and northlight-images. It was never meant to be more than a fun place for me to write about current and coming camera gear, I never imagined it would explode to the level of popularity that it has.
However, it seems every year or two I have to remind a small (but loud) percentage of folks about what a “rumor” is.
ru·mor
ˈro͞omər/noun
1. a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts:
With success comes responsibility, even if you haven't asked for it.
We try to be correct with information 100% of the time, this is a lofty and completely unattainable goal. We are not CanonFacts.com or the New York Times or the BBC, we are Canon Rumors. No one is going to be correct 100% of the time, and you cannot treat anything you read as 100% correct, whether the writer had that intention or not.
We hear the latest in cliche words, “clickbait”, “fake news” & “altfacts” all come to mind. There is nothing at Canon Rumors that is intentionally any of those 3 things.
We are fine with criticism, and actually welcome it. However, if you're going to be critical, please do so based on what we have written and not what others have written.
What we do not control:
- Things people send us. 95% of the stuff that appears in my inbox never appears on the site because I can generally confirm the information internally.
- What others sites decide to publish. If another site wants to link one of our stories, that's great but we do not seek it. They are running the risk of the rumor being untrue or partially untrue.
- I have no control on how people read between the lines and then hit forums or social media and spread these things as “fact”. Things I never wrote appear places and then are taken as fact and then people are mad at us if it turns out to not be true.
What we do control:
- Every post on the site is my responsibility and when it's wrong, I'm wrong, and that bugs me.
- The ratings we put on posts. This latest firmware update post we didn't put [CR1] on it, as we should have. The post says “new source”, but it was our oversight that we didn't rate it for whatever reason.
How to make it better going forward?
- Making sure we rate every post and we've put the rating system in the side bar of the site. I don't like posting [CR1] stuff, but sometimes they can turn out to be true. I will make sure to better articulate that a rumor is unconfirmed and to take it for what it is.
- All video related rumors are going to be vetted differently. I have lots of photography knowledge, but my videography knowledge is lacking. This latest firmware rumor would have probably ended up in the trashcan if I had passed it onto a couple of people prior to posting for evaluation.
Thanks for reading my rant and visiting Canon Rumors. In the end we do this for fun and we hope you read it for fun.