When would you read a paper claiming to have settled a long open problem like $P$ vs. $NP$? From time to time, people announce papers claiming to have settled long open problems like $P$ vs. $NP$. There have been many attempts, reading them is time-consuming, and finding bugs in their arguments is not easy, ... . This brings up the following question:

When would you read a paper claiming to have settled a famous long open problem like $P$ vs. $NP$? What are your criteria to consider such an announcement as serious?

EDIT:
I am mostly interested in the case that the paper is in your area and is not written by a crank but by a mathematician with previous publications in reputable journals (although not necessary in the same area or a related one).
 A: Published in a respected journal?  
Unless the solution claims to use mathematics where I have some particular expertise, that is probably the only place I would read such a paper.
A: 
When would you read a paper claiming to have settled a famous long open problem like $P$  vs. $NP$?

If the paper claimed to resolve $P$ vs $NP$, I'd begin reading it right away. For instance, I'm currently looking at this paper. But that is only because I have a good chance of understanding the work. If the paper claimed to resolve any other Clay Millennium Prize problem, I'd defer to others.

What are your criteria to consider such an announcement as serious?

(a) It's not written in Microsoft Word
(b) The abstract, title, and opening paragraphs do not convey obvious misunderstandings
For $P$ vs $NP$ proofs, criteria (a) and (b) work about 99% of the time. (Seriously.) I'm still checking to see if the above link passes criterion (b). It's a long abstract.
A: just caught this at slashdot...thought I would make it my first post at MO.
http://gregbaker.ca/blog/2010/08/07/p-n-np/
