Methodology changelog

Versions are numbered major.minor and take effect at the moment the change went live, in UTC. A major version changes what a figure means, so figures from before and after it should not be compared directly. A minor version changes detail without changing meaning. A change to the wording of this document alone is a revision, dated here with no new version. Every archived day carries the version it was measured under.

4.1

Effective 4 October 2026, 13:06 UTC.

• Each archived day is ranked by the highest score each story reached during the day, by the live map’s rule, in place of the score at midnight. Days archived before this version keep their own ranking.

4.0

Effective 29 September 2026, 21:56 UTC (major).

• Each country and outlet now counts from the moment it joined a story and halves every 4 hours on its own clock. Before, the whole story faded together from its newest article, so one late article restored it to full size. Archived days keep the ranking they were captured with.

3.3

Effective 22 September 2026, 17:20 UTC.

• Headlines and judgements now arrive a few minutes after the board updates, so a new story can appear a few minutes later than before.

3.2

Effective 22 September 2026, 15:30 UTC.

• A reason is recorded only for stories judged outside the hard-news rule.

3.1

Effective 22 September 2026, 14:00 UTC.

• Articles that their publisher clearly marks as sport, entertainment, arts or lifestyle are set aside before processing, and counted. The count is published every day in the open dataset.

3.0

Effective 22 September 2026, 11:40 UTC (major).

• Loudest shows hard news: politics and government, the economy, markets, business and trade, energy, conflict and security, disasters, and public policy, including climate, technology and health policy. Sport, entertainment, culture, lifestyle and celebrity stories appear only when they have consequences for money, power, security or large numbers of people. A story appears on the map only once it has been judged. A story judged outside the rule is left off the map but kept in the archive and on its own page. A story and the one it continues are drawn as one tile. The number of stories left off the map is published every day.

2.8

Effective 22 September 2026, 10:30 UTC.

• Each judgement is also compared with the judgements on similar stories. Recorded, not yet used.

2.7

Effective 22 September 2026, 10:00 UTC.

• A short reason is recorded with each judgement, for private review. It is not published.

2.6

Effective 22 September 2026, 09:30 UTC.

• More stories are given a headline, a topic and a judgement, and headlines on the map are refreshed as new articles arrive.

2.5

Effective 22 September 2026, 08:30 UTC.

• Each story is also judged hard news or not. Recorded, not yet used.

2.4

Effective 21 September 2026, 15:14 UTC.

• LoudestBot reads and obeys each publisher's robots.txt, signs its requests, and keeps feed excerpts only for as long as it needs them.

2.3

Effective 21 September 2026, 12:35 UTC.

• Story grouping was made faster. Results are unchanged.

2.2

Effective 21 September 2026, 11:15 UTC.

• The day files carry a clearer name for the earliest publisher date of a story.

2.1

Effective 21 September 2026, 00:00 UTC.

• Each archived story records the story it continues, and its coverage in the last 24 hours of the day. The lead article of a story is its earliest published one.

2.0

Effective 20 September 2026, 15:06 UTC (major).

• A story now lasts 48 hours from its first article, and later coverage starts a new story linked to it. The feed list grew to cover many more countries and languages, with more feeds for larger countries. Headlines are rewritten as a story grows.

1.4

Effective 19 September 2026, 16:26 UTC.

• A day is captured before anything else happens in the new day, so each snapshot is exactly the day as it ended.

1.3

Effective 18 September 2026, 20:13 UTC.

• Each archived story lists the countries, languages and outlets behind its counts. Stories with no single place are labelled International.

1.2

Effective 16 September 2026, 22:21 UTC.

• Duplicate stories about the same event are merged automatically. Daily archive snapshots begin.

1.1

Effective 16 September 2026, 14:01 UTC.

• Feeds can be held in reserve. The outlet count on the site leaves out feeds known to be failing. Scores fade continuously, not only at each update.

1.0

Effective 15 September 2026, 20:37 UTC.

• The first documented system: one feed per outlet, articles grouped into stories, stories scored by how many countries and outlets cover them, fading with time.

Document revisions

Changes to the text alone, dated, with no version bump.

• 5 October 2026. The 48-hour window, reached by link only since 24 September, is withdrawn. A story is whole by 48 hours, so the window ranked the biggest complete stories, and it was not used. A link to it opens the default map. A change of display, not of measurement.
• 4 October 2026. The view New is now called Recent. A change of name only, not of measurement.
• 3 October 2026. The methodology and this changelog were rewritten in plain language. Technical detail published before this date is no longer published. Nothing about how stories are measured changed.
• 2 October 2026. The views New, Rising and One-sided are described.
• 30 September 2026. The new momentum triangles are described. A change of display, not of measurement.
• 29 September 2026. The text was updated for version 4.0.
• 25 September 2026. The archive is locked: a captured day never changes, and mistakes are noted as dated errata. 14 to 18 September 2026 were edited after capture, before the lock, and each carries a note saying so. One published figure was corrected: the outlets and countries read on 14 September 2026.
• 22 September 2026. The times shown on tiles are described. A change of display, not of measurement.
• 21 September 2026. The text was brought up to date with version 2.0.
• 18 September 2026. The text was brought up to date with the system.