MAPEWS

Editorial & data methodology

Every point has a reason.

Mapews favors a smaller, explainable map over a larger map filled with guesses. This page describes the data path, location decisions, and correction rules used by the current implementation.

Last updated · 30 August 2026Versioned project policy · subject to operational review

From feed to map.

01 / COLLECTRead bounded feedsRSS, Atom, JSON, and GeoJSON are fetched from registered sources.
02 / NORMALIZEKeep the recordTitles, summaries, times, source IDs, canonical URLs, and coordinates are normalized.
03 / REVIEWCheck the pointNews records are reviewed for category, scope, time, and a concrete place.
04 / PUBLISHShow the linkPublished events retain source links and appear through the read-only map API.

Collection runs are operator-controlled at present. The Cloudflare Worker read API does not scrape or process articles inside a user request. A database-backed processing queue exists for scheduled work, while ordinary news extraction remains a reviewed manual-session workflow in this version.

Location is evidence, not decoration.

Structured coordinates

USGS earthquake records use the provider's point. NASA EONET and GDACS records use a latest point or representative centroid when the provider marks the geometry as approximate. These are labeled as approximate in event details; Mapews does not turn them into false street addresses.

Reviewed news locations

A reviewed concrete place may be resolved through the configured geocoder and cached for reuse. The current development provider is OpenStreetMap Nominatim, called one request at a time with a minimum interval and a descriptive User-Agent. Mapbox Geocoding v6 Permanent is supported as an operator-configured production option when its storage terms and account requirements are satisfied.

National scope

A country-wide policy, security, or response issue can be represented at that country's locally vendored capital coordinate. The detail view identifies this as a representative capital placement. A broad or multi-country statement is not assigned a misleading central point.

What qualifies for publication?

  • The event has a source record and a usable publication or observation time.
  • The category is one of the controlled map categories, including fire, disaster, war, weather, traffic, accident, politics, protest, crime, sports, and other.
  • The location is concrete, an explicitly approximate provider geometry, or an explicitly reviewed national-capital representation.
  • Duplicate provider records and cross-source reports of the same event are merged where the data supports that decision, with linked source records retained.
  • Unclear, stale, broad, or conflicting location claims are held back instead of being plotted.

There is no hidden severity or confidence score in the public event model. Category color and cluster size describe map grouping, not a claim about harm, urgency, or certainty.

Freshness and corrections.

Structured sources are collected within bounded lookback windows defined by their adapters. News feeds are collected in explicit runs. An event time is the source or reviewed time available to the pipeline, not a promise that an event is still active.

If a source link, title, location, category, or timing is wrong, send the event title, URL, and requested correction through the correction channel. Operators review requests against the original source and may amend, unpublish, or leave a record unchanged. The map is not a suitable channel for emergency reports.