Editorial Standards
These are the rules this site's publishing process actually enforces, not aspirations: every control or casualty claim is attributed and dated at the source, unsourced claims are left out, and every page shows how fresh its sources are.
Open the live conflict map →Sourcing
Every territorial-control claim published on a conflict map carries a named source organisation, a link to that source, and an as-of date. The as-of date is the source's own publication or last-updated date — never the date this site last checked it. A location shown on a map without a sourced control claim is displayed without one; the underlying pipeline omits the claim rather than inferring or estimating it.
Casualty and displacement figures referenced on this site originate with ACLED, UCDP, CFR or the news organisations aggregated into each theater's headline feed. This site does not produce its own casualty estimates and does not average or reconcile conflicting figures from different sources into a new number.
Source freshness
Each conflict page that carries sourced claims displays a freshness indicator for every distinct source behind it, showing the source's as-of date and its age in days. A source older than 90 days is flagged as stale on the page itself rather than presented at the same visual weight as a current one. Nothing is hidden to make coverage look more current than it is.
Record identity and revision history
Each of the 29 tracked conflicts has a stable record identifier that does not change between updates. Each conflict also carries a revision history built only from real, dated signals: the date a headline feed was last refreshed, and the date and source of each control-claim update. A conflict with a single sourced update shows a single revision-history entry; entries are never padded to make a page look more actively maintained than it is.
What gets left out
Where a claim cannot be tied to a named source and a real date, it is not published. This applies to territorial control, casualty figures and any other factual assertion that would ordinarily need a citation. A missing data point is treated as preferable to a fabricated or estimated one.
Automatic updates
The "latest developments" headlines on each theater page refresh automatically from Google News on a running schedule, and the page's modified date updates with them. The structured profile around those headlines — actors, status, intensity, geography — is reviewed periodically rather than continuously and is not regenerated on every headline refresh.
Where this is enforced
- Per-claim sourcing on the page. On the Russia–Ukraine war page and the Syria civil war page, each territorial-control entry with a claim renders the source organisation's name and an as-of date directly on the page. The source URL itself is published in that record's JSON/CSV/GeoJSON export rather than as an on-page link.
- Source freshness on the page. Those same pages display a freshness strip: one row per distinct source behind the page, its as-of date, and its age in days, with sources past 90 days flagged as stale rather than shown at the same weight as current ones.
- Revision history on the page. Each carries a dated revision-history table built only from real signals — a headline-feed refresh date, or a control-claim update with its source — and a stable record identifier (see the methodology page for how theaters are organised).
- Coverage gaps, shown as gaps. Conflicts without a sourced control claim show none; see the methodology page's limitations section for what this site does not attempt to estimate. Reporting an error in any of this goes through the corrections process.
Frequently asked questions
Does every claim on the site carry a source?
Every territorial-control claim carries a named source organisation and an as-of date, shown on the page itself; the source URL is carried in that record's JSON/CSV/GeoJSON export. Where a claim cannot be tied to a real source and date, it is not published.
What counts as the as-of date?
The source's own publication or last-updated date — never the date this site last checked the source.
How is source freshness shown?
Each conflict page with sourced claims displays a freshness indicator per distinct source, including its age in days; sources older than 90 days are flagged as stale on the page itself.
How often is a conflict's structured profile reviewed?
The 'latest developments' headlines refresh automatically from Google News on a running schedule. The structured profile around them — actors, status, intensity, geography — is reviewed periodically, not regenerated on every headline refresh.