About Signa

Primary sources first

Most nuclear news starts as a document: a company announcement, a filing with the SEC, a licence decision or an inspection notice. By the time it reaches general coverage it has usually been summarised, reframed or merged with opinion. Signa goes to the document, reports what it says, and links to it at the top of every story. The original is always the authoritative version.

Sources

Signa reads four kinds of source. Whether an event is news does not depend on who reported it: a first criticality abroad often reaches English only through trade press, and it is judged by the same standard as a filing. Who reported it does decide how a story ranks and which source leads it. When several sources report the same event there is one story, the most primary source first and the others credited beneath it.

How stories are chosen

Every candidate item is read by a language model acting as an admission editor before anything is published. It asks first whether the item is about nuclear fission at all: a nuclear operator buying a gas plant is material news, but not nuclear news. Fusion is out of scope. Items that pass are scored on four things:

• Material: does it change something verifiable, such as capacity, money, a licence, a date or an ownership stake?
• Specific: are the parties named, the quantities given with units, the dates stated?
• Committed: a licence issued or a unit connected to the grid scores high; a binding contract with a value next; a non-binding memorandum low; “exploring a partnership” lowest.
• Marketing: the density of claims with nothing behind them. This is subtracted.

Anything below a fixed threshold is not published. In practice a memorandum of understanding that names no plant, no capacity and no date is not news here; a routine licence grant, a construction milestone or a newly announced project with its parties and its size usually is. Opinion, events, awards and sponsorships never are. Every rejection is recorded with the reasoning, so the filter can be checked.

How stories are written

A story that passes is written by the same kind of model, short and plain: the fact and its number first, every figure kept as the source gives it, nothing added that the source does not say. The source is named once; forecasts, estimates and opinions are attributed every time. Promotional language and quotes that only praise are left out. Publication is automatic, and no person reviews a story before it appears. Models make mistakes, so treat each story as a guide to its source rather than a replacement for it.

Images

When the original page offers a picture for link previews, the story shows it, credited to and loaded from that source. Logos and generic site images are left out. When the source has none, the story may show a freely licensed photograph of the plant or site it is about, from Wikimedia Commons, captioned with what it shows and credited to its author and licence. A story with neither shows a capture of the first screen of the original document, linked to it. Signa does not use generated images.

Latest and Top

Latest lists stories newest first, grouped by day. Top orders them by the editorial score. New stories arrive once a day.

Independence

Signa is a non-commercial project. There is no advertising, no sponsored content and nothing to sell placement to. Promotional material is turned away before publication rather than published and ranked low. Nothing on Signa is investment advice.

Corrections

If a story misstates its source, it is corrected or taken down. An address for reporting errors is coming soon.

What Signa does not cover yet

• Regulators outside the English-speaking world, such as STUK, ASN, KINS and the IAEA.
• Organisations whose newsrooms only render in a browser or block automated readers.
• Changes a source makes to an announcement after it is published.