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The rules

Six of them. The rest is the news.

1,000points each desk starts with0–100points you can put up per storyRightyou win what you put upWrongyou lose what you put upDay 90most points wins the potZerohit it and you are out

The bureau

Three words carry the game. Your bureau is your game: up to 10 desks, one pot, one edition, private to the people in it. Your desk is your team — a name and a colour, headed by one of you. A beat is a story you follow; every desk plays every beat on the board. The player who opens the bureau is its Bureau Chief: they name it, set the pot, open the edition and head the first desk. Anyone with the bureau code joins a desk or opens their own; an invite may name a desk. A desk holds up to 5 players, and every member may call for the desk — the last change before the deadline stands. Your doctrine is how your autopilot answers for you; it does not pick your desk. While a bureau has a single desk, the Wirewatch AI holds the other so the game can start; the first human to open a desk takes it over. A Chief may choose to play solo against the AI on purpose: no pot, Wire Pools open, and solo ends the moment someone else joins.

Editions

The lead opens an edition: 90 days, 1,000 points a desk, and a pot the bureau names for itself. The pot is an honour stake between the players. Wirewatch never holds, moves or pays out money. On the last day the desk with the most points wins the pot; a tie is a tie. A desk that reaches zero is out for the rest of the edition.

Windows and stakes

When a story breaks on a topic, a window opens with a handful of outcomes and a deadline 24 hours out. One window per topic at a time. Before the deadline each desk may lock in one outcome with a stake of 0–100 points, never more than the desk holds. A call is final once locked. Right, and the stake is added to your desk. Wrong, and it is taken away. Your own desk's tally is visible before the deadline; the other desk's is not.

Autopilot and forfeits

Autopilot casts for a desk that has not called by 1 minute before the deadline, if the desk's lead has it switched on and the topic is one the desk follows or the other desk has already played. It reads the desk's doctrine and the story and takes a position in the desk's name, with a modest stake. With autopilot off, a desk that misses a window another desk in its bureau called forfeits 10 points; nobody gains them. Miss a window nobody in the bureau called and nothing moves.

Resolution and corrections

72 hours after a window closes, the resolution desk reads what the trusted sources reported and posts a verdict with its evidence and a confidence. Below 85% confidence, or with too little evidence, it holds the window for an operator instead of guessing. Operators may correct a verdict; corrections are posted as such. A voided window refunds every stake and every forfeit on it. Every verdict, correction and void is logged and visible to the bureau.

The risk indices

Two shared indices sit on every front page — the chance of a wider war, and social unrest at home — read from the last day of wire copy every quarter hour. An AI scores each index's drivers on a fixed scale, the index is the weighted average, and the gauge never moves more than 4 points in one read or 12 net in a day toward it. The “i” beside each gauge shows the last read's scores. If either reaches 100%, every live edition ends and everybody loses. Nobody has won that one yet.

Wire Pools

Beyond your bureau, one Wire Pool per topic is open to every desk on Wirewatch that follows it. Entry is $5 a desk, held in escrow until settlement day and refundable only before day one. Only points from resolved calls on that topic's stories count. Most points on settlement day takes the payout; a tie splits it evenly; a pool with fewer than 200 entrants does not run and is refunded. The terms below say how the payout amount is worked out.

Wire Pool terms

  • The payout amount shown on a pool is what the winning desk receives if the pool settles as it stands. Tied winners split it evenly.
  • A pool's gross is any starting amount the desk has put in plus every entry fee collected. Wirewatch may keep a share of that gross as a platform fee, set per pool; the payout amount is always shown after it.
  • Entry fees, where charged, are held until settlement day and refunded only if a desk leaves before its bureau's day one, if the pool is voided, or if too few desks entered for it to run.
  • Payouts are made to the desk lead by the method the lead chose. Wirewatch does not split winnings within a desk.
  • Operators may freeze entry to a pool or void it. A voided pool refunds every fee.

Fair play

  • One account per person, one seat per bureau.
  • No scripts, scrapers or automation against the app. Autopilot is the only robot at the desk.
  • Sources you submit are checked before they join the wire; publisher feeds only, never article text.
  • Operators may void a window, correct a verdict, freeze a source or suspend an account to keep the game honest. Every such action is on the record.
  • Disputes go to desk@wirewatchnews.com with the window's link. An operator answers on the record.

Numbers on this page are the live defaults and may be set differently for a bureau at the moment its edition opens; the edition card shows the rules that bind it. How we handle your data is on the privacy page.