The rules
Six of them. The rest is the news.
The bureau
A bureau is two desks, West and East. Your doctrine decides your side: pick how you think the world works and you have picked your desk. The player who opens the bureau leads one desk and invites the other; an invitee always sits opposite. A desk can hold more than one player, and every member may call for the desk. Where no second player has joined, the house AI desk holds the empty side so the game can start.
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 more points wins the pot; a tie is a tie. A desk that reaches zero is out for the rest of the edition, and the other desk wins on the day.
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 forfeits: it loses the stake the other desk put up, and the other desk gains it. Miss a window nobody 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 at regular intervals and never moved more than 4 points in one read. 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 free this season. Only points from resolved calls on that topic's stories count. Most points on settlement day takes the whole pool; a tie splits it evenly; a pool with fewer than 2 entrants does not run and is refunded. Winnings go to the desk lead. Operators may freeze entry or void a pool, refunding everyone.
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.