Editorial Policy & Features
How Mountaineer Signal works, what we build, and the principles that guide every story.
Our Mission
Mountaineer Signal is an independent, AI-assisted WVU sports feed. We read the WVU sports ecosystem so fans don't have to — ranking, summarizing, and linking to original reporting from beat writers, official sources, and trusted outlets. We are not affiliated with West Virginia University, its athletic department, or any conference.
What Mountaineer Signal Does
We monitor WVU beat writers, official athletics, Big 12 news, recruiting sites, and fan outlets. New stories are ingested every 30 minutes via RSS — surfaced as candidates for enrichment and publishing.
Every story gets an AI-generated summary, a 'Why it matters' note for WVU fans, a Signal Score (0–100), sport and topic tags, and a confidence label. Human editors review before publishing.
Stories are ranked 0–100 by source credibility, recency, WVU relevance, roster impact, and game-week urgency. Scores decay over time (14–30 days) and stale stories auto-archive. You always see what matters most right now.
The Morning Mountaineer delivers the 10 stories every WVU fan should know — curated daily by our AI editor with an Editor's Note, sport breakdown, and one-click access to original sources.
Every daily briefing is archived and browseable by date. Jump to any day in the last 30 days with prev/next navigation. Permalinks let you share specific briefings or individual stories.
Pick your fan profile from 13 preference chips — football diehard, hoops junkie, portal watcher, Backyard Brawl, recruiting obsessive, and more. Your feed filters to what you care about.
Pre-game countdown, live scoreboard with possession tracking, post-game takeaways and stat comparisons. Seven opponent-specific editorial modules with staff bylines — updated as game state changes.
The highest-ranked stories across all sports, ranked by what matters to Mountaineer fans. Reviewed by the Mountaineer Editor with a visible last-reviewed timestamp.
Original staff columns with bylines, roles, and Staff Column tags. Filter by column series — Country Roads Column, Film Room, Stock Report, Recruiting Board, Game Reaction.
Every headline links to the original publisher. We show source name, credibility tier, and publication time. We never republish full articles or scrape behind paywalls.
Every story card has a 'Fact issue?' button. Readers report wrong summaries, bad sources, broken links, outdated content, duplicates, or confidence errors. Reports are reviewed within 24 hours.
A 'Since your last visit' strip shows how many new stories appeared since you were last here. Dismissible, with localStorage-based tracking — no account needed.
Subscribe to get the Morning Mountaineer in your inbox. Social proof counter shows total subscribers. Non-blocking prompt appears after 3 page views. One-click unsubscribe.
Track transfer portal movement — incoming and outgoing stories with roster impact analysis. 'Last checked' timestamps on all injury, recruiting, and portal claims.
Every story carries a confidence badge: Confirmed (official source), Reported (credible beat), Developing (evolving), Rumor (unverified), or Opinion (analysis/column).
Editorial Policies
Editorial Independence
We do not accept payment for coverage, placement, or signal scores. Our editorial decisions are independent of WVU, its athletic department, the Big 12, and any source we monitor.
AI Usage
We use AI to summarize stories, generate signal scores, and curate daily briefings. All AI-generated content is reviewed by human editors. AI summaries are original and brief — never reproducing paywalled content or substituting for the source article. Staff-written content is clearly labeled with bylines and roles.
Corrections
Errors are corrected promptly. The Fact Issue button on every story card lets readers flag problems. Corrections are reviewed within 24 hours on game weeks, 48 hours otherwise. Publishers can request removal at any time — no justification needed — and we action within one business day.
Paywalled Sources
We monitor 247Sports, Rivals, On3, and The Athletic the same way a fan does — by reading publicly visible headlines and ledes. We surface headlines with one-sentence context; we never reproduce subscriber-only content. If nothing is publicly visible, we link with a "subscriber content" note and no summary.
Source Tiers
Tier 1: Official sources (WVU Athletics, Big 12 Conference). Tier 2: Credentialed beat writers and national outlets. Tier 3: Fan blogs, aggregators, and unverified accounts. Sources are re-evaluated quarterly.
Contact
For corrections, removal requests, or publisher inquiries: jbrooks@unisonsecurity.com