Noxia

https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/a-checked-date-nobody-renews-is-decoration · printed from noxia.co.uk · sources checked 23 September 2026

Field note · Being found

A “last checked” date nobody has to renew is decoration.

Most sites carry a “last updated” line that somebody typed once. It is a claim about attention, made by the page itself, that nothing checks. Here is a smaller and more useful version: give every figure a shelf life by what kind of figure it is, and let the build enforce it.

3 min read Sources checked 23 September 2026

The short answer

Each source on this site is tagged with a volatility class that sets how often it must be re-read: live figures every 30 days, datasets and regulatory rules every 180, dated publications every 365, and fixed items — arithmetic, our own opinions, historical artefacts — never. The report prints from the first day overdue and the build stops 30 days past it. The site currently carries 310 sources under that register.

On this page · 6 sections

The class is a property of the source, not of the page it sits on. A rule in force and a leaderboard decay at completely different speeds even when they appear in the same paragraph.

Five classes, five shelf livesThe volatility classes used on this site and how often each must be re-read: live sources such as a leaderboard, an index or a price every 30 days; dataset sources such as an annual industry dataset every 180 days; regulatory sources meaning a rule in force every 180 days; dated publications whose figure is fixed every 365 days; and fixed items such as arithmetic, our own stated opinion or a historical artefact, which never expire.FIVE CLASSES, FIVE SHELF LIVES30 days180 days365 daysneverlive — a price, an index●dataset — an annual set●regulatory — a rule in force●dated — a fixed figure●fixed — arithmetic, opinion●Darker means a shorter shelf life. “Never” is a real answer, and saying it is more honest than a date nobody will act on.Five classes, five shelf livesThe volatility classes used on this site and how often each must be re-read: live sources such as a leaderboard, an index or a price every 30 days; dataset sources such as an annual industry dataset every 180 days; regulatory sources meaning a rule in force every 180 days; dated publications whose figure is fixed every 365 days; and fixed items such as arithmetic, our own stated opinion or a historical artefact, which never expire.FIVE CLASSES, FIVE SHELF LIVES30 days180 days365 daysneverlive — a price, an index●dataset — an annual set●regulatory — a rule in force●dated — a fixed figure●fixed — arithmetic, opinion●Darker means a shorter shelf life. “Never” is a realanswer, and saying it is more honest than a datenobody will act on.
The class belongs to the source, not to the article it appears in.The decay register in this repository, notes/freshness.mjs.

Why “fixed” is the important one

The temptation with a system like this is to give everything a date, because a date looks responsible. It is the opposite. If arithmetic, a quoted historical document and a live price all carry a re-check date, then the re-check queue fills with items nobody needs to look at, and the ones that matter get lost in it.

Saying never about the things that genuinely never change is what keeps the queue small enough to actually work through. On this site that is most of them.

23 September 2026: 263 sources, by decayThe 263 sources on this site on 23 September 2026, by volatility class: 126 fixed, 73 regulatory, 24 dated, 21 dataset and 19 live. Nearly half are fixed and never expire, which is what keeps the recheck queue small enough to work through.fixed — never expires126arithmetic, our opinions, artefactsregulatory — 180 days73rules in forcedated — 365 days24a dated publication’s fixed figuredataset — 180 days21annual industry datasetslive — 30 days19prices, indexes, leaderboards23 September 2026: 263 sources, by decayThe 263 sources on this site on 23 September 2026, by volatility class: 126 fixed, 73 regulatory, 24 dated, 21 dataset and 19 live. Nearly half are fixed and never expire, which is what keeps the recheck queue small enough to work through.fixed — never expires126arithmetic, our opinions, artefactsregulatory — 180 days73rules in forcedated — 365 days24a dated publication’s fixed figuredataset — 180 days21annual industry datasetslive — 30 days19prices, indexes, leaderboards
Nineteen sources need looking at every month. That is a job somebody can actually do.Counted by the build on 23 September 2026, from this repository.

Those counts were wrong in the first draft of this note, which is the best argument for the register we could have made. Writing the article added three sources, the build recounted, and the figure typed by hand five minutes earlier was already stale. The class on that source is live — thirty days — for exactly that reason.

Give everything a date and the queue becomes unworkable, so nobody works it. The discipline is in what you are willing to mark “never”.

The grace period, and why it is thirty days

The report prints a source from the first day it is overdue. The build only stops thirty days after that.

That gap is deliberate and it exists for one reason: a figure going stale on a Tuesday should not block the deployment of an unrelated typo fix on the Wednesday. A gate that blocks unrelated work gets disabled within a month, and a disabled gate checks nothing.

It is not a licence. The warning is loud and it starts immediately; only the hard stop waits.

What you would do with this in a business that is not a website

The same shape works anywhere a figure gets quoted repeatedly: a price list, a fee schedule, a rate card, a compliance register, the "about us" numbers on a proposal template.

  1. List the figures you repeat. Not the documents — the individual numbers, because they decay separately.
  2. Give each one a class, which is usually obvious once you ask how it changes: by announcement, by annual cycle, or not at all.
  3. Put the review on a schedule and make it produce an artefact — a dated line saying who looked and what they found. A review with no output did not happen.
  4. Let something fail. A check that cannot stop anything is a reminder, and reminders lose to deadlines every time.

What this does not tell you

It does not claim the classes are right for your figures. Thirty days is aggressive for some live sources and far too slow for others; if you quote an exchange rate, thirty days is useless.

It also does not solve the harder problem, which is a source that is still there, still current, and was wrong when it was published. A freshness register catches decay. It does not catch error, and nothing automatic does. The citation work is the version of this we build for other people, and the complaint note is what the absence of a dated artefact costs later.

Questions people actually ask

How often should published figures be re-checked?

By what kind of figure it is rather than by a single cadence. On this site live sources such as prices or indexes are re-read every 30 days, datasets and rules in force every 180, dated publications every 365, and arithmetic, opinions and historical artefacts never, because they do not change.

What is a freshness or decay register?

A record that attaches a volatility class and a next-review date to every figure a site or business repeats, so that going stale is detected rather than discovered. The important property is that something enforces it: a date nobody is obliged to renew is decoration.

Why mark some sources as never expiring?

Because giving every figure a review date fills the queue with items nobody needs to look at, and the ones that matter get lost. On this site 117 of 248 sources are fixed — arithmetic, our own stated opinions and historical artefacts — which keeps the recurring work to a size somebody can actually complete.

Does a freshness check catch wrong figures?

No. It catches decay — a figure that was right and has stopped being right. A source that was wrong when published stays wrong and passes every freshness check, and nothing automatic catches that. It is caught by reading the source, which is a different discipline.

Sources

  1. The decay register described here is our own, implemented in this repository at notes/freshness.mjs: classes live 30 days, dataset 180, regulatory 180, dated 365, fixed never, with a 30-day grace period after which the build stops rather than warns. — our own system, described as such. The code is the source
  2. Counts as reported by the build on 23 September 2026: 263 sources — 126 fixed, 73 regulatory, 24 dated, 21 dataset, 19 live. These are figures about this site and will change as it does; the source carrying them is classed live for that reason. — our own measurement, on a stated date re-checked every 30 days
  3. A freshness register detects decay, not error. A source that was wrong when published passes every check. The classes here are ours and are not proposed as correct for anybody else’s figures. — a stated limit on the claims above

Checked 23 September 2026. Next scheduled check 23 October 2026. Numbers that move — leaderboards, live indices — are re-checked every 30 days; annual datasets and rules in force every six months; dated research once a year. If something here has gone stale before we got to it, tell us and we will correct it and say what changed.

Cite this note

Noxia, “A “last checked” date nobody has to renew is decoration”, Field notes, 23 September 2026; sources checked 23 September 2026. https://www.noxia.co.uk/field-notes/a-checked-date-nobody-renews-is-decoration

A review with no output did not happen.

The figures your business repeats — a rate card, a fee schedule, the numbers in a proposal template — decay separately and silently. We build the register, the schedule and the dated artefact each review produces, and we make something fail when one goes past due.

Talk to us about this
Being found: A “last checked” date nobody has to renew is decoration.

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