METHOD · NOT A POPULARITY RELAY
Why these three today instead of thirty others?
BitShovel never turns everything it observes directly into a feed. Each candidate must answer plain questions: Is it a distinct thing? Did something materially change? Who can use it? Can it return to an original? What is the biggest limitation? If those answers are weak, it should not consume attention.
01
MERGE
First ask whether it is the same thing.
A repository chart entry, author post, media retelling, and social discussion may all describe one project. BitShovel groups material around the project, product, person, or platform before asking what each source actually adds.
Pure repetition does not create four cards. Attention may help discovery, but repetition alone cannot make something important.
02
CHANGE
Separate a first sighting from real change.
An object entering view for the first time is New. Something already observed becomes an Important update only when capability, price, version, policy, user outcome, or applicability materially changes.
A rewritten title, page layout, retelling, or discussion with no new fact stays quiet by default.
03
USEFULNESS
Not merely interesting: why is it worth seeing now?
An item entering Today must state a concrete effect on a tool, product, earning window, working method, or platform shift. Material that offers only surprise, anxiety, or a sweeping trend loses priority when it cannot name the affected object.
Something highly useful to a narrow audience can rank above a universal talking point with no practical consequence.
04
SOURCE
A summary may be short. Traceability cannot break.
Project capability returns to repositories and documentation; product change to release notes; founder experience to first-person writing. Discussion attention proves discussion, not the underlying business fact. Each material carries only what it can support.
Every card retains source and observation date. When sources conflict, BitShovel preserves the conflict and unknown rather than treating a vote as fact.
05
LIMIT
Every selected item names its biggest limitation.
Fast growth is not durable value. A launch is not adoption. Founder self-report is not independent verification. Social discussion is not a proven earning opportunity. The main limitation states what the item cannot yet establish.
06
FEEDBACK
Less of this changes order without building a filter bubble.
Feedback reduces the priority of similar material in the current version. It does not permanently block a source or category; a genuinely important later change can return to Today.
Keep expresses a different intent. It does not ask for more of a category; it asks BitShovel to maintain the thread of this specific object.