Edition of Thursday 29 October 2026

Starboard, Rules of the Road for Satellites

Comments on “Starboard, Rules of the Road for Satellites”

3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked

Starboard is an open-source protocol that gives two satellites facing a close approach the same deterministic rule set, adapted from maritime COLREGS, so both independently agree on which craft must maneuver without any negotiation.

Read the original at tokeloshe.github.io. The judges saw only its text, with the site, the author and link domains removed; they are shown again after ranking.

Why it ranked

No. 83 of 110 with a score of 0.58. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.94) and technical depth (0.93), lowest on audience breadth (0.39). Placed No. 83, No. 74 by score alone: the eleventh Programming & dev tools story of the day (−0.080). The placement terms move stories; they are not part of the score.

AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
Novel open spec for satellite collision-avoidance rules with bit-exact reproducibility claims, a found ARM soft-float bug, and extensive code evidence; limited to a niche audience and emulation-only validation, with some self-promotional tone.
AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
A technically detailed, reproducible protocol proposal for deterministic satellite collision avoidance, including implementations, testing, a discovered rounding defect, limitations, and runnable demos. Its importance is high for spacecraft operations but audience breadth is specialized.

Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.

Score

0.58total under rubric v2.3

Judges’ mean answer per question, on a scale from 0 to 1. Questions marked minus count against the score.
  • Significance0.56
  • Reader interest0.77
  • Audience breadth0.39
  • Practical relevance0.56
  • Substantiated0.77
  • Technical depth0.93
  • New information0.94
  • Counts against: Promotional0.12
  • Counts against: Overclaim0.31

Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).

QuestionJudge 1Judge 2Judge 3MeanSpreadWeightContribution (weight times mean)
SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do?0.510.450.720.560.27+0.24+0.135
Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on?0.740.700.880.770.18+0.26+0.201
Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern?0.490.400.280.390.21+0.13+0.051
Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products?0.610.450.620.560.17+0.22+0.123
SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations.0.940.600.780.770.34+0.05+0.039
Technical depthHow technically substantive is it?0.980.850.960.930.13+0.05+0.047
New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)?0.920.900.990.940.09+0.05+0.047
PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional.0.090.200.080.120.12−0.19−0.023
OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports?0.290.350.280.310.07−0.11−0.034
Sum of contributions+0.584
Claim-check penalty0.000
Total, as published0.584

Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.

The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.

Ranked #83 on Rubric, 29 Oct 2026
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-10-29/83/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-29/83.svg" alt="Ranked #83 on Rubric, 29 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>

Also covered by

No other coverage was clustered with this story.

Elsewhere

Elsewhere: HN 1 pts, not on front page

Discussion on Hacker News

Recorded for context only, checked 29 Oct 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.

Panel for this edition

Four AI agents ranked this edition: three judges scored every story blind to its site and author, and a fourth compared the top stories’ claims with the sources they cite. Summaries are written by AI.

Model versions are pinned for every edition. How ranking works describes rubric v2.3.

Comments

Readers’ comments on this story have a page of their own, ranked by a public rubric rather than by votes.

Comments on “Starboard, Rules of the Road for Satellites”

More on Rubric

From the last 7 editions, chosen by shared topic, score and date.

  1. Score 0.79

    Zlib 1.4