OpenBrief
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What the picker changes
  • Top topics digest — the cards score the selected period against the prior 4 weeks.
  • 12-week heatmap & outlet matrix — show the 12 weeks ending at the selected week (they slide back with the picker, they aren’t a fixed snapshot).
  • Per-topic volume / alias drift — same 12-week trailing window, anchored on the selected period.
  • Coverage gap quadrant — scores the selected period against the 12 weeks before it (not including it).
  • Anomaly cards — only show alerts the detector fired during the selected period. Quiet weeks legitimately show none.
What stays as-is
  • Outlet orientation strip / lean colours — context-only, drawn from the last 12 weeks of activity regardless.
  • Co-occurrence graph — recent-activity anchored, not picker-driven.
  • Source & topic profiles — all-time data for the topic; the picker doesn’t affect them.
Rolling 7 days is a sliding live window for “current vibes”; switch to Weekly to compare specific weeks side-by-side.
Weekly Rolling 7 days
live window
Topic · social

City Rail Link Cost

9 posts · 298 engagement · first seen 27 Jan 2016 · last seen 12 Jun 2026

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown faces criticism from a former deputy chief of staff over the proposed 7.9% rates increase, with concerns raised about transparency and whether sufficient spending cuts were made to justify the rise, particularly linked to the new City Rail Link costs.

Stance breakdown

How the per-edge framings classify across 7 classified edges. Each framing is labelled by a small AI stance classifier; see the methodology page for details.

86%
14%
Critical 6 Mocking 1

Sentiment breakdown

Whole-post emotional valence across 7 classified posts that reference this topic. Distinct from stance: a post can be supportive of the topic and still negative in tone (an angry supporter) — the two together capture the texture short-form posts compress into very few words.

14%
29%
57%
Positive 1 Neutral 2 Negative 4

Platform mix

Where the conversation is happening. Engagement is volume-weighted (likes + 2×shares + 3×replies); a small number of high-impact posts can outrank a high-volume but low-engagement platform.

  • reddit
    4 posts · 285 engagement
    285
  • youtube
    3 posts · 4 engagement
    4

Top posts by engagement

The most-engaged posts referencing this topic. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies; the order matches the digest ranking on /social.