Research standards · 2026-10-11 · BestCityToLive Research
Why a weekly data check should not produce a weekly winner
Freshness is a property of the evidence. A changing date on a page does not make the underlying observation newer.
Three dates, three different meanings
The observation period tells you when the measured condition occurred. The retrieval date tells you when we obtained it. The publication date tells you when we released our analysis. A weekly download may find the same annual observation repeatedly. We preserve its period instead of relabelling it as current.
Our research files also record when the underlying values last changed. That lets readers distinguish an uneventful source check from a meaningful update. When a source is unavailable, the prior observation keeps its original retrieval date and the refresh records a failure.
Different sources move at different speeds
Statistics Canada’s metropolitan labour-force table is monthly and uses a three-month moving average. Crime severity statistics are annual and describe police metropolitan areas. World Bank indicators provide national context and can have different latest available years. None should be treated as a real-time city reading.
Weekly collection helps us notice releases and revisions promptly. Quarterly publication gives us a stable cutoff for checking definitions, geography and cohort coverage before comparing cities.
The release contract
An official Civometra release will record the cohort, data cutoff, methodology version, source file and reproducible scores. We will preserve that edition instead of overwriting its winners when a new source arrives. Corrections will receive a visible revision with a reason.
A quarter with insufficient evidence will have a research update, not invented results. This makes a future headline testable: readers can open the exact edition, inspect the evidence and reproduce the calculation.
Sources & scope
- Statistics Canada — Monthly metropolitan labour-force series ↗
- Statistics Canada — Annual Crime Severity Index series ↗
- World Bank — World Development Indicators ↗
Research interpretation by BestCityToLive. Source observations may refer to earlier periods. This note does not constitute an official Civometra Index results release.