How It Works
Project Overton scores written content on seven questions. Each question is its own axis, scored independently, and every score traces back to the text of the article.
The tool reads the article
Every article is analyzed through a structured set of analytical methods that examine what the piece states, what it assumes, whose perspective it centers, what alternatives it names, and what it leaves out. Each observation is mapped to specific language in the text.
The tool scores it on seven questions
Each question is its own axis, scored independently on a scale from −4 to +4, with 0 at its centre. When an article does not take a question up, that question is marked No Signal rather than given a score. An article can score left on one question and right on another. The scores are never collapsed or averaged. When they point in different directions, that tension is itself a finding. Everyday fights such as guns, immigration, housing and wages are not axes of their own. They are topics, and an article about one of them is read on whichever questions it takes up.
| Who owns | What is privately owned, and what is held in common? |
| Who provides | Can people get what society requires of them, such as schooling and health care, without already having the money to buy it, and may everyone use that route? |
| Who pays for harm | When something a business or a person does might harm other people, who carries the burden: the one acting, or the people exposed? |
| Who decides | How much say do the people a decision binds, everyone it places a duty on or protects, have in making it? |
| Who counts | May some people count for less than others, by birth or by legal status, and can a person leave the rank they are given? |
| Who has a say | Does government answer to everyone equally, or to a few? |
| Who sets the terms | When people make a deal, such as a job, a lease, a loan or a sale, who sets its terms, including what it costs to get out of it: the stronger side alone, the two sides with a check on each other, or a public rule? |
The tool shows its work
Every score traces to specific observations in the text. For each axis, the tool names the arrangement the article treats as proper and the rung of the rubric that arrangement fits. The article is read three times, independently. When the readings agree closely on a question, the rung that two or all three of them share is the score. When they are further apart, the question is shown as a range, and the page explains what each reading found. The sentence beneath each axis says why the article sits where it does.
How Governance Records Are Scored
Project Overton also keeps a library of real governance records. The following describes how those records are selected and scored, and why the library is out of use for now.
A specific law, executive order, or court decision
A governance record is not a person and it is not an opinion. It is a specific piece of legislation or a specific legal decision, scored from the text of the document itself. The Affordable Care Act is a governance record. Obama is not. His governance record is the set of laws he signed.
Every durable institutional change since 1900
The library includes major legislation since 1900 that created lasting institutional changes. Records are not selected based on whether they support a particular conclusion. The inclusion criteria are applied uniformly, and any patterns that emerge from the data are treated as findings, not as design choices.
From the text of the law, not from commentary about it
The score is derived from the actual legislation, not from its stated purpose or the political identity of the person who signed it. A healthcare law that mandates private insurance purchases is scored based on what the law does, regardless of whether it was described as progressive or conservative at the time of its passage.
Out of use until it is re-scored on the seven questions
The library was scored on the five axes the rubric used until October 2026. Those scores do not answer the seven questions, so the library, the people placed through it, and its coverage map are out of the menu until every record has been re-scored. Until then, article scores are not compared against the library.