It’s designed for monitoring websites (eg Council websites, MP announcements, donation registers…) for additions, removals or other changes.
Klaxon is a free, quick to setup and easy to use service that checks websites for changes so you don’t have to.
themarshallproject
That’s the spiel provided by The Marshall Project, and I’m happy to say that it is indeed quick to set up and easy to use!
Klaxon was launched back in 2016 as an open-source reporting tool, but unless you’re proficient at forking GIT repositories and managing your own Heroku app, it wasn’t that easy to set up without the aid of a developer. Thankfully, in December 2023 The Marshall Project released a new Klaxon Cloud tool that is built into Document Cloud, the open document archive for journalists and researchers, and it only took me around ten minutes to set up and account and start tracking a site for changes.
To get set up, you need:
- To set up a Muckrock account via Document Cloud
This will give you access to a free tier, which is all you need for this tool. - An email address to receive the notifications
A nice option is to get Klaxon notifications of website/web document changes sent to a Slack channel of your choice, but you’d need both a Slack account and a Slack admin role to set this up.
How do I set up a Klaxon notification?
Once you’ve set up your Document Cloud account, you’re ready to add your first Klaxon. What you choose to monitor is entirely up to you, but in the below example I will set up a service to monitor Hansard for mentions of climate change. In this example, I’ve chosen for the year of 2024 only and restricted searches to Hansard titles only.
Below are screenshots of the Klaxon Cloud tool. You will see I’ve added the search results page of Hansard to “Site”, and used the previously sourced CSS selector in the “Selector” option.
If you don’t have access to Slack (or not sure how to set it up), then you can the “Slack Webhook” field blank. You will still receive email notifications of changes to the web document.
Advanced users can play with the “Filter” option, which allow you to filter content from being compared. I’ve not found a use case for this just yet, but I’m sure there will be some out there!
Once you’ve set this up, press “Dispatch” above, and the tool will use the Wayback Machine to record a snapshot of the “Site” at the time of the check. You’ll receive your first notification at this time to inform you of the initial scan. At this point, just keep an eye on your inbox or Slack channel (I called ours “Klaxon” – imaginative!) and you’ll see the change notifications flow through as scheduled.
You’ll then get email notifications whenever there is an update to the page, as well as a link to the new snapshot, an option to download a copy of changes, and the ability to visualize the changes in the Wayback Machine.
If LINA Members require assistance setting up a Klaxon or with any above steps, feel free to reach out to LINA’s Technical Manager Adrian O’Hagan via the LINA Slack channel or set up an appointment with him via HubSpot Meetings.
