Two new countries join the map as FreeWillWave approaches 10,000 presences

Friday, August 28, 2026, the UTC day is complete. After the Wave advances more gently and makes supporters visible in fifteen languages, FreeWillWave continued to advance without unnecessary noise, but with several very concrete signs that something is still growing.

We went from 9,829 to 9,965 Free Humans. The 10,000 mark is no longer far, but the most vivid fact of the day is not only this approaching number. Two countries lit up for the first time: Romania and Indonesia. The map now has 86 countries represented.

Meanwhile, I also worked a lot on what people see, read, hear, and understand: the music page, karaoke, help, banners, support, rankings, and the central rule of FreeWillWave. A day of growth, then, but also a day when the site is still learning to be clearer.

UTC day of August 28	Result
Free Humans at start	9,829
Free Humans at snapshot	9,965
New presences	136
Arrivals by invitation	136
People who invited at least one person	56
Countries represented at start	84
Countries represented at snapshot	86
Energies sent during the day	2,394

Romania and Indonesia enter history

Romania saw its first Free Human at 20:33 UTC. Indonesia followed at 23:16 UTC. Before this day, these two countries did not yet appear on the map of the Wave. Now, they are part of FreeWillWave's visible history.

This kind of moment remains special. A country lighting up is not just one more area in a table. It is a presence that opens a possibility: a person there can now show FreeWillWave to someone else, and that country is no longer absent from the shared memory.

The day thus extends the movement told in Two new countries light up, and the Wave learns to be fairer. The map changes by small touches, sometimes at the end of the day, sometimes almost at the last moment. And these touches remain.

The last presence at the time of the snapshot is #9965 Imran Sayte Record (Nigeria), at 23:54 UTC. It closes a day in which 136 new presences took their place, all by invitation.

Invitations continue to carry the Wave

The 136 new presences all arrived by invitation, thanks to 56 different people. Nigeria again carried a large part of the movement with 101 new presences. Brazil and France each have 4, Colombia and South Africa 3 each, and Cameroon 2.

During the day, thanks to #8792 Abubakar (Nigeria), with 15 direct invitations, to #805 Chizo1germany (Germany), with 12, and to #9824 Sanusi Ajiya (Nigeria), with 8.

Since opening, #805 Chizo1germany (Germany) reaches 3,631 direct invitations. #2029 Nura USMAN MUSA (Nigeria) has 176, and #869 Ibrahim Sani (Nigeria) has 163. The detailed progression remains available in the Wave in numbers.

Energies also remain very present: 2,394 gestures during the day, sent by 266 different people. Nigeria accounts for 2,129, Belgium 62, and Niger 62. Since opening, 24,277 energies have been sent.

During the day, thanks to #5453 Sadik Goni (Nigeria), with 246 energies, to #3377 Babayo Haruna (Nigeria), with 202, and to #6974 Abdulkarim Iliyasu (Nigeria), with 172. Since opening, the most active are #5453 Sadik Goni (Nigeria), with 1,206 energies, #486 Musa Muhammad (Nigeria), with 1,160, and #3377 Babayo Haruna (Nigeria), with 989.

On the support side, two $5 gestures have been recorded since opening: my own, in Belgium, and that of #79 Oddur Tom (Australia). The Support the project page remains open for those who want to help FreeWillWave continue.

Traces to keep	Time or result
First country lit up	Romania, at 20:33 UTC
Second country lit up	Indonesia, at 23:16 UTC
Last presence at snapshot	#9965 Imran Sayte Record (Nigeria), at 23:54 UTC
Energies since opening	24,277
Countries represented at snapshot	86

Behind the scenes: correcting, clarifying, opening new doors

The funniest correction, if I may say so, began with an American flag on my support card. My card indicated a country that did not match my profile, and above all there was no real door to correct it. The support card editor now allows choosing the country, not choosing one if the question was not asked, and preventing a country from being invented when no answer exists. The card can also display a finer location line, with the country, city, or street according to what the person chooses to make public.

Article footers have also been reorganized. The six rankings become three more readable zones: Invitations in blue, Energies in gold, Support in green, each time with people and countries. Support has finally taken the green decided the day before, and the panels follow the same visual logic as on the map of the Wave. It is simpler to maintain, but above all simpler to understand.

Another important correction: the round Earth must no longer appear in the banners. I had already given this instruction, but it was not written where the tool read it. As a result: it continued to draw a globe because the old instruction still asked it to. The rule is now written in the right place, the subject of the image comes from the day being told, and a register prevents two consecutive banners from looking too similar. The August 27 banner was redone with a tide on the sand, in gold on dark blue, under a new name.

The Chronicle itself received an additional safeguard: rankings must be prepared even when a window is empty. Before, an article could come out without a rankings block because a step was missing. Now, an empty day gives an empty table, not a silent disappearance.

The scrolling banner at the top of the site has also been freed. The appeal for support is no longer a fixed separate piece, impossible to modify from the place where I adjust the other texts. It becomes a segment like the others, translated into the fifteen languages, with its own destination. The arrow that pointed to the wrong place has disappeared. Small victory, but a real one: when a text needs to be able to change, it must not be nailed to the scenery.

The support popup now says what the funding is for: emails, hosting, and work. It also keeps a discreet link to the full page. I did not replace the popup with a detour to the Support the project page, because the popup must remain the place where the person quickly understands what they are doing. Here again, the improvement is simple: less mystery, more clarity.

I also fixed a problem that frankly made me raise an eyebrow: a text that no one had written had ended up in fourteen languages on thirty-nine pages. A very short label for the album had been treated as if a complete funding goal had to be written, with an amount that no longer existed. The texts have been fixed, short labels are now translated as short labels, and a limit prevents a translation from becoming three times longer than its source. An untranslated sentence is better than a well-dressed invention.

FreeWillWave's central rule has also been realigned. Some public surfaces still recited an old wording, while the current rule is: “The human comes before everything.” The press page, the share descriptions, and the home page quote have been corrected in the fifteen languages. The sentence about choosing for oneself can remain as a secondary idea, but it no longer replaces the rule. The PDF press documents project was started and then properly stopped: better a real overhaul later than a half-correct state now.

The vertical video “Almost 10,000” was made for TikTok and Shorts. It lasts 48 seconds, uses real data at the time of its rendering, and its third version no longer starts on a black image. The first image is now already composed, because that is often what platforms show as the thumbnail. The publication texts, captions, and distribution elements have also been prepared. The previous campaign on X was stopped, and a new “Almost 10K” campaign was launched around this video.

The Sunday Podcast thumbnails received a visible correction: episodes 1 to 4 now show a much more readable number. Episode 4 did not have one, and the old numbers were too small in the YouTube grid. It is the kind of detail that seems tiny until the moment you look for an episode and see nothing.

On the album The Wave, a new karaoke experience has arrived. The lyrics can follow the music line by line and word by word, on all eleven tracks. Full screen has been prepared, volume remains accessible, arrivals, energies, supports, and new countries appear as pills, and ambient sounds fall silent while karaoke is open to keep the pure sound of the music. The music page has also been simplified: a flat list in album order, filterable by styles, with numbers 01 to 11 visible. Shares that sent to the wrong place have been removed, the useless external link as well, but the mention that the music is produced with Suno, an AI, remains present.

Finally, the help assistant has been updated. It still described the site as it was in July: with a Declaration to sign, without some recent pages, and without the current rule. It now knows the path to take one's place, the new pages such as the film of the experience, music, supports, the editable support card, and it must clearly say that it is an AI if asked. Its access to the Chronicle has also been expanded: it now receives the complete table of contents of published articles, thirty-six at the time of the work, and not just a few excerpts found by search. If it does not find a passage, it must not invent from a title.

This August 28 therefore leaves a very full trace: 136 new presences, two more countries, 2,394 energies, a video almost at 10,000, a karaoke that opens another way to listen to FreeWillWave, more up-to-date help, and many small corrections that make the site more honest and more livable.

What comes next is close, but it is not only in the number that is coming. It is in every person who takes their place, every invitation, every energy, every support, every listen to the album, every comment sent through the page provided for that. That is how the Wave becomes more visible: through free gestures, and through improvements that make them simpler to live.