Tag: Infogalactic

The price of thought-policing

Is eternal vigilance. Fortunately, several intrepid Wikipedia admins are up to the task of patrolling the Wikipedia page devoted to me. It’s rather amusing; first David Gerard, who is an admin and is so neutral on the subject that he cited Phil Sandifier as a reliable source, removed all references to Infogalactic and tried to deny my involvement with it.

  • (single source and that questionable; see talk page. it is entirely unclear this warrants mention *at all*, let alone two subsections. get consensus for inclusion first.)
  • (rm infogalactic – cut’n’paste of multiply-deleted article, closest it has to third-party coverage is one Breitbart article; not notable in mainstream or its field)

He even tried to justify his own patrolling of the page on the basis of his own bias.

I might note, I just today published a negative review of a Castalia book on Phil’s site, so I hold the WSJ-certified typical opinion of Vox Day, but that I find doubles my caution and I’m second guessing myself – David Gerard (talk) 00:37, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

However, when editors kept putting mentions of Infogalactic on the page, he finally gave up, although he was careful to add an irrelevant detail concerning something we have not only never denied, but have repeatedly pointed out to others.

In 2016 Day launched an online encyclopedia called Infogalactic,[25] forking the content of Wikipedia.

This is how the Wikipedia admins police thought there, by constant nibbling away at the edges. Infogalaxians chronicles how two admins, David Gerard and Dragonfly Sixtyseven slash repeatedly away at the page over the course of a week in the interest of removing all the material they think they can justify removing.

The reason they do all this repeated nibbling and sausage slicing is because the editors eventually start to notice something isn’t right.

  • Day published his recommendations in his blog, which is the primary source but in the article, this is now also documented through secondary sources, i.e. SF magazines. I think it’s a good idea to include both, as it allows the reader to independently verify the information. The primary sources show that respected publications like Slate and the Guardian in this case are clearly unreliable. Pkeets (talk) 16:55, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
  • I’m kind of appalled looking at some of these articles from sources that are usually considered reliable. It looks like they didn’t even talk to Day when writing these articles about him. Kelly hi! 17:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Or, do any research about the subject. They seem to have worked off assumptions. That means identifying bias and reliability in the sources will be important in establishing a neutral POV info in the article. Pkeets (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I’m far from the only individual targeted in this way. Another tactic, which was previously utilized unsuccessfully against my page, is the “denial of notability”. In this case, they use the fact that the mainstream media ignores massively successful self-published authors – in this case, one of the top 20 SF authors on Amazon – in order to claim that they are not notable and delete the page.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. V. Larson

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article’s talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was delete. The “keep” arguments are considerably weaker in terms of policy and guidelines, and often add up to “but he’s very commercially successful, so he must be notable”. Well, not according to our inclusion guidelines, as Tokyogirl79 points out. Her thorough analysis of the available sources hasn’t been seriously addressed by those wanting to keep the article, which also weakens their side of the argument.  Sandstein  17:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Non notable author with no adequate references for notability. none of his books are held in more than 80 libraries a/c Worldcat; Technomancer has 79, and the others are fewer than 20. DGG ( talk ) 21:00, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Delete References now on page (Amazon.com, Audible.com) cannot support ntability. He gets a few press mentions, Here: [1],and here: [2], news google search on his name [3], but not enough to source a page or support notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Delete. I found the same results: he’s brought up occasionally as a WP:TRIVIAL mention, but sadly he has never received the type of coverage that Wikipedia would require to satisfy notability guidelines for authors. He’s pretty much one of many authors whose works are self-published (either partially or entirely) or indie that has a fan following, but not one large enough to attract attention from places Wikipedia would consider reliable. Most of the sources I found were either WP:SPS or in places like SFFAudio, which are kind of squiffy as far as whether or not they’d pass Wikipedia’s fairly strict verification guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Your argument is well-reasoned, but the sources still don’t add up, from what I can see. Essentially, in the reliable sources (newspapers, mainly, and the one book) Larson is merely “name-checked” — that is he is mentioned by name in sentences like: “…self-published writers including B.V. Larson and A.G. Riddle.” And that’s all. What we need is for there to be an article ABOUT him, or at least that goes into some depth, in such a source. That’s what WP requires for notability. Sources that aren’t neutral (like Kindle, which publishes him and therefore has a vested interest in making him look good), can’t be used; nor can personal web sites and blogs. One of the sources starts out “Guess what! My cousin Brian is also a science fiction and fantasy author!” That’s obviously not a neutral source. I agree with you that it’s unfair that self-published authors don’t get more attention, but until they start getting reviews in established sources, we have no reasoned way to separate wheat from chaff — and, quite honestly, from the few self-published books I’ve opened up, there’s a lot of chaff. LaMona (talk) 18:37, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I would think that going platinum as an author would be one adequate way to separate the wheat from the chaff; selling a million books is inherently notable. This is why Infogalactic is so important, and why it will be necessary for us to ruthlessly crack down on admins and editors who want to play the same shady game of shaping a particular narrative to suit themselves, regardless of what it is.

News and your top sites

We’re going to be introducing a Daily News feature at Infogalactic before the end of the year, as a number of people have requested it. It’s going to be a Drudge Report-style affair, updated twice daily, with nothing but text and a link to a relevant Infogalactic page for each story. We’re going to limit it to 11 reports about international current events, so you’ll still need to go to Drudge for “Body found behind WALMART missing head, genitals…” and “The Gender-Fluid Performer Who Changed Academy’s Mind…“

This is another step towards breaking people’s dependence upon the Fake News. We’re also going to kick it off with 36 site links to the sites Infogalactic readers most often read. Obviously, VP will be one of them. AG will not. Instapundit and the Unz Review are obvious choices. I look on the list of Drudge columnists and I see precisely four names I’d even be willing to consider. What are your top ten personal candidates for the other 35 links?

If you’ve got an opinion, please provide your list of most-wanted sites in the comments. Keep in mind that they should be sites with daily, or near-daily, content. We will not include sites that post less frequently than 3-4 times per week. And if you’re a supporter or an OG, it should please you to note that Infogalactic has already passed up this blog in terms of daily pageviews.

Destruction and redirection

A new user is impressed with what he finds at Infogalactic:

Today, I did a quick internet search (Google) for “Shiva” to verify a detail or two.  I clicked on the Wikipedia link.  By the end of the second brief paragraph, I was already informed of “the goddess tradition of Hinduism called Shaktism” and how it considers Parvati to be “the equal complementary partner” of Shiva.

Hmm.  Is Shaktism so prevalent or important that it must be introduced before we learn anything more of Shiva?  Also, I can understand how Parvati may be “complementary”, but the addition of “equal” smelled too SJWish.  I went to Infogalactic to see how its page differs.

On Infogalactic, the offending lines are absent, among other changes.

I am impressed.  I am also encouraged.

This is a long marathon, not a sprint, but the Infogalactic team is gradually cleaning up one entry at a time, excising the ever-present SJW bias and transforming the narrative spin into subject-relevant facts. Compare the beginning of these two articles on Race and Intelligence.

Wikipedia, Race and Intelligence:

  • This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
  • The neutrality of this article is disputed. (October 2012)
  • This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. (October 2012)
  • This article’s factual accuracy is disputed. (October 2012)

The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century. The debate concerns the interpretation of research findings that test takers identifying as “White” tend on average to score higher than test takers of African ancestry on IQ tests, and subsequent findings that test takers of East Asian background tend to score higher than whites.

Infogalactic, Race and Intelligence:

The existence of a link between race and intelligence has been repeatedly observed by scientists, but remains extremely controversial. Research suggests that the average IQ score of East Asians is higher than that of Europeans, and the average IQ score of Europeans is higher than that of Africans and African-Americans. Additional research has indicated that environmental factors such as socio-economic status and education can explain some, but not all, of these observed differences in IQ.

The problem with the Wikipedia article is that it is not actually about the purported subject, which is the scientific research that has repeatedly indicated a connection between race and intelligence, but rather, the debate concerning the legitimacy of the observations of that connection. Can you imagine the Wikipedia admins accepting a similar framing of the page on evolution as a debate rather than as a topic in its own right? They would never accept this even though, from the very start, evolutionary theory has been considerably more debatable than the observations, scientific, mundane, and logical, that the people of one race will always be more, or less, intelligent on average than the people of another race.

It’s certainly proper to include criticism of the subject, of course, which Infogalactic contains in its Criticism section. But this practice is very different than the thought-police tactic often utilized on Wikipedia, which is to place the criticism in definitional sections, sometimes even in the very first paragraph. That tactic not only isn’t honest, it doesn’t even make sense. After all, the debate about evolution, and the various criticisms and doubts about the legitimacy of evolutionary theory, cannot possibly be intrinsic to the definition of what evolutionary theory is.

Also, Pale Moon users will be glad to know that an intrepid Pale Moon user has figured out how to redirect all Wikipedia links to Infogalactic. Instructions here. Also, expect some news on improved performance soon, possibly even this week.

The Mandela Effect

Keoni Galt remembers history differently. Have you, too, experienced the Mandela Effect?

When I searched for “Mandela Effect” on Infogalactic, I got automatically redirected to the page entitled Confabulation.


In psychiatry, confabulation (verb: confabulate) is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.[1] Individuals who confabulate present incorrect memories ranging from “subtle alterations to bizarre fabrications”,[2] and are generally very confident about their recollections, despite contradictory evidence.[3]

Given the lack of any content of the Discussion page for the entry, I suspected the content and the auto-redirect of my search terms originates with Wikipedia’s propaganda information control psyops before Infogalactic forked it. So I did the exact same search at Wikipedia and sure enough, on the Talk page, I found the following:

I returned to Wikipedia to post my rejection to Wikipedia rewriting the definition of the term “Mandela Effect” to replace the meaning of the term with a critical explanation for it. I discovered that the page has been removed altogether and that the term now brings one to this article, which doesn’t even mention the term in it at all (yet this page is linked by the term.)  – Neurolanis (talk) 10:05, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Having only quickly skimmed over the topic after briefly encountering it while surfing through the fever swamps of my favorite haunts on the lunatic fringes of teh Interwebz, I decided to try and figure out what exactly this is all about.

The consensus has been manufactured and T.H.E.Y. have spoken. So let it be written re-written, so let it be done. If you clearly and distinctly remember the Berenstein Bears as I do, you must certainly be confabulating.

Certainly it can’t be an organized CONSPIRACY THEORY for the Government-Corporation-Foundation-NGO-Banking Cartel Industrial Complex and their useful idiot status whores and establishment cucks to collectively gaslight we the sheeple and make us think we are all losing our minds!

Snopes goes on to reference the more popular misformed disinformation memes that have been propagated to explain it all…the “woo-woo territory” that Snopes references involves ideas like parallel universes and virtual realities. It’s a whole new world of conspiracy theory for us Whackaloon Conspiritards to ‘sperg on!

According to the top Google search results, Wikipedia, Snopes, and the top meme’s found on a Google image search, it has ALWAYS BEEN The Berenstain Bears, and the only scientifically approved explanation for why you and I and so many other people remember it differently is mass mistaken memory!

I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is how I remember the following details:

  • Nelson Mandela did NOT die in prison during the 1980s. How would he have ever become President of South Africa if he had?
  • Han shot first.
  • Stormtroopers are clones of Boba Fett’s father. They’re not cowardly Africans.
  • Berenstein Bears. Why would anyone ever pronounce “stain” as “steen”?
  • Fruit Loops. I even remember the change as distinctly as if Kellogg’s were to change the name of another cereal to Special G tomorrow.
  • The line is “Luke, I am your father.”
  • The lion laying down with the lamb rather than the wolf living with the lamb in Isaiah 11:6. That being said, I don’t remember the verse per se, but rather the common phrase which could simply have been erroneous.

Anyhow, this is an example of precisely the sort of thought-policing narrative that is not acceptable at Infogalactic. Even if the correct explanation for the Mandela Effect is confabulation, it is absolutely false to claim that the two distinct concepts are synonymous, as at best, the Mandela Effect is a specific example of confabulation. The Mandela Effect page has been corrected.

Reader poll

Just out of curiosity, which do you want to read first?

  • A Sea of Skulls, the final edition
  • SJWs Always Double Down
  • Alt-Right Revolution
  • The Collapsing Empire

Don’t get too excited about any one particular option. You know me. I could end up doing something else entirely.

On a completely unrelated note, the daily average pageviews at Infogalactic have nearly doubled since October and are now rivaling this blog. I’m looking forward to it leaving VP in the very distant dust in the near future. For all that the SJWs would like it to be, Infogalactic has never been about me or my politics. I just want a better dynamic knowledge core for everyone.

Initial speedups

Some recent posts at Gab concerning Infogalactic:

  • The daily traffic at #Infogalactic is steadily growing. 
    • +34.4 % October to November 
    • +43.5% November to December 
  • Jimmy e-mailed me many times pleading for me to donate again to Wiki. Wiki is compromised, infiltrated by underemployed SJWs w/ too much free time. Wiki is losing a donor. Out with Wiki. In with Infogalactic. Migrate over if you’re right of Karl Marx.

If you’re using Infogalactic to replace Wikipedia – which you can now do as your default search engine in Brave, or by typing :i in the URL bar – you’ve probably noticed that it is considerably faster than it was a week ago. Click a few times on the Random Page link to see the initial improvements in page load times.

We’re still working on the Search and Image Fetch database functions; the latter is the primary culprit with regards to the persistent slowness of both, but we have made considerable progress there as well and expect to have those speedups implemented within a week. I’ll be sending out an update to both the Burn Unit and the Phase Two donors with an explanation of what IG’s Techstars have done, what they are doing, and what they’ll be working on next, as soon as this first round of speedups are in place. Please note that as a general rule, I try to avoid unnecessary communiques that contain no actual information.

If you haven’t joined the Burn Unit or jumped the donor ship from Wiki to IG yet, I would encourage you to do so now for two reasons. First, the Alt-Tech revolution is the only way out of being permanently walled in by the converged technology giants, and second, the planetary knowledge core is only going to keep getting better from here.

As you may have heard, Apple is still playing politics with Gab, attempting to keep the Gab app out of the Apple Store on spurious and hypocritical grounds, and Twitter has banned API-related access by Gab, which tells you that Big Tech is already alarmed by the rapid rise of the Alt-Tech. We not only can win, we will win, but we do need those who are on our side to support us rather than continue to support those who hate them.

Stop, triggertime!

When it’s cold outside, but you still feel the insatiable desire to trigger every SJW in visual range. That’s right, Dark Lord Designs and Cryptofashion now offer THE TRUMPSLIDE HOODIE! Let’s face it, that will never grow old.

The cold outside is frightful
But the election is still delightful
And when you need something to don
Put it on, put it on, put it on….

We also have:

    Making a difference

    Just in case those of you who are Brainstormers, Original Galaxians, Burn Unit, or Infogalactic supporters ever doubt that you are, in fact, making a difference. Someone posted this today on Gab:

    Major Tom @MajorTom
    In Hong Kong on the MTR right now and the local guy standing next to me has @infogalactic open on his phone. 


    How cool is that? These are challenging times, to be sure, but even so, it is an exciting time to be alive!

    Speaking of Brainstorm, we’re doing a belated November session on Monday night at 7 PM. Closed event, lots to discuss. Invites will go out tomorrow.

    A tale of two Pizzagates

    In case you didn’t understand how important Infogalactic is already proving to be, given the online war to control the information you are permitted to access, this should suffice to demonstrate as much.

    WIKIPEDIA:

    Pizzagate may refer to:

    Pizzagate, pizza thrown at former football manager and player Sir Alex Ferguson by an Arsenal Football Club player in the 2004 “Battle of the Buffet”
    Pizzagate, a 2016 conspiracy theory falsely claiming the existence of a child trafficking ring involving the Washington, D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong

    INFOGALACTIC:

    Pizzagate is a crowdsourced investigation by citizen journalists into an alleged connection between child trafficking and people closely associated with Hillary Clinton. The investigation began in October 2016 after Wikileaks released the Podesta emails, which contain 58,660 emails[1] from the Gmail account of John Podesta, who was the chairman of Clinton’s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Investigators exchanged information online via Twitter, Gab, 4chan, Reddit, and Voat.[2][3]

    It’s not Infogalactic’s purpose to take sides on anything. Indeed, its objective is quite the opposite, which is to permit the user to dictate the perspective filter through which he wishes to view the known facts. Wikipedia, obviously, takes a very different stance.

    Notice how Wikipedia’s 526 thought police are not providing accurate information relevant to the subject, but are instead aggressively acting as gatekeepers in precisely the same manner as the corrupt media they declare to be the only reliable sources acceptable. It’s a bit ironic, too, that it is the wealthy foundation with more than $70 million in annual revenue has a giant banner stretched across the page demanding more donations, not the shoe-string startup.

    We’re getting close to addressing our primary issue as the initial round of speedups should be in place well before the end of the month. If you would like help us provide the world with a more accurate and less biased planetary knowledge core that is free of SJW corruption, you can join the Burn Unit or make a one-time donation towards the ongoing Phase Two development here.