SocialGalactic User's Guide

This is a user's manual for SocialGalactic 2.0, InfoGalactic's social media site, located at: https://social.infogalactic.com

Welcome

Welcome to SocialGalactic, The Planetary Communications Core.

Known to its thousands of users as "The Core" (hashtag #Core), SocialGalactic is a social media site designed for people looking for a respite from the SJW-driven censorship policies of mainstream social media giants such as Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook, while also avoiding the obscene and oftentimes illegal degeneracy present on upstart Twitter substitutes such as Gab.

SocialGalactic is a closed system, meaning it is not designed to cater to all internet users in order to sell advertising and achieve widespread popularity. Rather, it is specifically engineered to serve the needs of normal people who wish to have normal conversations with other normal people.

In the words of founder Vox Day:

We're not interested in playing thought police. We are very interested in playing manners police. Twitter is the exact opposite: they will let you post any vulgarity you want, they'll let you post any nudity you want, but they won't let you say "Learn to Code."

If you personally find nothing to quibble with in the above statement, then read on — SocialGalactic is for you.

On the other hand, if the above statement creates in you any desire to question, challenge, or otherwise argue with the assumptions contained therein — "What about free speech?", "Who defines manners?", etc. — please leave now. Thanks in advance.

Ground Rules

There is no official set of granular rules for using SocialGalactic, which is by design. Past experience has shown that such rules, once posted, quickly become an attack vector for troublemakers looking to use the letter of the law to pervert the spirit of the law, thereby ruining the site for everyone else.

At SocialGalactic, admins enforce two general common-sense policies, which are adjudicated at their discretion and which are not subject to debate. These are basic, sane dicta which should prove easy to both interpret and follow for anyone not predisposed to social autism. They are:

Clean Speech

No obscene, vulgar, or blasphemous language is permitted (textual or visual). This includes nudity, "dank memes," "spicy memes," and "bantz".

If you are wondering if a particular word or image crosses the line and technically constitutes a violation of this policy, then by your very hesitation you've answered the question. Don't use it.

Good Manners

No attacks on other users. This includes trolling, race-baiting, Nazi-LARPing, Alt-Retardery — all the usual suspects.

In addition to good manners being at the foundation of civilized discourse, the allowance of such immaturity is another attack vector that leftists use. As Vox notes:

We learned from seeing what happened [at Gab]. We learned from seeing how the trolls and extremists and social outcasts who had been kicked off of other social media platforms made it their own and took over. . .Just like Gresham's law applies to money — bad money drives out good money. In the case of social media, bad users drive out good users.

Privacy

Good Manners respects the privacy of other SG users. What happens on SG stays on SG, at least with regards to authorship. If you quote an SG post off-platform, it should be unattributed and should not be identifiable to anyone who is not on SG.

1st violation: warning and instruction to take it down.

2nd violation or refusal: reduction in status and repeated instruction to take it down.

3rd violation: banned from SG.

This policy does not apply to any off-platform activity prior to 15 September 2024.

Warnings

Failure to abide by these policies will result in warnings issued by the SocialGalactic admins, and failure to heed their warnings will get you banned.

No SJWs

A special word should be said about that particular scourge of modern life known as the Social Justice Warrior. Vox Day made his thoughts on their presence clear in his Darkstream announcing SocialGalactic to the world:

We're not going to permit SJWs on it. No social justice. If people want to play the social justice police, they can go work for the Twitter Trust and Safety Council. We have no interest in accommodating them. We have no interest in accommodating their drama. We have no interest in putting up with their nonsense.

Registration

As of January 2020, SocialGalactic 2.0 is in active beta, and available by invitation only. Beta invites are gradually being sent out to supporters of the various projects launched by founder Vox Day.

Invites already sent

• Unauthorized.TV general subscribers (Annual, Premium, and Basic) https://www.unauthorized.tv/

Future invites to be sent

Burn Unit members (Gold, Silver, Bronze).

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Unauthorized.TV content-specific subscribers (Feed the Bear, The Legend, Good Gardening, and Wranglerstar)

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Voxiversity subscribers

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Castalia Library and Libraria Castalia subscribers

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• Rebel's Run movie investors
• Replatforming patrons
• AHQ Rubble Bouncers

Only after all of the various project contributors have been invited will SocialGalactic subscriptions be made available to free users.

Missing Invites

If you are a project contributor in the "Invites Already Sent" category above, and have not received an invite, send an email to voxday-at-gmail-dot-com with a subject heading of "SG2 INVITE". List the project you contribute to, the email address used for your subscription, and the level of support.

Getting Access

SocialGalactic access is currently only available through paid subscriptions. There are no plans to allow free access.

Access can be purchased directly with a paid subscription from the Castalia e-store. It is also available as a bonus for UATV subscriptions.

UATV Subscription Access Levels

UATV Level	SG Access
Creator sub ($5-7/mo)	Content-specific
Basic ($10/mo)	Bronze
Premium ($25/mo)	Silver
Annual ($275/yr)	Silver

Access Levels

There are several access levels for SocialGalactic, each with its own identifying badge. Higher access levels grant the user elevated perks and posting privileges.

Unauthorized.TV content-specific subscribers (Feed the Bear, The Legend, Good Gardening, and Wranglerstar)

Text limit: 128 characters?

Images: cannot post.

Avatars: can select from a tier of eight default images.

Bronze

Badge:

• Hyperlinks allowed but not auto-shortened
• Text limit: 180 characters
• Image Upload: <200 kb

Silver

Badge:

• Hyperlinks allowed, but no auto-shortening
• Text limit: 240 characters
• Image Upload: <500 kb
• Images can be used in avatars

Gold

Badge:

Text limit: 999 characters

Moderator

Badge:

Paragon

Badge (light theme):

Badge (dark theme):

An exclusive tier reserved for the chief stakeholders of SocialGalactic (Vox Day, Owen Benjamin, etc.)

Admin

Badge (light theme):

Badge (dark theme):

Main Page

The Main SocialGalactic page is divided into six main sections:

Search

Search will return results only from the text in posts, including hashtags.

Search does not return usernames.

Settings

This menu is located in the upper-right-hand window of your browser window, on the black SocialGalactic menu bar. Click the small down arrow to reveal the menu.

The options on this menu are:

EDIT PROFILE | VIEW MUTED USERS | VIEW STATISTICS | LIGHT THEME | DARK THEME | LOGOUT

Notifications

There is also a NOTIFICATIONS button to the left of the SETTINGS menu. Click here to read any direct notices that have been sent to you.

Edit Profile

Here you have a variety of settings related to your personal profile, as well as customization settings for your user experience on the site itself.

The options in this section include:

UPLOAD AN AVATAR | NICKNAME | USERNAME | EMAIL | ABOUT | TIMEZONE | CONTROL IMAGE DISPLAY | CONTROL LINK DISPLAY | CHANGE PASSWORD | DELETE OLDER POSTS AND COMMENTS | DELETE ACCOUNT

Upload an Avatar

Every user on SocialGalactic has a visual Avatar associated with their account, which is displayed alongside your Nickname in your profile, and on all posts you make.

The file size limit for your Avatar picture is 1 megabyte.

Avatar images are perfectly square, so for best results, make sure the image you upload is as well.

The Avatar as displayed on your profile page is 200x200 pixels, so for best results, ensure the Avatar image you upload is at least that big.

Users are encouraged to compress their Avatar images before uploading to reduce their filesize, which will offer best performance when rendering pages and posts. There are many free websites online that let you easily do this. Ex. https://tinypng.com and https://tinyjpg.com

Nickname

Every user must choose a nickname that is the name which you will be known by on the site.

This name can be anything, it does not have to match your email.

Note that your email is not displayed to users on the site by default, it is your nickname which they will see.

You can change your nickname at any time by revisiting this SETTINGS menu.

Username

Your username is a hard-coded name that never changes, and which appears in both your profile and on all of your posts.

Other users will use this to identify you even if your nickname changes. They will also use it to flag you in their posts, so that you are notified in your timeline when someone mentions you.

If you must change your username for some reason, please contact an Admin.

Email

Your email address is used behind the scenes to contact you as needed.

Show Email

By default, your email address is not exposed to users.

If you would like your email address to be added to your profile and made visible to users, click the SHOW EMAIL checkbox.

About

Every user on SocialGalactic has a section of their Profile where they can tell other users a little bit about themselves.

Whatever you type here will be displayed to all users whenever they view your Profile.

Timezone

Click the Globe icon to reveal a world map where you can select your personal timezone.

This will ensure that all timestamps on SocialGalactic posts and comments will be accurate for you.

Control Image Display

In posts and comments where images are present, you can choose how they will be displayed for you.

The three options to choose from are:

• SHOW IMAGES (default)
• HIDE IMAGES ON POSTS: the text of the post is displayed, but the images are suppressed.
• BLOCK POSTS WITH IMAGES: Entirely removes any posts containing images from your post timeline.

Note that hiding images, or blocking posts that contain images, will also prevent your account from sharing images in your own posts.

Control Link Display

In posts and comments where hyperlinks are present, you can choose how they will be displayed for you.

A PREVIEW is a little image that shows what the hyperlinked page looks like.

The three options to choose from are:

• SHOW LINKS AND PREVIEWS (default)
• HIDE LINK PREVIEWS: hides the little image next to the hyperlink, but still shows you the hyperlink text.
• BLOCK POSTS WITH LINKS: Entirely removes any posts containing links from your post timeline.

Note that blocking posts with links will in turn prevent you from sharing links in your own posts.

Save and Cancel

When you are finished adjusting these settings, remember to hit SAVE in order to preserve your changes.

If you have messed things up and do not wish to save your changes, hit CANCEL to undo your changes and return to the way things were.

Change Password

Here you can change the password you use to login to SocialGalactic.

Type in your old password into the first field, then type in your new password twice to ensure you have not made a typo of any sort.

If you want to see the exact password you typed, click on the eyeball icon to make the password visible.

When done, hit UPDATE PASSWORD to save your changes.

Delete Older Posts and Comments

Here you can delete your post and comment history. Pick a date and everything older including that date will be deleted.

Delete My Account

Here you can delete the account you're currently logged into. Deleting your account will not delete other accounts you have.

View Muted Users

Here you can see a list of users you have Muted — suppressed from your Post Timelines so you never have to see or read them.

If you wish, you may un-mute users here to restore their posts to your timeline.

View Statistics

Here you can view some useful statistics showing your usage of SocialGalactic.

You can filter the stats by day, week, month, or year.

Click on the colored rectangles above each chart in order to suppress that color's data from the graph below. Click again to restore the data points for that color.

The statistics you can view include:

Posts

• Create Post
• Create Comment
• Delete Post
• Delete Comment
• Quoted

Follows

• You Followed
• You Unfollowed
• Followed You
• Unfollowed You

Votes

• Upvotes
• Downvotes

Reputation

• Reputation Increase
• Reputation Decrease

Light Theme

Select this option to display SocialGalactic in a bright theme of white and pastels.

Dark Theme

Select this option to display SocialGalactic in a dark theme of black and grays.

Logout

Select this option to logout of the website so anyone else using your computer cannot see or use your SocialGalactic account.

Profile

The Profile window on the main SocialGalactic page displays information about user account, both your own and also other users who you click on.

This is the exact information other users see about you when they click on your username.

The elements of a profile include:

• Avatar: the picture you have uploaded to serve as your face to other users on SocialGalactic. You can change this at any time by going to SETTINGS > EDIT PROFILE.
• Nickname: the friendly name you go by on SocialGalactic. You can change this name at any time by going to SETTINGS > EDIT PROFILE.
• Username: preceded by the "@" sign, this is your permanent hard-coded name on SocialGalactic. Once set, this cannot be changed without asking an Admin.
• Badge Level: Underneath your Avatar, you will see the level of access you have on SocialGalactic: FREE | BRONZE | SILVER | GOLD | MODERATOR | PARAGON | ADMIN.
• Reputation: A measure of your interactivity with SocialGalactic. See the "Reputation" section below for more details.
• About: A short paragraph of information about the user.
• Followers: The number of people who are following you, and who thus have your posts showing in their own Post Timelines.
• Following: the number of people who you are following, and thus are appearing in your own Post Timeline.
• Posts: the number of posts the user has made on SocialGalactic.

There are also links at the bottom of the window for: TERMS OF SERVICE | PRIVACY POLICY | CONTACT

Create New Post

At the top of your main SocialGalactic page is your posting window. This is where you compose and format posts before you add them to your Post Timeline.

Note that this window changes depending on what you click on. If, for example, you click on a user's name, you will see that username gets auto-added to the Create Post window.

If you click on someone else's post anywhere on the site, that post will be displayed above your Create Post window, which means that the post you compose will be saved as a Reply to that person's original post.

Formatting

Markdown

SocialGalactic supports several elements of Markdown formatting syntax.

For italic, add a single asterisk (*) before and after the text.

For bold, add two asterisks (**) before and after the text.

For quoting, add a backquote (`) before and after the text.

You may use underline characters (_/__) instead of an asterisk (*/**) for bold and italic.

Special characters

To improve compatibility with Markdown, SocialGalactic will treat <strings within angle brackets> as HTML tags, so they will not be displayed as literal text. If you want to include less than (<) or greater than (>) characters in your post, you can use HTML character entity references, namely < and > respectively.

In the same way, exercise care with strings beginning with "&" and ending with ";" SocialGalactic may attempt to treat such strings as HTML character entity references. For example, if for any reason you want to include the literal text "&lt;" in a post, you will need to enter <.

You can use this technique to enter any character that has an HTML numeric character reference or an HTML character entity reference, especially if you find that putting the character in directly, or copying and pasting it, causes your post to undergo unexpected content changes such as substituted or missing characters.

Text Counter

In the lower-left-corner of the Create Post window, you can see a running counter of how many text characters you have used in the post, and how many you have left before you run out.

Image Upload button

To the right of the text counter, you can see a grey IMAGE UPLOAD button. Click here to add an image to your post.

Also note that each SocialGalactic user is allowed to adjust their settings so that they do not see posts with images in them. So by including images, you are potentially reducing the number of users who will see your posts.

Expand Post Window

In the lower-right-hand corner of your Create Post window, note the small icon depicting several diagonal lines. Click and drag that icon in order to expand or contract your post window, so you have more or less room to edit your post in.

Hashtags

Hashtags are simple hyperlink labels for posts that associate that post with a specific topic or category. Users interested in that category can then click the hashtag at any time in order to read a timeline of all posts in that category.

To create a hashtag, precede your category name by the pound "#" sign.

Hashtags may contain capital letters, but cannot contain spaces.

Mentions

If you wish to mention a fellow SocialGalactic user in your post, type their username (not nickname) preceded by the "@" sign. The user will then see your post in their timeline, whether or not they are actively following you.

Hyperlinks

You may paste hyperlinks to other websites into your posts.

Note that each character of a hyperlink counts against your posting text limits. In order to shrink your hyperlinks to reduce this debit, you can use one of many free websites that will auto-shrink your hyperlink into a short link. Ex. https://is.gd or https://lob.li

There are also many browser extensions available to help you do this automatically.

Also note that each SocialGalactic user is allowed to adjust their settings so that they do not see posts with hyperlinks in them. So by including links, you are potentially reducing the number of users who will see your posts.

POST button

When you are ready to publish your post, click the POST button at the lower right of the Create Post window. This will publish your post to the site and make it visible to users.

Post Timeline

Your Post Timeline is where you read and interact with posts on SocialGalactic.

The two button at the top of the Timeline control which posts you see: ALL POSTS and YOUR FEED.

All Posts

ALL POSTS will show you a complete list of everything that has been posted to SocialGalactic, starting with the most recent fifty posts.

The only posts that will be missing are from users who you have Muted.

At the bottom of the Timeline, you will see a PREVIOUS POSTS button. Click that to view the next fifty posts.

Your Feed

This Post Timeline is your personal curated feed.

It restricts what you see to only:

• your own posts.
• the posts of people you follow.
• any posts in the wild that have mentioned your username in the text of the post.

Elements of a Post

A typical post contains the following elements:

Post Header

The top of the post tells you the Avatar, Nickname, and Username of the poster.

You can also see the badge associated with the user, plus a timestamp showing when the post was published to SocialGalactic.

Above all of this, you will see a list of users who have re-posted this post into their own Timelines.

Post Body

The Body of the post shows all of the text, images, and hyperlinks that make up the post proper.

You can control how or if you want hyperlinks and images displayed in posts by going to SETTINGS > EDIT PROFILE (see SETTINGS section above for more details).

Post Buttons

At the bottom of every post are several buttons that allow you to interact with the post.

Vote Up

Click this button to show that you like the post.

Doing this increases the poster's Reputation Score by 5 points.

Vote Down

Click this button to show that you dislike the post.

Doing this will increase the poster's Reputation score by 1 point.

Repost

Click this button in order to make this post appear in your own Timeline.

This will also make the post appear in the Timelines of all of your Followers.

Quote

Click this button in order to create a new post of your own to which this one is added as an attachment.

Comments

Click this button in order to see a complete listing of all Comments that have been attached to the original post.

At the bottom of the Comment Stream, you will see a Create Comment window where you can add your own comment to the Comment Timeline and join the conversation.

Comments vs. Posts

A Comment is different than a Post. It is added to the Comment Stream of a Post, so when you view that stream, you are not viewing any Reposts or Quote Posts.

Comments do not have Repost or Quote buttons on them, so they can't be added to your Timelines the same way a Post can.

Activity

Posts or Comments that other users have interacted with will display an ACTIVITY button in the lower-right-hand corner of the post or comment window. Clicking on that button will drop down a list of what actions were made on the post, and what users made them. Actions tracked include UPVOTES, DOWNVOTES, REPOSTS, QUOTES, and COMMENTS.

Block User

At the bottom-right-hand corner of each Post or Comment is a Block User button

If you find that you no longer want any more interactions with a user, you may click this button on his post to add him to your Blocked User list. You will no longer see his posts and he will also no longer be able to see your posts or comments.

You may view your list of blocked users by clicking SETTINGS > BLOCKED USERS. You may also un-block users so they can once again interact with you.

Mute User

At the bottom-right-hand corner of each Post or Comment is a Mute User button.

If you find you do not want to see a user's posts or comments, you may click this button to add him to your Muted list. The user will disappear from all of your Timelines and be ignored.

You may view your list of muted users by clicking SETTINGS > MUTED USERS. You may also un-mute users so they are once again visible to you.

Create a Group

Located at https://social.infogalactic.com/group-create

This menu will allow you to create a group and select the visibility to other users. Right now the link is not available from the profile menu.

The Name field is the name of the group.

The Description field is how you can communicate the purpose of the group to other users.

The Visibility field is how you can select the groups visibility to other users. The visibility selections are the following:

Public: Public groups can been seen by anyone, including the list of users and posts.

Private: Private groups can been seen by anyone, but not the list of users or posts.

Exclusive: Exclusive groups cannot be seen by anyone not a member of the group.

Group List

At this time there is no user facing method for obtaining a list of existing groups.

An unofficial collection of existing groups is currently maintained and can be found by searching for UPDATED GROUP LIST within Social Galactic. Instructions for adding a group to the collection are included in the post.

Trending Hashtags

The TRENDING HASHTAGS section of the main SocialGalactic page shows you the Top Ten hashtags on the site.

Clicking on any of the hashtag hyperlinks will take you to a Post Timeline page specific to that hashtag.

Reputation

A user's reputation rating gauges how often others are interacting with their posts, and whether those posts are Liked or not.

Upvote

Adds 5 points to your reputation score.

Downvote

Adds 1 point to your reputation score.

Right now, the only way to lose reputation points is to flag something for moderation that the moderator sees as a nuisance or trouble-making.

Reporting Abuse

On the Main Thread

To report abuse in the form of a post, quote-post, or comment on a post in the main thread, click on the drop-down menu identified by your email address, and from the menu select the, "Report Abuse," option. This method does not work for reporting abusive material in a group.

Doing so will bring up a confirmation dialog, informing you that filing a report requires a "bond" of 50 reputation points. These will be returned if the moderator reviewing the material you report upholds your complaint.

There is a button to cancel ("I Refuse"), and a button to continue ("I Accept").

If you press the, "I Accept," button, you will then have the option to select the offending post or comment by clicking on it.

You have 2,000 characters to explain what aspect of the material you're reporting that you object to. Put in your explanation, and submit the report.

You may only have one open abuse report at a time.

In a Group

Do not use the, "Report Abuse," function for material in a group, whether an original post on the group's feed, or a quote-post, or a comment on a post. The general moderators cannot see the context of the reported material and so cannot properly judge the complaint's validity.

Instead, contact the group creator. The group creator can be found by the following process:

1. While browsing SocialGalactic on a mobile phone, click on the SocialGalactic drop-down in the upper left-hand corner of the browser tab
2. Scroll down to, "My Groups"
3. Click on the name of the group concerned
4. Find and click the, "View Members," link that is just under the group description
5. Look, in the list of members, for the user whose role is, "admin" and status is, "active". This is the group creator.

How you try to draw the creator's attention to the offending post or comment will depend on circumstances. Use your best judgement.

The group creator does not currently have an option to remove or edit an offending post or comment, but can remove the offending person from the group, and can also make and enforce, by warnings and where appropriate expulsions, group rules for acceptable discourse.

Reporting Bugs

You can report a bug at any time from within SocialGalactic by creating a post that contains hastag: #bug

Enhancement Requests

For now, you may use hashtag #bug for enhancement requests as well.

Support

sg at infogalactic dot com