THPedia News Archive

This page contains news items about THPedia, with the newest at the top.

Dates below are in U.S. date format mm/dd/yyyy.

To comment on any of these news items, use the Discussion ("Talk") page.

For general news resources, you might want to follow various transhumanist news resources.

7/30/2025 - New Account Creation Disabled Temporarily to Address Wave of Spambots

An inordinately large wave of spambots has been inundating THPedia over the past month, creating "articles" consisting of content advertising dubious websites and often containing nonsense. Sometimes the spambots have created hundreds of new accounts within a given hour, just to create one or two spam entries per account, making mass deletion of spam content an extremely time-consuming endeavor.

The administration of THPedia is exploring longer-term solutions to this problem. For now, the easiest way is to disable the creation of new accounts to prevent fresh spambots from coming in, while we make efforts to remove existing spambot accounts over time (typically as they manifest any activity). If you would like for a new, legitimate account to be created for you to edit THPedia pages, please contact Gennady Stolyarov II, Administrator of THPedia, using the information on this page.

All existing legitimate THPedia accounts (including those originally created on H+Pedia) should work as previously.

12/9/2024 - THPedia Upgraded to MediaWiki Version 1.40.1 - Fork Between THPedia and H+Pedia

Today I write to the transhumanist community with an update regarding THPedia.

First, THPedia has been updated to MediaWiki Version 1.40.1 for purposes of both security and functionality improvement. Now THPedia has the same functionality as the historic H+Pedia, and more. Easy, intuitive edits can be made to pages using the convenient Visual Editor within Version 1.40.1.

I encourage all transhumanists, life-extensionists, cryonicists, futurists, and other allies of our community to consider contributing content to THPedia, based on their areas of knowledge and expertise, as there is significant potential for both increasing the number of entries on THPedia and updating existing entries to reflect developments over the past several years.

Second, given the improvements made to THPedia, and the desire by the Humanity+ organization (which approached me in August) to maintain its own transhumanist encyclopedia, I have transferred the prior H+Pedia domain to Humanity+ after upgrading THPedia.

From now on, THPedia and H+Pedia, both forks of the historic H+Pedia, will be distinct encyclopedias and will follow their own paths. Humanity+ will administer H+Pedia, and I will administer THPedia. I will let Humanity+ describe its own plans in its future updates. I have agreed to the transfer to enable two paths for the development of a transhumanist encyclopedia to be pursued simultaneously, and hopefully with some manner of beneficial symbiosis arising as a result.

It is clear to me, based on the history of H+Pedia, that it was originated and implemented with an open-source ethos, which was strongly espoused by the main administrators and contributors.

I emphasize my commitment to maintaining this open-source ethos of the historic H+Pedia on THPedia. All of the content on THPedia will remain available pursuant to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. All editors of the historic H+Pedia who made constructive edits there will remain welcome to edit THPedia. All previous H+Pedia profiles and login credentials should work on THPedia, so it should be easy to contribute. I likewise encourage the Humanity+ organization to provide this manner of reciprocity and maintain the same kind of open-source approach for its H+Pedia going forward.

Transhumanism is for everyone, and this recognition motivated my decision to accept the historic H+Pedia from David Wood in January 2024 and to subsequently rebrand it as THPedia while agreeing for Humanity+ to pursue its own encyclopedia using the H+Pedia name. I have written in 2019 about the need for open-source symbols for transhumanism (“Transhumanists Need New Symbols”) – and the result was a wide array of free, open-source symbols for transhumanism developed by our community. The branding of THPedia with one such open-source symbol (and with a name that stands for transhumanism generally) reinforces this fundamental openness to the creation of a robust repository of information about transhumanism based on the input of anyone within and outside of our movement who has valuable knowledge and insights to offer.

Live long and prosper!

Sincerely,

Gennady Stolyarov II

Administrator, THPedia

11/26/2024 - Dedicated Website of THPedia - THPedia as the Sole Name of This Encyclopedia Going Forward

THPedia now has a dedicated website at th-pedia.org. As of the present, the sole name of this encyclopedia is intended to be THPedia, and future edits will reflect this shift. Most of the functionality of the historic H+Pedia and all of the content has been preserved on the new website. The rest of the functionality is coming soon. We are working on a thorough rebranding to THPedia, though comprehensively changing all references will take a bit of time. It is anticipated that this encyclopedia will use the name THPedia going forward, with the aim of providing the same content (and updates thereon) and user experience as the historic H+Pedia, which was a community effort among many transhumanists.

Transhumanism is for everyone, and THPedia will aim to embody that spirit.

7/15/2024 - New Administration of H+Pedia, New Logo, and New Alternate Name of THPedia

Greetings to all.

I am pleased to announce that I have become the Administrator of H+Pedia. A “soft transition” to this role began in January 2024, after David Wood, who contributed an immense amount of effort to maintaining this site over the years, announced that he would like to hand over its administration (see his post of December 29, 2023, "Cutting back in order to move forward better"). In June 2024, the transfer of the H+Pedia website domain to me took place. As of July 11, 2024, the domain has been renewed by me, and I now pay for the web hosting and all associated services for maintaining it.

As the first important change, the logo of H+Pedia has been revised to utilize one of the Free Transhumanist Symbols generously created by Rachel Edler and made available for public use here. H+Pedia is intended to be a resource for the entire transhumanist community, with the information it provides contributed by members of that community in an open-source fashion and available pursuant to a Creative Commons License for all to utilize. Because of the overlapping “T” and “H” design of the logo, representing transhumanism, H+Pedia may now also alternately be referred to as THPedia. It is anticipated that both names will be in use going forward and may be used interchangeably.

1. The current rules of H+Pedia / THPedia will remain in place, and their further evolution will continue to be incremental. My management style is that of an incremental pragmatist. I tend to eschew revolutionary changes unless they are unavoidable for preserving the project. In all cases I will strive to preserve what is good and what works, while seeking unambiguous improvements, error corrections, and amplifications of this wonderful repository of knowledge. My outlook is that one should not fix what is not broken, while focusing on ways to make obvious positive differences first.

2. H+Pedia / THPedia will remain officially apolitical and will not be an initiative of the U.S. Transhumanist Party or the Transhuman Club. It will instead be an Allied Project. Money spent to maintain H+Pedia / THPedia will not diminish the savings available for USTP or Transhuman Club activities. H+Pedia / THPedia will, of course, continue to feature factual coverage of transhumanist politics.

3. I am the Administrator of H+Pedia / THPedia in a personal capacity, rather than as Chairman of either the USTP or the Transhuman Club. Thus, decision-making on H+Pedia / THPedia will not be subject to any political process. This also means that, as the Administrator, I will be able to make decisions expeditiously and nimbly where needed, but will also respect the customary, emergent prerogatives of volunteer editors in accordance with the culture that has arisen on H+Pedia / THPedia up to now.

4. H+Pedia / THPedia will continue to welcome all volunteers who can make constructive contributions – whether or not they are members of the USTP or even transhumanists.

5. H+Pedia / THPedia will welcome a multiplicity of contributions regarding the history, key figures, and important concepts within our community. If we err, it will be on the side of inclusion, as long as appropriate support can be provided in the form of citations of reasonable sources (and H+Pedia’s / THPedia’s criteria are far more expansive and common-sense than those of Wikipedia).

6. We do, of course, require civility and good behavior from all. Existing rules against spam, trolling, and non-constructive editing will be enforced.

I hope that you can all join me in the effort to save, expand, and maintain H+Pedia / THPedia as a valuable resource to the entirety of the transhumanist and longevity communities. The information there right now is a veritable treasure trove and can, with continued maintenance, provide tremendous insights into the history, thought, and promising future directions for our movement.

Live long and prosper!

Gennady Stolyarov II

Administrator, H+Pedia / THPedia

6/10/2018 - Large Introductory Talk Published

Trailer

You can see a video and talk about H+Pedia and transcription of the talk from TransVision 2017

https://pirate.london/h-pedia-at-transvisions-2289a70ea29c

Deku-shrub (talk) 12:45, 10 June 2018 (CDT)

3/2/2018 - New Mailing List

There is a new google group mailing list to complement the facebook group for longer form discussion. Deku-shrub (talk) 15:21, 2 March 2018 (CST)

4/14/2017 - New Social Contract Prize Challenge

The Transhumanist Party (UK) is sponsoring a prize challenge during April and May 2017 for the best H+Pedia contributions on the topic of New Social Contract.

See New Social Contract prize challenge.

11/25/2016 - Art Section Editor

H+Pedia is pleased to announce the appointment of user Nildicit as the H+Pedia Art Section Editor. This appointment has immediate effect.

Nildicit will be active in leading the improvement of the articles about transhumanist media, including literature, music and video games.

Note: this excludes Film & TV, which is already in the capable hands of Transhuman Tees.

Please welcome and support Nildicit in this new role.

11/8/2016 - Film and TV Section Editor

H+Pedia is pleased to announce the appointment of user Transhuman Tees as the H+Pedia Film and TV Section Editor. This appointment has immediate effect.

Transhuman Tees will be active in leading the improvement of the articles covered by:

Please welcome and support Transhuman Tees in this new role.

11/7/2016 - Prize Contest

Congratulations to Transhuman Tees and Chad The Humanoid-Goatman for winning prizes in the October 2016 Longevity Month competition. Both these users made a large number of contributions to H+Pedia over the duration of the prize contest:

Transhuman Tees is awarded the $100 prize for Being the "MVP" (most valuable person)
Chad The Humanoid-Goatman is awarded the $50 prize for Other outstanding contributions.

Details of the winning submissions can be found on the competition page

The H+Pedia admin team will carry forward the other prizes to another contest which will be announced shortly - a contest which we hope will achieve a wider set of entries.

11/7/2016 - New H+Pedia roles

As part of the growth of H+Pedia, volunteers are now being sought for a number of roles within the H+Pedia support team. These roles will originally be assigned for a period of three months, but may be extended by mutual agreement:

H+Pedia Outreach Coordinator - a person with responsibility to spread awareness of the value of the H+Pedia project, particularly by identifying and connecting to potential major influencers
H+Pedia Section Editors - people who take responsibility, over their three month assignment, to improve H+Pedia coverage of particular areas of transhumanist or radical futurist knowledge.

Applications are invited, between now and 21st November, for these positions. Please email info@hpluspedia.org, stating:

Which role you are interested in (and, for section editors, which section of H+Pedia content)
Why you would be a good fit for that role
Your plan for what you would do in that position.

People appointed to the above roles will be welcome to:

Add this responsibility to their professional CVs and LinkedIn content
Highlight their accomplishments in this role to potential future employees, partners, or clients.

Note: a "section" of H+Pedia can be any defined area. Examples include Art, Emerging technologies, Longevism, Ideologies, Criticism of transhumanism, and Organisations, as well as subsets of these.

10/16/2016 - Community Portal

To compliment the new home page, the community portal is aimed at existing and prospective editors rather than just readers. It should provide a central view of activities to get involved with. A link is also now in the side bar. Deku-shrub (talk) 15:35, 16 October 2016 (CDT)

9/1/2016 - H+Pedia Longevity Day/Month Prize

See October 2016 Longevity Month competition.

Entries can be submitted covering contributions to H+Pedia between 1st September and 15th October.

5/5/2016 - https Access Enabled

H+Pedia is now fully https. Important technology if you're going to send messages to the future.

https://hpluspedia.org/

3/13/2016 - Video Embed Extension

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:EmbedVideo - Allows embedding of various video types Deku-shrub (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2016 (CST)

See example page: Transhumanist Declaration.

1/17/2016 - H+Pedia Planning Meeting

A public H+Pedia planning meeting took place on Sunday 17th January, as a Hangout On Air. It lasted 60 minutes.

See this Google+ event page or this Facebook event page for more details.

1/4/2016 - Twitter Account for H+Pedia

It can be found at @Hpluspedia. Also read about Twitter use in general

1/4/2016 - MediaWiki Software Upgrade, 1.25.3 to 1.26.2

The version of MediaWiki used on this site has been upgraded from 1.25.3 to 1.26.2

12/21/2015 - Short URL Extension Installed

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Short_URL/Apache - mmm, sexier urls now Deku-shrub (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2015 (CST)

12/12/2015 - Facebook Group to Discuss H+Pedia

Discussions about H+Pedia can now take place on a recently created group on Facebook.

12/13/2015 - Occasional Site Errors When Editing Pages

Some users have experienced error messages on trying to edit or create pages. The error message suggests the user should log out and then log in again, but in that case, the user will find themself unable to log in again, with the error message now referring to the need to enable cookies.

The workaround for this issue is to delete your site-specific cookies for hpluspedia.org.

The issue has been escalated to the providers of the site. They comment that they are not aware of any similar reports from other users. We will monitor for any recurrences.

12/10/2015 - Recent Pages Extension Installed

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:RecentPages - I have installed this and you can see it in use on the front page :) Deku-shrub (talk) 18:21, 10 December 2015 (CST)

12/6/2015 - Hangout On Air about H+Pedia

This Google+ event page provides information about a Hangout On Air, "H+Pedia: Progress, plans, possibilities" that took place 6pm-7pm UK time on Sunday 6th December 2015.

Click 'Read more' in the Details window on that page to see the full details.

MediaWiki software upgrade, 1.25.1 to 1.25.3

The version of MediaWiki used on this site has been upgraded from 1.25.1 to 1.25.3.

MediaWiki provide the following release notes, describing the changes in the new version:

It's unclear, but it's possible that the user validation issues noted below will be fixed by this upgrade.

Functionality added since the initial launch of the site

The ability for users to upload files
A favicon for the site - it's based on Media:FavIconSource2.png, converted using genfavicon

A note on users having problems confirming their accounts

Some people who create H+Pedia accounts are reporting the following error message, when they click on the confirmation link inside the email the wiki sends them:

"Invalid confirmation code. The code may have expired."

This has been reported as a known issue in the MediaWiki software which powers H+Pedia. Affected users are advised to simply try again, by requesting another confirmation message from the page Special:Preferences, and waiting until that arrives (it may take a few minutes). In the worst cases, it may be necessary to try again on a following day.

Users need to complete this verification process before the software will allow them to create or edit H+Pedia software.

Note: Email addresses supplied by users are not used for any purposes other than account verification. Administrators of H+Pedia have no access to these email addresses.