How to check any number we publish
Every number we publish carries a definition, a date and a file behind it — 20 assets are listed in our machine-readable registry, and this page is the loop we use to keep that true, including what we do when a count turns out to be wrong.
- It explains how to check us. It cannot make a number correct.
- We can date and source a figure. We cannot tell you it is the right figure for your decision.
- If a count is wrong, this is where we say so. Check the date before you quote us.
Our method, written out: how a figure is produced, how it is dated, and what we do when a count turns out to be wrong.
If you are going to make a decision on our numbers, you should be able to audit them. This page is that audit trail.
Open any dataset, pick a number, and follow it back through the definition and the source on this page.
The ability to verify rather than trust - the same loop we run ourselves. Free.
You should not have to trust a figure just because a site printed it. Every number on this site has a definition, a date and a file behind it. This page describes the loop that keeps that true, including what we do when a count turns out to be wrong.
The numbers
| Value | What it counts | Source / definition |
|---|---|---|
| 17 | assets in the machine-readable registry | Counted from our own /data/registry.json on 2026-09-26. Each entry carries a definition, a source, a licence and an update date; anyone can recount them by fetching that file. |
| 531 | URLs in our sitemap | Counted from /sitemap.xml on 2026-09-26. Five of them declare a last-modified date and the rest do not, which we treat as a defect rather than a feature. |
| 1 | published retraction (388 became 386) | Our city dataset count. The earlier figure was wrong because a directory count included a folder that holds raw data rather than a page; the pages now print 386 and this line is the record of the older number. |
The rule
- Count from disk, not from memory. The count on a dataset page is produced by the same script that writes the page. Nothing is typed in by hand and no figure is copied forward from an older page.
- Put the definition next to the number. A total on its own cannot be argued with. A reader has to be told what one record is, so that the argument can be about the definition instead of about the arithmetic.
- Put a date next to the definition. A count is a photograph of a file, not a property of the world. Every figure here carries the day it was counted, and we would rather show an older number with its date than a fresher number with no provenance.
- Publish the correction, not only the fix. On 2026-09-25 a city dataset count had to be withdrawn: a directory listing showed 387 folders under /china/, but one of them holds JSON data instead of a page, so the true page count is 386. The withdrawn figure is still recorded here, because a site that publishes only its final numbers is asking to be trusted rather than checked.
- Say what the number cannot support. Every method and concept page on this site carries a section on where it fails. That section is not modesty: it is the part an answer engine needs in order to quote us without over-claiming.
If you find a figure on this site that you cannot recompute from a file we serve, treat it as a claim rather than as data. The machine-readable version of this promise is the asset registry: every entry in it carries a definition, a source and an update date, and the entries are generated from what exists on disk.
Where it breaks
This loop catches arithmetic, not truth. One: a number can be fully recomputable and still describe the world badly — counting our own rows says nothing about whether the rows are worth counting. Two: dates drift, so a figure checked today can be wrong next month; that is why a number without a date is never quoted here. Three: provenance is weakest exactly where the input is self-reported — a user agent string claiming to be a crawler is not proof of who sent the request, and we say so on the page that uses those logs.
Data & methods
- Rule authored by. InfoGap.
- Definition. A figure is publishable on this site when someone who does not work here can recompute it from a file we serve.
- Last updated. 2026-09-26
- Licence. CC BY-NC 4.0 for the text — attribution: InfoGap (infogap.store), link to this page.
Where to go next
- Data pages: https://infogap.store/china/
- Data pages: https://infogap.store/data/p/ai-crawler-hits/
- Data pages: https://infogap.store/data/p/china-city-place-datasets/
- Data pages: https://infogap.store/data/p/slice-matrix/
- Method pages: https://infogap.store/method/how-we-build-a-city-dataset/
- Hub: https://infogap.store/data/
- Machine-readable: registry.json