Ask HN: Does anyone else keep their own knowledge wiki? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does anyone else keep their own knowledge wiki?

27 pointsnikivi7 comments

I've been extending and improving [my personal wiki](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/knowledge) for 1 year now and it has been one of the best things I've done. I found writing blog posts was too high friction and very often didn't finish things because there is so much you can talk about in any given article. But a wiki is just a living document containing your notes and thoughts on things. I also use it as my public bookmark manager as I collect interesting to me links under each topic.

For my wiki, I [render everything to the web](https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz) first with GitBook. And I have a macro I run that automatically commits any changes I've made with Sublime Text on the mac and Ulysses on the phone so everything is super easy to edit and publish.

Does anyone else keep their own wiki here? Or you think a blog is enough for you?

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I only have a git repo and just put the markdown files into it , because I work with multiple machines and I don't want to set it up for each machine. I got the idea from this one (https://github.com/jbranchaud/til)

I do something similar to you, except I differntiate what I find useful for myself VS what others might find useful

- I keep everything on a blog. I limit it to 6-10 total viewable areas at most, b/c anything more is too overbearing. One home page, 4-6 page links to toolboxes, inspiration, etc. Example http://vincentmtang.com/toolbox/

- For constant updated docs, I use wordpress pages. Its very fast and easy for me to edit. Things like portfolio pages, etc that would change on an ongoing basis

- Standard operating procedures, I commited to memory already. Haven't bothered posting any of that, if I did I would opt with youtube videos

- Social media links → dump on blog

- Diary -> I use workflowy / dynalist, I keep it private b/c I write some profanity in there sometimes

- Bookmarks → I use pinboard, but for things commonly accessed I use chrome toolbar

- Git repositories → just star it and search for it. Fork it if I'm going to use that repo in next month

For me, a tool is a tool. Wikis are tools. They help out, if you use it properly. But it only goes so far - you can spend all day investing in your toolbox, and have an amazing garage workshop. But if there's no functionally useful DIY projects to back it, then the toolbox doesn't serve a function. That's why I shy away from wikis. My rule of thumb - spend 80-90% of time actually building things or knowledge to build it, 10-20% reflecting and building that toolshed.

All my notes are stored in Google Docs, but I sometimes worry that if it ever suddenly becomes deprecated or I'm locked/banned out of my account for whatever reason I'll lose many years of important knowledge. I wonder if I should copy/paste all my notes from Google Docs into plaintext files.

I recently came across your repository and have been recently on a kick to start organizing my knowledge in a more structured way.

I've been using workflowy a bit for random notes, but I don't have much of a process or structure for my notes there so far. It's nice that it's available online. If I get more seriously into using it, i'd have to upgrade to pro to get the dropbox back-up option so i'm at less risk of the service spontaneously disappearing someday.

If workflowy doesn't workout, the next approach is text files in a git repo.

Wow, that's some impressive work. I found that keeping stuff in storage doesn't work for me. I much to seldom refer to what I've written previously for it to be worthwhile to keep it organized.

I do on workflowy. Its a giant hierarchical list. Super low friction, fast, easy, and great sharing options (I sometimes share specific sub-portions to people).

I use mind mapping software FreeMind but it fulfills a similar purpose

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