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Comment by lojack | Hacker News Reader

I use Obsidian (which is inspired by Roam). I know some people may use the graphs, but I personally have that functionality disabled. The real important bit for me is the fact that I can have bi-directional linking. For me, graphs are a cool toy, something I can go "ohhh, neat" and then never use again.

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I still don't understand what these systems give that isn't provided by a simple wiki with auto- and bi-directional linking. People are getting extremely excited by Zettelkasten, and Roam, and Org-Roam, and Obsidian, etc, etc, etc, and no one seems to be able to explain to me why it's not basically just a wiki.

You use Obsidian ... how is it different from a wiki with auto-linking?

What makes me using Obsidian / Zettlr rather then a wiki is that they use just text files (in markdown syntax) you point the app to. You are not locked in with any of the apps, more specific wiki syntax or wiki infrastructure and are very free to sync or back-up all the contents.

Do you have any plain-file (i.e. non-database) wiki in mind which provides auto-linking and simple tagging?

I'm using the wiki I wrote in about 1998 when I first encountered the C2 wiki. It uses plain text files, and in addition to using mark-down style link syntax, the latest version auto-links from free-text without requiring any special markup. That reduces the friction further.

But what you are saying here is "Yes, it's basically just a wiki, but using plain text files underneath, and without using a specific app or database".

This isn't a criticism, it's just me hunting for understanding from the huge heap of hype. Every description I read seems to lead me to:

(a) It's just a wiki, and

(b) It's not doing what Luhmann says his Zettelkasten did.

So I'm finding the excitement very mysterious, and keen to find out what I'm missing.

It is just a personal wiki! Focusing on Obsidian, I think the appeal though is that it automatically creates a wiki from your personal notes. Just type [[wikilinks]] and everything else is done for you.

Maintaining a proper wiki by oneself is too much overhead, but Obsidian is a nice extra on top of standard markdown notes.

> It is just a personal wiki!

That's the vibe I'm getting from nearly everyone, and yet there are a few articles out there that say that the Zettelkasten absolutely was not simply a wiki. It was more.

I've found a few explicit statements to that effect, but, ironically, I can't find them just now, but Luhmann talked about "having a conversation" with his Zettelkasten. Simply implementing and/or using a wiki is clearly not the same thing ... that's a personal knowledge repository.

So I think people are still missing something.

This "having a conversation" is misleading because Luhmann uses a different definition than most people: https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1146/communication-...

My understanding is that Zettelkasten is a way of using a wiki. One aspect is "small atomic notes/pages". Maybe you use your personal wiki that way, maybe you don't. Another aspect are "sequences of notes" (Folgezettel) but I'm not sure if that is a side effect of using a physical slip box or a useful concept.

Overall, it seems to be illusive like Agile. You will always find someone who claims you are doing it wrong.

> and no one seems to be able to explain to me why it's not basically just a wiki

That's actually precisely what it is for me. It's just an easy to use, lightweight, wiki that uses markdown and has backlinks. Your pages are stored in regular old markdown files, so you can do whatever you want for syncing if that matters.

If I weren't using Obsidian I'd probably be using a lightweight note taking app like Bear, or maybe a personal Wiki. It just feels like a good mix of the two that works for me though.

>> no one seems to be able to explain to me why it's not basically just a wiki

> That's actually precisely what it is for me.

See my reply here ...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24118601

I think people who are treating their new shiny systems as a wiki are missing the underlying, most important point of a true Zettelkasten.

I think you misunderstand... Obsidian is precisely a personal wiki for me because thats exactly what I want. I don't even attempt to argue that I'm doing Zettelkasten in any way shape or form -- I even have the Zettelkasten features disabled.

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