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Comment by chris_st | Hacker News Reader

> I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about the structure instead of actually thinking about the content.

This is why wikis, which I originally thought were just the best things ever, seem to become useless over time.

The Mac application Quiver [1] introduced me to the idea of categories, which can contain one layer of sub-category, and either categories or sub-categories can contain articles, which contain text. A really simple tree.

This extremely simple structure is just enough to (A) contain everything I've thrown at it and (B) know where to look for something. And, you can make links from one article to another for when a cross-reference is good to have (but I do it very rarely).

I now use Obsidian [2] which is more modern, not Mac only, as well as being much simpler to use than Quiver, using simple markdown.

[1] https://happenapps.com

[2] https://obsidian.md

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I actually stopped using Obsidian a few months ago. I feel like these knowledge collection/note taking applications over complicate everything. I wasn't happy with the search feature in Obsidian specifically and the fact that it forces you to add their own application specific characters/flavor to your markdown. [0]

I thought about it and my minimum requirements for a knowledge graph tool are:

1. Edit files in vanilla Markdown (no application specific cruft)

2. Be able to search content easily (ideally via grep)

3. Add 1:1 or 1:many links between files (direct links vs. tags, ideally using requirement 2 to implement this)

And the simplest solution for me was:

1. A single level directory of md files (no folders!)

2. Vim + Telescope [1]

3. A small set of guidelines [2] to define searchable patterns for linking files/nodes

I also wrote a little md renderer (seen in link 2) that adds the features I wanted for exploring my notes/second brain in a browser that picks up on the patterns in the guidelines. Gotta get a grep search on that thing and it'll be golden, but I apologize I'm rambling at this point.

Never been happier. I just use Working Copy to jot notes on mobile when I'm not at my computer.

[0] https://help.obsidian.md/How+to/Internal+link

[1] https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim

[2] https://notes.zacholland.net/file/index.md

Have a look at the German software 'The Archive' https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive , this might be what you are looking for. It is not overloaded with fancy features and is text/markdown based. Enables you to focus on your actual notes and ideas and how to connect and inter-act with them, instead of getting lost in fancy diagrams.

Their user forum is in English and is THE best ressource regarding all things Zettelkasten. https://forum.zettelkasten.de Niklas Luhmann, the inventor of the Zettelkasten system, was German, after all :)

I tried out The Archive, definitely a good option! My guidelines are very similar to theirs but to be honest I think I value the speed and power of my Vim setup too much to use any other text editor... so maybe the setup I described above is only relevant to people who want to also edit notes in their preferred editor lol

Although, I do think I have a small gripe with the Zettelkestan method. I don't see the point in having a large collection of small notes with unique identifiers. If I have a random thought, I will write it in a physical notebook accepting it's mortality. If I want to immortalize it, I flesh out the thought and transfer it either to it's own file, or add the small bit of info to a relevant file.

Even if I did want to jot down every small thought or idea of mine in my notes directory, the manageability difference between a single long file (for say all my small thoughts) vs. a ton of small files seems marginal to me. I do personally prefer the former though.

When your main method for searching relies on powerful content scanning (grep) and connections (tags/direct links) it doesn't really matter where the content lives. If the search is powerful and the connections are strong, everything is easily discoverable.

Vanilla markdown I've realized isn't what I want. What I want is Markdown's editing simplicity, but I do want WYSIWYG for inserting pictures (drag / drop, copy+paste), resizing them, and I do want inline-rendering of more complicated things like graphviz and plantuml.

Wow, no directories. That kind of blows my mind. I just really appreciate some kind of high-level "directory" (for lack of a better word) rather than trying to remember some random tag to help me find something.

Reminds me (sorry, I'm a dinosaur) of the WAIS [0] days -- I had a friend who showed me some cool sites accessible through WAIS. When I asked them if there was some kind of directory to find stuff, he looked slightly annoyed and said, "You could build one, I guess." The WwW came along shortly thereafter, with lots of directories of sites, and yeah, most folks have never even heard of WAIS :-)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_information_server

It works! But only when paired with fuzzy search for file names and grep searching file contents. I do sometimes like to just roam around my files for fun though and do remember specific file names, so naming is still important for me!

Also the tags are very deliberate.

Wdym useless over time? You don't need to think about structuring a wiki.

I've found that if you don't have structure, then you're reliant on plain search terms. As you have more and more leafs, without a tree, your searches will match more and more leafs, to the point where you'll have difficultly finding conceptually related but not textually related concepts. If you're using tags or links, I would claim those are structure. I've often found I have to go back and add tags/links to pages so I can find them in the search results.

I think structureless is not possible, since some form of structure will grow, with lumps. I think there's some happy in between, with some light structure in place.

Perhaps "useless" is the wrong term -- perhaps just "wildly inconsistent" would be better (which winds up being pretty much useless, if you can't find anything).

nomel wrote:

> I think structureless is not possible, since some form of structure will grow, with lumps.

This really nails it. There will be some kinds of structures (note the plurals), particularly if more than one person is involved, since you just think... differently at different times. A minimal structure like Quiver/Obsidian just takes all those silly decisions away that wind up lumping your data into a difficult-to-access wad.

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