Incremental note-taking (article/discussion)

[Si]

I just came across this post: https://thesephist.com/posts/inc/, and it challenges a lot of my own views on effective note-taking practices, so I thought it was worth sharing here.

The author advocates for a kind of chronological system, where as a rule notes are never updated after they are made, meaning that they retain a fixed position in time. It kind of reminded me of Soren's random thoughts: https://randomthoughts.sorenbjornstad.com/

Anyway this approach seems completely counter to my current approach to note-taking, where I want my notes to represent ideas that I am building over time with little regard to where or when they originally came from.

I'm not particularly convinced, but I'm curious if anyone here has any thoughts? Do you see any advantages to this approach? Disadvantages? Do you think it could gel with the zettelkasten philosophy, or are they polar opposites?

Just interested in hearing other peoples thoughts.

[ludwa6]

@Si, i must answer your Q w/ a Q: Why must it be viewed as a binary choice?  

Bearing in mind the wisdom of Gahdhi [1], let's evolve our docs to keep pace with changes in the world... And let us also keep track of those changes, as is easily done in Github. or your choice of SCM.

Unless i am missing something, this seems like a trivial problem today (tho the lack of change history in TW is notable in the world of wiki, it must be said).

/walt

[1]. “My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.”

[Si]

@Walt

>>> let's evolve our docs to keep pace with changes in the world... And let us also keep track of those changes, as is easily done in Github. or your choice of SCM.

Well yes, this is what I already do. But the author is advocating for something subtly different: he argues that you shouldn't update a note after it has been added, and instead if you want to expand on or change it, you should add an entirely new note. I'm not quite sure this is the same thing as simply keeping a history. He seems to think that the original chronological context in which you capture a note is an important and defining feature of that note.

>>> Unless i am missing something, this seems like a trivial problem today (tho the lack of change history in TW is notable in the world of wiki, it must be said).

My post was less about how to technically implement anything, and more just intended to prompt a discussion on this particular way of thinking about note-taking. Personally I don't personally see any particular merit to this approach, but since its good to question your own perspective I want to hear what other people think.

[TW Tones]

Si,

There are some arguments for this approach, starting with the ability to research how things evolved, but I agree it is somewhat trivial with computers. 

Some quick thoughts

• tiddlywiki could support this starting with the core plugin  Save Trail: Automatically download modified tiddlers
• there is no reason not to combine this method - perhaps we call it the "log method" with other methods
• Making use of the differences tools could even be more powerful, you could replay the content of a tiddler over multiple versions.

I am not convinced either with this method, but I see the potential for this in a hybrid method. 

• Chronologies are important, journals and log methods are very useful
• The advantage of chronologies is if all your devices are synchronized you can associate one with another 
  • For example if you have a GPS trail - time and place and you have photos and the time taken, you can recover where the photo was taken.
• What occurs before or after another is sometimes valuable information. 
• Cause and effect is something we often want to discover, unless you can separate these in time it is not always possible the cause.
  • eg; observe a symptom, if you did not take the medication before the symptom then the medication did not cause it. 

It relates to something I have expressed before and that is providing use analytics back to the user so they can observe their own usage and behaviours, that is the maximum information you can obtain from the same collection of data can include its time based evolution. You may discover your most productive days, or time of day, you may discover when you are most likely to make errors, which buttons you use the most - there is virtually no limit.

I could imagine some ideas triggered by this thread evolving into an interesting solution. It would be great to be able to return here in months to see what the "progenitor" was. It may be a way to discover new opportunities.

Thanks for raising this important knowledge management question.

Tones

[Soren Bjornstad]

I think the author's first principle contradicts the article: it says that "good notes should behave like memory." But actual human memory is not immutable, not even close; memories are changed somewhat every time we recall them. So it seems to me that a system that actually matched memory would update over time, but also retain some traces of previous versions.

On the topic of "time is essential to how we remember," at least for me it depends on the type of information. If it is naturally autobiographical, or there was a particularly salient moment at which I learned the information, or it happened during a particular project or class, sure. When the thoughts are more abstract and developing over time, I absolutely cannot remember a thing about the time I had them or added to them, nor is that information particularly relevant.

As I recall, Ted Nelson talked about adding a time dimension to hypertext, where you could easily go back and forth between different versions and see exactly what has changed in a graphical manner. Google Docs and Git both kind of do this, but I don't think they've figured out all the possibilities here...you still have to go into a separate system to browse through the different versions, and it's hard to see several at the same time. The diff between versions is also probably not the best visualization -- perhaps for instance a stream of different additions (as in the inc idea the author mentions!) would be better for many types of notes. So overall, this would seem like a more productive direction to me -- you can see the latest state of the art, or you can quickly and easily look at previous "versions", whatever makes the most sense.

I do think TiddlyWiki's tools in this area are currently somewhat impoverished.

[Charlie Veniot]

Man, if I kept every single iteration of every little thought, so that for every little thing I can see the path of thinking between version X and version Y ... way too heavy to carry all of that around.

Between the choices of all or nothing, I think I'd prefer nothing.  The "all" turns into information hoarding: I must keep every little thing and every version of that thing in case I need it someday.  Bleurk.

There are some things that may be worth keeping "milestone" versions of.  But every version?  Maybe for some really critical things, but I can't imagine any such scenario for myself.

The thing with the need to keep every iteration of a note: you then kind of need to keep every iteration of related notes too.  Otherwise, the memory of that note at a particular point in time might be missing some pieces.  Unless you keep all of the pieces in the one note, which is crappy for information componentization and totally conflicts with the philosophy and benefits of tiddlers (i.e. keep them suckers focused, light, agile.)

I say all of that, I don't ever get into thoughts akin to: back in 1986, seems to me somebody said something to me that shaped the way of thinking I have today.  Now where is the note that reminds me who said what and where, and where is the chain of notes that together shaped this silly way of thinking I have today.

If I really needed a perfect snapshot in time for everything, I might archive daily versions of entire TiddlyWiki instances.  BLEURK.

A good enough solution, to me, would involve just annotating/adorning a Tiddler with change log entries of significant milestone changes, little breadcrumbs that would remind me of what the heck I was thinking at some particular moment.  No way would I bother doing that for every thought.

Huh.  I re-read all of my gibberish, and I imagine a large plate of spaghetti and meat balls flung at a wall.  Kind of all over the place ...

[Charlie Veniot]

You know, chewing on the concept of Incremental note-taking becomes even more interesting in conjunction with chewing on note taking versus note making.

The intertwingling of it all.  The interweaving of the two threads.  Kind of mind-blowing.  If I smoked weed, me thinks I'd light up a doobie toute suite and wax philosophical for the rest of the day ...

On Thursday, July 15, 2021 at 4:18:48 PM UTC-3 Si wrote:

[ludwa6]

@Soren: I appreciate the nuanced understanding you bring to this topic. 

@Si: sorry if my end-of-day (i.e. tired!) response came off as dismissive.  I have since read the subject article with due attention, and while i appreciate the author's perspective, i must agree w/ Soren that it is not generalisable to the level of how all human brains work. Tho i am no neuroscientist, i resonate strongly with the exceptions Soren points out, especially in his 2nd paragraph.  The time dimension can be a powerful key to recall, but so can space quite independent of time (yeah, i know: space/time is one dimension, but not in the human brain -this at least IS a generalisable principle) and other factors in our sensory apparatus -all of which i would lump into the category of CONTEXT. 

That's my take on one (#4) in the author's list of 4 "big ideas" for problem-solving in this domain.  As to the 3, i must say:

1. "Captured ideas are better than missed ones." YES -agree strongly.
   
2. "Adding new ideas is better than updating old ones."  NO -definitely not for me, mate.  I'm with Gandhi on this one -and Soren, if i understand him right [*]
3. "Ideas that can’t be recalled are worse than useless."  EXACTLY! They actually impede access to the useful ideas -which is why point 2 above is so wrong, from my POV.
   

Note [*]:  Now from a practical perspective: Does updating notes mean we must sacrifice important history?  Clearly not -as various projects (Git diffs, Wikipedia history, Internet Archive, etc.) prove. Are such solutions good enough? You'll never get everyone to agree on any one as a canonical solution to the problem.  For my purposes: a periodic push to Github, with a reasonably descriptive comment after every significant development, is good enough... But that's just me.  If we're talking about "mission-critical" code, that's another matter, but not in the scope of "note-taking," i would say (tho if we're talking about lab notes that must eventually serve as evidence in a legal dispute over IP... Let's just not go there :-)

Final thought: Invoking the wisdom of Soren yet again -i.e. memory updates itself over time, while retaining traces- i think what we want in a note-taking system is not to replicate the human brain, but rather to Augment our intelligence.  For all the talk about AI and the existential risks attending to it, i'm going all-in on the idea that IA (Intelligence Augmentation) is the best shot we have at ensuring that the inevitable tech progression from narrow AI -> AGI -> "The Singularity" does not necessarily mean the end of humankind.  It may however mean we must reconcile ourselves to the idea of our progeny being post-human (whatever that means)... But, enough said about that for now :-)

/walt

[Si]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies everyone! I'm definitely in agreement with all that has been said.

>>> sorry if my end-of-day (i.e. tired!) response came off as dismissive.

@walt Not at all!

>>> i think what we want in a note-taking system is not to replicate the human brain, but rather to Augment our intelligence.

Yes I often think about this. Many tools claim to 'mimic the way humans think' or something, but its not obvious to me that this is necessarily. We should seek to understand how we think of course, but so that we can build tools that interact with our minds, not imitate them. For example, we didn't improve our ability to travel quickly over long distances by mimicking bipedalism.

[David Gifford]

Hi Si

I read this the other day but didn't have time to comment. Now I am done getting ready for our trip tomorrow and I have a moment to breathe. My thoughts:

1. Fascinating that this is the *opposite* of Evergreen notes, which is all the rage now.

2. I think it would make more sense to allow overwriting notes, but take a moment to think things through in the moment: might I need this version's info later? Like Tones said, a combination approach. There could be academic fields or professions where tracking the development of one's thoughts is pretty important. But probably most people would feel fine adding to or updating a note.

3. It would be interesting to know the personality types (whether using Myers-Briggs or OCEAN) that gravitate toward certain notetaking tools. This person seems like he could be an OCD type, feeling the need to have all information organized thoroughly.

4. The article seems also to be pre-release propaganda for the Idea Flow product. Probably best just to evaluate Idea flow when it becomes available for preview. Maybe seeing it work will give us an idea on how to implement in a useful way.

On Thursday, July 15, 2021 at 2:18:48 PM UTC-5 Si wrote:

[Charlie Veniot]

On Monday, July 19, 2021 at 6:15:18 PM UTC-3 David Gifford wrote:

...

 

3. It would be interesting to know the personality types (whether using Myers-Briggs or OCEAN) that gravitate toward certain notetaking tools. This person seems like he could be an OCD type, feeling the need to have all information organized thoroughly.

That could easily need a dedicated Google Group.  I find that kind of stuff wildly interesting.

Could be OCD, could be ADHD (attention-regulation disorder), could be so many things or mix of things ...

Could even be just a matter of continuously tweaking to get it to the right cognitive place (i.e. it mirrors current knowledge and comprehension, and getting it organized juuuust right makes everything still in the brain instantly coalesce at the mere sight of both the information bread crumbs and the organization of the information bread crumbs.)

[TW Tones]

David et al..

Just a quick point while some may find " Myers-Briggs" useful for stimulating discussion about the diversity of people, it actually has being shown to have no basis in science or research, in fact the opposite, it is positively wrong in many respects. I know this as a fact from multiple sources and experts, but just like the concepts of "we only use 10% of our brain" or people are "left or right brained" they are simple urbane myths with no support in fact. I have also seen good evidence for "learning styles" and NLP (Neuro linguistic Programming) to also be total "hogwash". Although all of these ideas can stimulate thinking, it must be remembered that they are merely useful myths.

It is not that I want to argue this fact, there are resources out there if you look, I simple want to raise this as a counter position.

Some related quotes

“If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.”
― Albert Einstein

“Always have something to say. The man who has something to say and who is known never to speak unless he has, is sure to be listened to.”
― Dale Carnegie

Regards

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

Yeah, but still a blast in whatever shape/form, just like:

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Si,

Interesting thread! 

I read  the article on  Incremental note-taking ...

I'm not so negative about it as maybe some feel. To me it illustrates a generic issue on the internet. That we UNDER-conceptualize what the whole thing is about.

On the POSITIVE side the writer has an explicit NARROW brief that they are pursing. 

In that I think it is informative & useful for certain types of apps/purposes.

On the NEGATIVE side it falls into a basic trap. 

In philosophy you'd call it a "category error". 

What happens is that the writer conflates AN objective of their own with A GLOBAL universal rule., as if they were co-terminus. They aren't.

So the "reach" is just not credible!

However, it has to be said, that, generally, the internet tends to foster such errors as we have no agreed shared understanding of the technological ramifications of meaning-making yet.

My 2 cents

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Si,

FOOTNOTE ON ZETTELKASTEN

Luhmann's Zettelkasten were, of course, only on paper. He was very dedicated to NEVER changing the INDEX to an entry. 

He never said, or implied, you could not UPDATE an entry if you wanted too. 

The Zettelkasten thing is about NOT spawning clone entities, rather fixing the Index of one forever. 

Best wishes

TT

On Thursday, 15 July 2021 at 21:18:48 UTC+2 Si wrote:

[ludwa6]

That's an important point @TT about the WHY of "Luhmann's Rule," i would say, regarding immutability of the index field.  

In the world of hard-copy artifacts he was designing, this makes perfect sense... And also on the WWW, still today, where the problem of link-rot is a serious PITA. 

BUT in the domain of a standalone TW instance with the Relink plugin -e.g. my own desktop Digital Garden- that rule becomes a serious impediment to the kind of refactoring that is wanted. 

OTOH: In case of a public TW instance, where you want to encourage content sharing & reuse via permalinks, this is where one might do well to apply Luhmann's Rule. 

Still: i find it hard to forbear from changing names to reflect changes in my thinking and/or popular usage.  A constant struggle!

/walt

[Soren Bjornstad]

Walt, the thing that bugs me most about the “immutable title/ID” idea is that unless your notes are also going to be immutable, the content of a note can still change so much as to make the reference not effective anymore. So I don't see much point in bothering, as long as you can avoid having links break. Presumably the thing you were looking for won't move so far away from the updated note that you'll be unable to find it, anyway (probably not more than one link away).

It is a good point on external links breaking, though. It would be cool if you could set up redirects within TW, so that you could at least have an incoming link to an old title go somewhere somewhat relevant. I guess you could just leave the old title with a link to the new one, but without an obvious way to distinguish redirect tiddlers from other tiddlers, they would probably get in your way and make you think they were the “real” tiddlers all the time.

TT, I like your phrasing of the “category error” involved in applying one notes system to everything. There are likely very few people who have needed to work with notes of such a wide variety of types that they can speak confidently on all of them. We've found some general patterns, but they don't all work well for every purpose.

On the topic of places where the author's mechanism would be good, I've wondered if it would be handy for project or work diaries…almost like a more general Git commit log. I used a custom PowerShell script called “Daylog” at work for a year or two that worked kind of like this – you wrote a text file with a bunch of chronological entries in it and could chain them together into topics, responsibilities, todo items and notes on their completion, etc.

Si, I realized I never responded to your characterization of my Random Thoughts as kind of like incremental note-taking way up-thread. I think it might be a little dangerous to attribute too much intentionality to that structure, because I started it when I was 14 years old (!) and chronological bits was just the obvious structure to put it in since I didn't really know much about notes at the time. But that said, it has turned out to work well over the following 11+ years, at least once I went back and added ID numbers to it so I could cross-reference things, so it can't be too bad of a system. Perhaps the main difference between it and evergreen notes is that it's optimized for ease of insertion, while evergreen notes are optimized for ease of later use and flexibility of thinking. Those are, I think, fundamentally irreconcilable; you can reduce the weaknesses of one system in the opposite area, but nothing is ever going to be great at both. So IMO the best option is two complementary systems (or parts of one system) where you can move things from the quick-write one to the flexible-thinking one when they become important.

I have a vague draft on the principles of RT as I've accidentally discovered them here: https://zettelkasten.sorenbjornstad.com/#SketchOnCommonplacing

[Charlie Veniot]

This is such an awesome thread.

On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 9:04:07 AM UTC-3 Soren Bjornstad wrote:

Walt, the thing that bugs me most about the “immutable title/ID” idea is that unless your notes are also going to be immutable, the content of a note can still change so much as to make the reference not effective anymore. So I don't see much point in bothering, as long as you can avoid having links break. Presumably the thing you were looking for won't move so far away from the updated note that you'll be unable to find it, anyway (probably not more than one link away).

Hence why I have an awful lot of love for relink.  I would have a rough time without it.  No broken (internal links) with Relink.

 

It is a good point on external links breaking, though. It would be cool if you could set up redirects within TW, so that you could at least have an incoming link to an old title go somewhere somewhat relevant. I guess you could just leave the old title with a link to the new one, but without an obvious way to distinguish redirect tiddlers from other tiddlers, they would probably get in your way and make you think they were the “real” tiddlers all the time.

Link rot.  Redirects is a possibility.  I much prefer UID fields and providing links to a Tiddler in some TiddlyWiki with a "UID" reference.  (related thread: A Prototype of UID's for stable permalinks)

So if I want to provide folk with a link to a specific tiddler in some TiddlyWiki, in a way that allows me to change the tiddler title willy-nilly without breaking the link, I would give folk this:

 https://tiddlywiki-programming.neocities.org/CJ_TiddlyWikiProgramming.html#:[uid[2]]

For some reason, I prefer this than setting up redirects.  

[Si]

@Soren

Interestingly your description of Random Thoughts has made me realize that there are a couple of ways in which I already do something kind of similar.

First is just capturing fleeting notes while reading, which I later link to evergreen notes (see here for my rough workflow). While notes are in the fleeting note stage of their life cycle they are pretty similar to RT. In fact my the only heuristic I use for deciding what to capture is just "whatever strikes me as interesting". Some of these notes will not relate to any larger ideas, and I will keep them just as quotes or something, very much like RT, but the rest will evolve and move elsewhere.

The other thing I do is use Evernote as a kind of GTD inbox. This basically is also just a way to capture fleeting thoughts, but also tasks, links etc. I use Evernote for quick capture of ideas, then later act on them, or copy them to a more permanent home, archiving the original note.

I've only just realised that this does automatically give me a kind of random-thoughts-list, though it's kind of a mess since my random thoughts are split between Evernote and TiddlyWiki, and the ones in TiddlyWiki are often not permanent.

> So IMO the best option is two complementary systems (or parts of one system) where you can move things from the quick-write one to the flexible-thinking one when they become important.

Yes this is very well-put. I feel like what I have (described above) could be converted into such a system, but it's not quite coming together in my mind just yet.

I definitely want to move away from Evernote though. Ideally I would like to use TiddlyWiki for both sub-systems, but as you point out the most important thing is the ability to capture stuff with zero friction, and IMO this is one of the major weaknesses of TiddlyWiki. I'm tempted by your approach of using a text file. Do you have a good way to add stuff to it on mobile?

[Soren Bjornstad]

On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 12:28:40 PM UTC-5 Si wrote:

Ideally I would like to use TiddlyWiki for both sub-systems, but as you point out the most important thing is the ability to capture stuff with zero friction, and IMO this is one of the major weaknesses of TiddlyWiki. I'm tempted by your approach of using a text file. Do you have a good way to add stuff to it on mobile?

I still use paper for this -- I carry a little pocket notebook with me next to my phone and write down anything I need to save in there, then every couple of days I transcribe it. It's still faster and less frustrating for me than trying to open an app and type something in with two fingers.

You could look at something like Simplenote for cloud-hosted and mobile-accessible text files.

[Charlie Veniot]

G'day Si,

You've got me thinking about "fleeting notes", and don't think I've ever really thought about that much.

Seeing as I've sold my soul to Google, you've got me thinking about using dictation to throw quick notes into Google Keep as a way to take fleeting notes.

For fleeting notes, I'm thinking of more often making use of my Chromebook's dictation accessibility feature so that I can dictate my notes in Keep when it makes sense to have individual notes, or maybe just add notes in a Google Doc so that I don't have to futz around with creating a new "whatever" for each note.

Thanks to all for the good stuff in this thread.  You've got me thinking/rethinking things.

[TW Tones]

Charlie,

I think I may be able to dictate directly into tiddlywiki on my android. I must recheck.

tones

[TW Tones]

Yes, Dictate directly into tiddlywiki.com from my android works after hitting the mic icon on the keyboards. 

Must see now If I can get it working on my Windows desktop. Voice recognition without training is great now days.

I wonder if we could trigger actions like a keyboard shortcut, to open a tiddler as well. eg "new tiddler" or "new task", even rather than "ok google" try "ok tiddlywiki", or tab to move from title to text.

Unfortunately we need to say tiddly and wiki. 

Tones

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao Soren Bjornstad

Soren Bjornstad wrote: 

TT, I like your phrasing of the “category error” involved in applying one notes system to everything. There are likely very few people who have needed to work with notes of such a wide variety of types that they can speak confidently on all of them. We've found some general patterns, but they don't all work well for every purpose.

Right. The issue about HOW we conceptualize what we are doing on the net and in software is a big one!

Wider than this thread, though related. IMO the kind of "conceptual overview" we actually need to make the most informed practical decisions is currently lacking in general on the net. 

Shades of Ted Nelson, Jermolene & others.

Side comment

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Ciao TW Tones

Tones wrote:

Yes, Dictate directly into tiddlywiki.com from my android works after hitting the mic icon on the keyboards. 

Right! 

I think you will find recent Android/Chrome very good at both VOICE and WRITING directly into TW.

It is actually becoming usable. At last!

Windows seems a Tad behind.

Personally I use WRITING via pen a lot now in a Chromebook directly into TW.

Side note

TT 

[TiddlyTweeter]

cj.v...@gmail.com wrote:

For fleeting notes, I'm thinking of more often making use of my Chromebook's dictation accessibility feature so that I can dictate my notes in Keep when it makes sense to have individual notes, or maybe just add notes in a Google Doc so that I don't have to futz around with creating a new "whatever" for each note.

 Right! 

What is interesting to ME is getting to the point that whatever platform I'm on, and wherever I be, I want ONE system that just works for FLEETING NOTES that will SYNCHRO to the other, other systems I'm on. 

A big advantage of a real Universal Bucket is that you have (1) one easily remembered method to get to it; and, (2) it becomes possible to communicate how to use it to newbie idiots (like me).  

At base all one needs is something BETTER than PAPER. 

It is interesting that STILL using the net is more of a tribulation than a simple trial.

Paper it is not!

Just thoughts

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

ludwa6 wrote:

Still: i find it hard to forbear from changing names to reflect changes in my thinking and/or popular usage.  A constant struggle!

The whole PERMALINK thing is a bit of a nightmare.

A factor is "social evolution". The first book was printed in 1454. The ISBN, an unique identification system for publicly printed books was created in 1966.

Only 512 years to get that working well!

SO-CALLED "Permalinks", I think come in many different guises. 

And it IS confusing knowing what is what.

At on point there came, and now very much waning, the BLOGGER movement went for permanence. 

They added also copious TRACKBACKS, often mediated vis RSS and PINGS.

The thing was they evaporated, despite the intent.

From deaths, neglect, and server non-persistence.

For longevity on permalinks there are SOME sites like IMBD that have done well. They assign unique UIDs to every newly RELEASED MOVIE. (Example: the short  Tiddlywink, which is "tt3337220" in IMDB ).

The Internet Archive is very interesting. A kind of  "Preservation Society For The Lost" .

Regarding YOUR posts! I do think using, in TW, since we CAN do it, a UID as the initiation point, rather than server (or internal TW) REDIRECTS, is a pretty neat solution.

Just rambling thoughts

TT

[TiddlyTweeter]

Soren & Si

Regarding Old World notes ... I'm a great adherent of the imperative that a computer is merely an auxiliary.

For example here is a snapshot of my Luddite Computer ...

TBH, I think we actually need better ANTHROPOLOGY of actual usage of systems of meaning ordering to ensure that when you go computer-typist it is additive, not reductive.

Merely passing thoughts ... best

TT.

[TW Tones]

Ha Ha,

A photo frame may have being better and cheaper.

Have you tried post it notes in software on the desktop? even google keep starts you down a path which eventually overwhelms you.. You quickly discover why they (post it notes) are the wrong tool in many cases, and its not because they are hand written or on paper. If I were seeking the ultimate truth I would not use them. But it is all about how we each operate and think. If you can use them effectively do it. But me thinks they a very flawed.

Where is my reference to the last time I hade a rant about post it notes?, is it there, or over there, could it have fallen off, dam those cheap post it notes, or did someone come in to my room and take it, am I getting paranoid? ahh I am sitting on it, no that one is years old, and faded, dam those cheap pens.......

but then there was tiddlywiki.

Tones

[TiddlyTweeter]

TW Tones wrote:

Have you tried post it notes in software on the desktop? even google keep starts you down a path which eventually overwhelms you.. You quickly discover why they (post it notes) are the wrong tool in many cases, and its not because they are hand written or on paper.

YOU are always a great sport! (Australian-English meaning intended, like "mateship".)

Yeah, I tested everything software & net from a to z. 

On paper post-it notes are much more flexible. 

That topped any computer attempt to be them. 

To me they are just sticky paper.

A Glue-Stick will dance me to the end of paper (<-- A song)

To be honest the Post-It (3M) of putative Fry 1974 vintage kinda anticipated "chunkology" in nascent webology: mainly fostering the option to slice to discrete data small for the necessary going from paper to "data chunks." 

 

If I were seeking the ultimate truth I would not use them. But it is all about how we each operate and think. If you can use them effectively do it. But me thinks they a very flawed.

RIGHT. That actually was my point. We STILL need some kind of OVERVIEW of real stratagems to begin typing into (entrusting) a computer ... Will this gizmo do my need?

Everything is flawed. Just so long as the light (eventually) gets through ... A Crack In Everything ... 

Very best wishes

TT

[springer]

About obsolete permalinks: 

Surely a variant of the relink plugin could help maintain bread-crumbs for obsolete links:

Whenever relink does its thing, have it offer to create a dictionary-tiddler entry pairing old-name and new-name; then have a filter-condition ViewTemplate element show up at the bottom of old-name tiddlers, where the new-name tiddler is transcluded (or linked-to) -- perhaps pre-pending a note explaining that the old "Bombay" is now called "Mumbai"...

At first, I was worried about the case where I change tiddler title from "Bombay" to "Mumbai" and then later generate a different one called "Bombay" -- but there, too, I might be interested in seeing such a ViewTemplate addition! After all, if I ever had shared a permalink to #Bombay, some signposts around the changing namescape could be useful!

-Springer

[TW Tones]

Springer et al,

Forgive me for repeating myself, although a lot of interesting ideas, I believe these to be non-problems. 

A simple solution is available here. an Example would be an alternate button to simple permalinks, I think someone else used a share icon. When clicking this on a given tiddler, it would assign a next number to a field in the tiddler (basically issuing a unique value field - not a UID or serial or GUID) then use this field/number to uniquely identify the tiddler shared, so it does not matter if it's title is renamed. Then generate a url that instead searches for any (but only one) tiddler with that field value.

If anyone asks I will build this share button soon.

That is if someone wants to publish a robust permalink for a tiddler who's title may change they use a built for purpose alternative to permalinks. Perhaps the existing name permalinks is misleading, perhaps they should be impermalinks.

Here is a working example

a tiddler with the "permalink" field=1

the url wiki-url.html#:[permalink[1]] 

In the wiki <a href="wiki-url.html#:[permalink[1]]">Open target</a> this can be dragged to bookmarks/favourites

However I personally choose my tiddler names well enough when needed so they need not change in future, and if I am publishing a link somewhere it is to access specific content. the link has a purpose, and once someone has the link the purpose is fixed in time and should always honour its original share.

A version of the above method where the link filter is [has[permalink]last[]] will always link to the largest permalink value, so one is sharing a link to the latest permalink tiddler or post.

Another supportive trick is to hide the field from the editor with a tiddler of the form $:/config/EditTemplateFields/Visibility/fieldname eg $:/config/EditTemplateFields/Visibility/permalink with a value of hide

thus once set you have to go out of your way to alter the permalink value, that is its more permanent.

Further developments (optional reading)

• Since the addition of the unused title operator, it is possible (more to the point easier) to use this to generate a unique and incremented tiddler title and serial number. 
• Rather than shadow tiddlers I am using this not only to generate a tiddler Serial Number (TSN) but a "ghost tiddler" that follows any tiddler and provides a way to save metadata for any tiddler or field there in (regardless of the title)
• My only issues left are 
  • Finding a way to generate/assign such TSN and Ghost tiddler in bulk.
  • rebuild a parallel solution - system serial number, to assign a serial number to core and shadow tiddlers without touching them
• Actually I have found you need only assign serial number where to need them, say for these permalinks or compound tiddlers, that is with subtiddlers that use the serial number for the parent rather than the title or a tag.

Regards

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

Silly question:  are you suggesting you are going to build what I already built and mentioned a little earlier in this thread (Jul 20, 2021, 10:09:07 AM) ?

[TW Tones]

Charlie,

I am not sure. I can't find that specific reply in this thread. Can you give me a link from the actual reply please?

I expect its something similar but with a different scope.

Thanks

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

I've never used that link (to a specific post) feature.  That's a new trick for me.  Thanks!

https://groups.google.com/g/tiddlywiki/c/nEDB3zRBALY/m/z0BXBncwBAAJ

Well, I didn't' spend any time making it pretty ...

[TW Tones]

Charlie,

Yes, very similar, It is less about that working example which illustrates why we need not put much effort to obtain what is being discussed, but I do go on to discuss related issues and opportunities, such as creating bookmarks, did your reference solution include a share button for this? It should be quite easy. I also describe how to hide the field and discuss Further developments but yes it is the same use of the search on the URL.

I did not mention but it can be used instead of the permaview as well.

Regards

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

Yeah, I only meant the building of that part you mentioned in the early part of your post, i.e.:

a tiddler with the "permalink" field=1

the url wiki-url.html#:[permalink[1]] 

That was the only thing I had previously played with, and I thought you meant to only build that, not all of the rest of the goodies you mention further down your post.

Aside: as a mesure to handle in case a tiddler gets deleted, the permalink could look like wiki-url.html#:[permalink[1]else[not-found-alternative]] ; something like that?

[TW Tones]

Charlie,

Yes that is a very good idea if we build a search based permalink button, if could even be called a 404 tiddler with search or "did you mean" list (to match the missing page in html error code). But when I think about it if one uses the share button will there ever be a not found tiddler? perhaps if it is deleted!

I have build what I call delete or edit inhibited tiddlers by replacing the edit and delete buttons with my own (hiding the existing ones behind more) that will not even display if the tiddler has a field edit-inhibit or delete-inhibit = yes

Shall I go ahead and make it the share button, or can we find "prior art"?

Tones

[springer]

Tones,

This again is a place where different users may have different needs. I love the fact that if I share a permalink, the #TiddlerTitle at the end is not an indecipherable UID, but something recognizable and meaningful to the recipient (and even to myself, going back into my emails and recognizing what I shared). 

And as much as you may "choose my tiddler names well enough when needed so they need not change in future",  renaming a tiddler is not always a matter of realizing that you failed to have foresight the first time around. (My reason for invoking the Bombay to Mumbai change -- or Bruce to Caitlin if you prefer -- is that the world *about* which we take and share notes does not always cater to our desire for stability. ;)

I do realize that even without changing relink, we could mitigate obsolete permalinks (when we are aware of them) by setting up a ViewTemplate that works with a "formerly" field (or maybe just with a alias and aliases field), to transclude or redirect when the old permalink lands on an obsolete tiddler. 

-Springer

[Charlie Veniot]

Just a reminder that, although maybe a little odd-looking, all kinds of neat filtering can be setup in a tiddler link (i.e. for tiddler lookup from outside a TiddlyWiki) to help prevent link rot.

For example:

https://tiddlywiki-programming.neocities.org/CJ_TiddlyWikiProgramming.html#:[uid[2]]%20[match[UID-Permalink%20Project]]

The reason for that kind of link is to try to make sure that the link, posted in some forum, and/or put in a blog, and/or you-name-it, has the best chance of standing the test of time.

The beauty of that kind of link is that, me having this habit of continuously tweaking my tiddler titles, the link to the tiddler should always work as long as I never muck with the uid field (that would have to be a pretty bad accident.)

The best of all worlds in a way.   A stable link via the UID, and a decent description via tiddler title, even if the title wound up changing.

If we wanted to handle link rot, we could:

https://tiddlywiki-programming.neocities.org/CJ_TiddlyWikiProgramming.html#:[uid[3]]%20[match[UID-dPermalink%20Project]]%20+[else[error404?]]

Yeah, verbose URL's, but when one wants to minimize the risk of link rot and/or handle link rot ...

So anybody can share a link to a tiddler with whatever kind of filtering in the URL that makes the best sense for him/her and how his/her TiddlyWiki is organized.

[PMario]

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 5:14:00 PM UTC+2 springer wrote:

And as much as you may "choose my tiddler names well enough when needed so they need not change in future",  renaming a tiddler is not always a matter of realizing that you failed to have foresight the first time around. (My reason for invoking the Bombay to Mumbai change --

I think changes like this are easy to handle, without breaking "old" permalinks. There is no problem if you change Bombay to Mumbai and also change all links to be Mumbai. ... As long as you keep 1 tiddler named Bombay. It could contain eg:

Now [[Mumbai]] since 1995.

If you have a look at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai  ... The first thing it says is: "Bombay redirects here"

just a thought.

-mario

[TiddlyTweeter]

Right!

But there is SERIOUS IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE at work knowing that Mumbai IS Bombay

Do these transforms inform the user of what is going on an why?

Just asking for a friend,

TT

[TW Tones]

This is where I think relink can make people lazy. The unique key to a tiddler is the title, but it is so easy to change the key, which is a powerful benefit but there are a subset of situations where changing the key needs further thought.

If relink just "handles it", we may just forget the impact of a change, Apart even from external links there is a historical event involved in Bombay to Mumbai. As Charlie said SERIOUS IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE, This change supports my approach which is to avoid loosing information. In this case if you simply renamed you loose the old name. So if renaming results in lost of information further steps should be taken.

Perhaps logging renames in a data tiddler that is searchable would offer a level of record, so that a search returns something like Mumbai (Bombay) if this was confirmed,  or Mumbai (Bombay)? if not confirmed. Perhaps we could use Mario's alias plugin or similar tools to somewhat automate this.  I doubt capturing all title renames even over a long period would consume much space.

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

Well, TiddlyTweeter said "SERIOUS IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE," so I can't take the kudos for that.

I can't imagine how relink could make anybody lazy.  I want relink to handle it because I prefer focus on churning the intertwingled thoughts as tiddlers without the sticks-in-the-wheels, wheels-in-the-mud, that is getting the title right toute-suite.  Good enough title immediately, tweak to perfection iteratively/incrementally.

Sure, there may be times, as per one's needs, in which changing a tiddler title is semantically bad, or bad for link rot, or bad for some other reason, or a combination of reasons.

Do as makes sense for you and what you're doing (how you function, the purpose of a particular tiddler or a whole tiddlywiki).

• For the great majority of what I do and how I function, tiddler titles that must never change would drive me off the deep end.
• For some things, I really do not want the tiddler titles to ever change, because I use (in these scenarios) tiddler titles strictly as one would use sequence (or system-generated) numbers for primary keys in a database.  These are very niche  organizational/presentation purposes of mine.
• For how I function, I can't imagine any other scenario in which I would want titles to stay fixed-no-matter-what.  Bleurk.  I'd much prefer multiple tiddlers and handy-dandy transclusions to handle implicit knowledge.

[TW Tones]

Charlie.

Perhaps it does not make you lazy, but if for example you use Bombay, then realise its no longer called that, just renaming to Mumbai, Knowing relink updates it everywhere is lazy. Bombay is lost to your wiki. 

Renaming it then adding a tiddler for Bombay with a connection to Mumbai and even better if you say this occurred in a particular year, then your wiki gains rather than looses information. In this case I am not saying don't rename, that is your prerogative, I am saying be thoughtful when doing so, and sometime the value is not the easiest thing.

For example when I write macros and other solutions I already have a set of standard names based on experience and as a result they just never happen to need renaming. I am not hemmed in in any way with my naming standards, in fact I feel I have more freedom in many ways to move on knowing I can find anything I need again from "first principals" my standards again, and I have more times to name where I want. A macro name needs to be remembered, where was it defined, what are it parameters?

I have the desire for the same freedom and flexibility as you, but I also am aware of how forethought and systematic understanding is how we can stand on the "shoulders of Giants" or advance our own ideas. The gentle application of constraints (a recent fashion)  promotes discovery and creativity as much as seeking "total freedom from constraints" also can.

After all, we are all but struggling against entropy. 

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

Hence my "do what makes sense for you and what you are doing."

And me not understanding how relink could make anybody lazy.  I can't think of a use case in which relink could make a person lazy.

If there is information value in remembering (recording) what was and not just  what is, then do what it takes to not lose the what was.  Do the work.

If there is information value in the journey to what is, then do what it takes to record and preserve that information (i.e. all the milestone steps, whatever versions of whatever, that brought you to what is.)  Do the work.

If the what was does not provide value, and you don't think it will ever provide value, why bother?  Same for the journey to what is.  Don't do the work.  That isn't lazy.

If you worry that you might need it someday, then it has value (even if just alleviating the worry.)  Do the Work.

If you feel like you're life is cluttered by hoarding (the "I might need it someday" has become unmanageable or otherwise gotten to an unhealthy level), then maybe you need to lighten your load.  Rethink your work, and lessen the work.  That isn't lazy.

Go with what your needs are, and what keeps you sane and happy.  Do the right work for you.

All of that to say I don't understand how it can make anybody lazy.

It sounds like you are saying you would feel lazy if you did not do the things you do.  If you did those things sometimes but not others, I don't think you would be lazy those times you didn't do those things.

I don't believe at all that you're saying others are lazy if they don't do the things you do in certain scenarios.

I'm just trying to get a grip on how relink can possibly encourage laziness in people in regards to managing content / information / knowledge in TiddlyWiki.

That isn't something I understand, and I'd like to understand it.  To understand that, I learn something new that shapes how I do things myself and it gives new insights on how folk might be "lazy" (which sounds more like folk not understanding cause and effect RE how they use any tool, or follow process, or anything at all related to content / information / knowledge management.)

So maybe not so much about lazy, but rather folk not being aware that doing certain things can really bite one in the caboose when one is not aware of the potential breaking of something, or loss of something.  In which case: meh,  live and learn.

One learns to ride a bike by accepting the potential veering into the ditch and whatever bumps/bruises.

I can now replace all of the above with this one-liner: make regular backups so that the next bone-headed move doesn't create a whole bunch of heartache.  Live, learn, enjoy, don't worry.

Entropy, like $hit, happens.  Acceptance is bliss.  Amount of effort within one's boundaries of reasonableness is good.

Unless the work is for somebody else.  Than all bets, or many bets, may be off.

Everybody desires freedom and flexibility, and everybody is capable of forethought and systematic understanding.  (Anybody can leapfrog anybody at any moment.)

Every recipe does not require the same amount of salt.  It depends on the recipe, and it depends on personal taste.  Some recipes don't require any salt at all.  (recipe being the need, salt being the amount of work.)

[TW Tones]

Charlie,

I am all for diversity and different ways about thinking.  It keeps the world rich and interesting and a great source of new and innovative ideas. Perhaps you take my use of the work lazy differently or too seriously. As an information and knowledge management professional, I come across lazy all the time. An example would be not finding the correct place to put something in a document library, or deciding not to fill in the metadata when requested, information known to the person, but they "cant be bothered", then they come to me when they have lost the document or cant tell which is the most current etc... 

Since the availability of relink, one could always make use of it, to maintain references rather than develop good naming standards, which without relink we had to do well, to avoid renames. When we are given things on a platter we tend to forget how we could go into the kitchen and make anything we want. Once again it is horses for courses, and what I do is different to what other people do. If one uses relink and good naming standards then perfect, however we (including myself) can rely on relink to fix our mistakes, so sometimes I am lazy with my names. I expect others to do this as well. 

However since now I have highlighted this, I am aware of the possibility and hope to avoid and overreliance on relink, or degrade my naming standards. 

By the way humanity is only where it is today technologically, because of our desire to be lazy in one way or another and as in the book "thinking fast and slow" describes, there is a real value and incentive to avoid the "slow thinking", yet we neglect it at our peril.

Interesting discussion

Tones

[Charlie Veniot]

G'day Tones,

Thank you much for taking the time.

As a career senior systems analyst and now freelance information systems consultant, I appreciate where you are coming from.

It just boils down to different perspectives about wiki.

I've never liked applying to wikis the kind of rules, constraints, and/or standards (say rigidness?) I've always rigorously applied in database design and software development.  That has always felt (TO ME!) antithetical to the spirit of wikis and to this agile mindset I have, very much in line with Scott Ambler's Agile Modeling and Agile Documentation (and all of the related principles + practices) in the application of a content / information / knowledge componentization process.)

(Yeah, all of those links are to some of my favourite reads.  They all express, way more eloquently than I ever could, what/how I think.)

Every little word I put in a wiki is a bit, I suppose, like a contract.  And every single one can be renegotiated at any time.

Interesting discussions for sure throughout this particular Google Group:  sure, fantastic discussions about TiddlyWiki, but just as much value in here re cognitive psychology (a buffet of thinking processes/patterns for creating and managing content / information / knowledge.)

Such good stuff.