Right, HTML is built for this, Markdown not so much
3 Likes
Oh, not sure if that read like I was referring to Obsidian as being nerfed (I donāt think it is). I meant how we use links/quotes on the internet. Our concept of hyperlinks & their function is limited because the promise of the interest hasnāt been met.
2 Likes
The reason I like block referencing is because I donāt want to deal with titles for every little thought. I want to do the title, content, and linking in a single line, if possible. I know you can do automatic ZK style titles, but those seem needlessly uninformative.
6 Likes
This is a part of the reason I donāt like block references (as being described here). On one hand I really like the idea of using a quote or idea and pointing back to the original source. And itās incredibly powerful for that link to be bidirectional, so the source can point to all of its references. But if that source changes, then everywhere itās referenced changes and context can be easily lost.
So the referenced blocks would have to be immutable. If you want to change the source, you would have to create a revision. This way you can reference a particular version of a concept or quote and also see how it changed over time and not lose any context in the references. This is also incredibly powerful.
How any of this relates to what Obsidian should or should not be doing in terms of block referencing, Iām not sure. I think I ended up accidentally channelling Ted Nelson for a minute there 
7 Likes
Interesting. I donāt think I see the issue though. If you want a backlinked quote that doesnāt change all you have to do is copy/paste and type a [[link]] . In that case addressable blocks would still be useful as you could link directly to the block rather than the last header.
What I am trying to do is to include my current thoughts on a topic in another page that may be a summary or a discussion that references. I might include a block in 10 other pages but if later I stumble on something that enhance my take on this I can change it in one place and it changes everywhere - as opposed to me need to go to each of those pages and change it. Those locations always contain my current take on the topic.
So in the tool that allows it I may use either approach depending on what Iām trying to accomplish. Block referencing allows me to have atomic notes in a longer page but still use them as individual thought units.
5 Likes
I agree with this usage. I find it really hard to create atomic notes for everything, but I do make a lot of atomic bullet points that could be referenced elsewhere (not that I actually do, but thatās my own issue).
3 Likes
I agree - Iām not sure either. What I am still struggling to figure out in Obsidian though is how I can accomplish the same rapid-fire aggregation of linked thoughts into a new topic that I can over on the river Tiber. There are many reasons I prefer Obsidian if I can just figure out the right workflow (and in fairness I think some things in the pipeline will help). There is a tsunami of suggested features here and in Discord - for me the effective knowledge management use case is the key though.
2 Likes
There are many use cases reported on this thread. Iām not sure what exactly you are challenging.
The argument that āthe entire internet operates very successfully without block referencingā does not make sense to me. Humans operated during centuries without email or instant communication. While these technologies were developed, Iām sure there were groups of people arguing that the good and old (snail) mail got the job of sending messages done. Therefore, the effort of developing such technologies were unnecessary.
I believe block referencing would be a very useful, albeit advanced and hard to implement, feature for Obsidian. Many use cases are listed above.
4 Likes
Thanksāthough most of those werenāt shared until I encouraged folks to do soā¦ 
Again, donāt take challenge as disagreement. I am excited by the idea of block referencing, too, but Iām self-critical. I used it while I was experimenting with Roam Research, but Iām not sure it actually led to an improvement in thinking (the only thing that actually matters in these systems). By challenging the community to reify and scrutinize the utility of block referencing, Iām hoping to draw out the nuances of the feature, so that we may think of approaches to implementation.
Yes, the Internet example is a bit of a red herring. My point was that block referencing hasnāt been implemented in the Internet proper (nor in many of the celebrated examples that people point to as successes of knowledge management, like Andy Matuschakās notes or Wikipedia itself). Thereās likely a reason for that; I wonder why?
As far as I can see, there can only be two reasons:
- Implementation is more difficult than itās worth; or
- Block referencing actually isnāt as useful as many think it will be.
So, I appreciate the examples shared in this thread, but I still think the reason block referencing isnāt a standard in information management is #2 above. I have been extremely open to understanding how it would improve note-taking. Sincerely, I want that light-bulb moment! Alas, none of the discussions Iāve seen have led to one.
All that said, I have actually come up with a way of implementing block referencing in Obsidian without compromising the fundamental principles of the app.
11 Likes
@ryanjamurphy my apologies if my reply read as a harsh response. I re-read the thread and noticed that the examples were shown only after your post.
I read your recommended approach for block reference - Obsidian-style. I agree that using small, atomic notes is the easiest way to have this kind of āblock referencingā. Iām not sure in terms of usability, though. It would be great if we could have an example similar to what @nickmilo did for his IMF approach.
2 Likes
@ryanjamurphy: you made some good points in a constructive way, I am sincerely impressed. When, after reading through this thread, I came to this answer, i.e. that it IS possible to have block references, I felt deflated. I felt deflated because when you explained how it is done, I immediately thought "why on earth try to imitate Roam so frenetically when the block linking possibility exists? Reading some feature requests I get the feeling people try to turn Obsidian into a Roam clone. Beats me.
3 Likes
@Klaas I guess itās all a matter of the perspective you brought with you as you got introduced to Obsidian.
Iād never heard of Roam and came across Obsidian first after having read the book How to Take Smart Notes which lead me from the zettelkasten forum straight here. So when looking through such glasses, the concept of block referencing sounds like a shortcut that could end up hurting your thinking (what @ryanjamurphy alluded to above).
But seems a lot of people arrived on Obsidian after first having used Roam. I can symphatize that from such different perspective a user had gotten used to a feature which makes it feel like Obsidian is missing something here.
From what I gather, Obsidian was conceived in this thread on the Dynalist forum so the developers were very aware what Roam could(nāt) do and decided to make their own interpretation instead of a 1-1 clone.
10 Likes
@obsessed I agree with most of what you said. Nevertheless, you say
But seems a lot of people arrived on Obsidian after first having used Roam. I can symphatize that from such different perspective a user had gotten used to a feature which makes it feel like Obsidian is missing something here.
If they took the step to move over from Roam they should realise that Obsidian cannot be the same as Roam. Why did they not stick with Roam and ask for a feature they would really like to have, like they can do here? I know this is probably a contentious statement but I for one do not want Obs to become a Roam clone. Yes, there are interesting features in Roam that could be useful in Obs, but @Caketray mentioned this is not simple. So, fine, letās leave it at that. I opened a plug-in request for special Connections (offered by nvUltra), but it is very complicated with questionable results, so I have proposed myself to forget about it.
Obs already offers linking to headers between notes, which more than what many note-taking apps offer.
4 Likes
To be honest, I stumbled across Obsidian because I found out āGates of Roam are currently closed to new usersā. I have been trying to understand what the differences between the two really are, and what that actually means in terms of extensibility. I really donāt want to switch back and forth for my personal knowledge management system.
Personally, I am most excited about the use case of studying the Bible with it and saw this video (https://youtu.be/nplokaE6FKY) regarding how Roam Research was being used for this purpose. However, after creating over 1,200 notes in the last 2 weeks for this purpose, I really love using Obsidian.
Here is how I decided it would be most convenient to reference scriptures in Obsidian:
[[Book Chapter]]:Verse(s) Like what is suggested in the video for Roam (e.g. [[Matthew 28]]:18-20).
Anything more granular really affects the speed of note taking while listening to someone speak live, but I can see the benefits of being more granular while writing later. What kind of challenges would be created with copying and pasting scripture, or essentially quotes for comparison in other use cases, as those donāt change?
Also, since we can reference headers, why not just make everything a header and thus get the ability to reference every line like āblocksā in Roam Research?
Here is a quick example:
[[Matthew 28#18 Then Jesus came to them and said, āAll authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.]]
[[Matthew 28#19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,]]
[[Matthew 28#20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.ā]]
The only reason I havenāt done this myself is that it would take an incredible amount of time to go through all of my existing notes and add a #ās in front of the lines in a way that preserves the hierarchy. Does anyone see why that wouldnāt work?
1 Like
@Klaas Thank you for sharing your perspective. I would like to offer another point of view.
I am less interested in making Obsidian a clone of Roam - or any other tool - and more interested in having features that make my process of thinking and reflecting better. With that said, Roam is only mentioned in this thread because they have a pretty strong implementation of block reference. Notion also has a good one, although not as strong. Coda has a very good implementation, but it looks and feels more like a database record than a document block. From these three implementations of a quite useful feature for the purpose I listed above, Roam has it better. Hence the reference to it.
I donāt see why we should leave at it. Giving up implementing something because it is not simple doesnāt seem to me a good reason at all. Au contraire! The more complicated the better, for analyzing and improving complicated processes can provide great return in terms of efficiency.
I agree Obsidian is a fantastic tool and I agree that it has many features other note-taking apps do not offer. But why should we give up (asking for) new features that can make it even better? This is the space the development team set for this very purpose.
Iād love to hear from the community any use cases or design proposals for this feature. If there are strong reasons not to implement it, Iād love to hear them as well. I just donāt think the push backs so far are enough to shoot down the feature request.
7 Likes
There are a few use cases where it is not that simple without a better block implementation. For example, you can quote Matthew 28:18 by doing this: [[Matthew 28#18]].
You can even trasnclude directly the content of Matthew 28:19.
What you can not do, though is to know exactly how many references you have to Matthew 28:18. The current implementation only allows you to see the pages that link to [[Matthew 28]] and not specifically to [[Matthew 28#18]] or [[Matthew 28#19]].
Header reference and header transcusion are great first steps. As I mentioned on the feature request header:
Hopefully this clarified a bit more the request.
8 Likes
@Sellaro Thanks for your reply. I understand your point of view. If you think the block reference is that important for your workflow then do pursue it. Who knows, maybe even I use it if it is available. It has happened that I did not think of using a feature, but when I became aware of it, thought about it, tried it, liked it, I started using it.
3 Likes
If you add the capability to embed an MD in another MD (preferably via a UID scheme, worst case via file path), the problem is solved. Each block becomes an MD file and each page is an MD file embedding all relevant blocks.
If embedding MDs is supported, the people who want embedded blocks can start structuring their files as described in the last paragraph. Everyone else can ignore it. Then, once plugins open up, itāll take two seconds to automate this.
If you want you track back references, you setup the editor to append the UID of referencing pages to the embedded MD. This is probably where your want backlinks to show on a page anyway.
6 Likes
This is the part where I feel I might be having a blind spot.
To be clear, Iām not pushing back against the feature itself - those we donāt need it wonāt use it - but am trying to understand how it could help with my thinking then.
The way my brain works itās always looking for the easy way out so if Iād be using block references it would enable me to keep ideas as blocks stored within the context of the bullet list. That would then allow bypassing the step of having to flesh out the idea further - making my thinking about it strong enough so the idea on its own (outside the context of the bullet list) becomes a solid building block for future thinking.
Iām sure my brain would love that and make me feel as if this is better and easier but Iām afraid it might be a trojan horse because Iād be skipping the crucial step needed to improve my thinking?
So when I see all this enthusiasm about block referencing it really makes me wonder if people first used a traditional zettelkasten approach (standalone note per idea) but then when they got introduced to block referencing it did in fact improve their thinking? Or did they get fooled by the trojan horse because it made things feel easier?
Regards
-possibly blind man
5 Likes
@obsessed I would point out the value of block referencing is not that it in some way improves your thinking. The point is that it adds efficiency to your workflow. I can think about a topic once, I can then include that topic in many different thought processes (summaries, essays, etc) and if my thinking on that topic later evolves (as it very often does for me) I only have to change it in the one place where I originally recorded it - rather than having to track down every spot it may have been included. It in NO way is about āoh if I had block transclusion I would think so much more clearlyā.
8 Likes