Is there a direction to linking

Things I have tried

Just wondering, when linking a note, does it matter whether you link from the note you want to link or from the note you want to link to?

What I’m trying to do

As I say, I’m just curious.

If you turn on arrows in graph view, you can see that the direction of the arrow depends on which note links to what. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s a real difference.

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They’re contextually different, and they’re will differ in which kind of link table they show up. Given NoteA with a link to NoteB, then NoteA has an outlink to NoteB, and NoteB has an inlink (or backlink) to NoteA. (and vice versa)

When writing a query, that’ll be different queries. Both can easily be done, but they’re different.

Semantically, there is also a subtle difference, at least in my mind. To me a link directs me to a place where I can find more information on the links target. Reciprocal, somewhere linking towards anything, refers to what I’m talking about, but isn’t the main (or collated) source of that information.

In other words, if NoteA links to NoteB, it says that for more information on NoteB, see NoteB. And when looking in NoteB’s backlink (still with NoteA linking to NoteB), it tells me that when talking about whatever NoteA is about, they felt compelled to link here, so it’s related somehow, but NoteB is the “main” thingy on this subject.

Hope that make sense. At least it does so for me! So the link does indicate something, but the exact wording of that meaning might differ from person to person, and it does affect the metadata related to the notes differently.

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Thanks. Definitely does. I think it articulated very well my unarticulated intuitions about the matter.

Alas, when there’s a link I want to make it’s usually when I am with a “downstream/more detailed/Note B” note that I want to link to from an “upstream/more general level/ Note A”.

Well, I usually know what I want to link from and I definitely know what I want to link to.

Perhaps I will eventually develop an efficient “workflow” around it.

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How I go about it is that while I am in a note, I will not waste a chance not to link. For me, all or most items on either side of the links are equally important and I do not really care about the fact that there should be any workflow.
The important thing is not to have any expectations and any conscious effort at trying to achieve anything or have a stake in the outcome. It is all about waiting for and finally being in the flow. Which may never come if one’s pressuring the ego to come up with solutions (as if there was a deadline).
Today, humans are too reliant on and keen to have the results/outcome (instant gratification), and will make excuses to justify what is illogical to be logical and “the only way it can be.” Self-delusion is the worst thing to strive for, and this is what they do at the highest (eugenicist/“philantropist”) levels. We must stop them.

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Will you want to go to A from B in the future? If so, link it that way. If you’ll want to go from B to A, link it that way. If you’ll want to do both, link it both ways.

Thanks. Hadn’t thought of that.

Thanks for the food for thought. I get caught in the tension between letting things unfold and attempting to direct them.

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Part of what I read out of Zandoro, and also what I think myself, is to don’t stress out, but link when you see the opportunity. To write stuff is more important, I think, rather than to structure stuff from the get go.

Put another way, if you have written something it can be organized, with nothing written it’s a different story…

And in any case, with or without the link, you’re most likely using wording which will be caught in unmentioned links later on.

So keep the creative juices flowing, and don’t worry to much on linking or not. If unsure on a particular case, I’d opt for a link just in case.

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Yeah, don’t think too hard about it. It’s good to have structure in your links, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. Even if you link “incorrectly”, with graph view, search, outlinks, inlinks, and even folders and tags, it’s pretty hard to lose a note. Just link where you feel a link should go naturally as you write. Links are just a train of thought.

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Either way you’ll find the other note listed on Backlinks or Outgoing links (they’re both core plugins)

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Thanks holroy and bluemoondragon07. And zanador too. A thought that occurred to me a while back was that if I make notes about what interests me, concerns me, puzzles me, it will be relevant, it will have a place. I don’t have to be clear about at the time. I even made note to that effect. :crazy_face:

Thanks for reminding me to trust myself, to let clarity and understanding emerge, in the meantime, to keep the creative juices flowing.

It’s the concerns and puzzles especially that excite me, draw me in, that lead to insights, and give me comfort and confidence going forward.

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Thanks for the reminder. Leads me to ask about “unlinked mentions.” How do they get established. Being relatively new I don’t see anything listed very often. In fact, can’t remember an occasion on which something was.

Unlinked mentions depend heavily on your note filenames. Notes are shown as Unlinked mentions when their filenames match exactly with words in the content.

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Thanks. I abandoned alphanumeric file names a while back. They put more emphasis on organization of notes and greatly slowed down the note making.

I now use brief descriptions suggestive of note content mostly using words and phrases drawn from the note itself. Perhaps that will facilitate formation of unlinked mentions?

Is it necessary for there to be an exact match between file names and note content or is it enough that there be common words between them?

I think it’s dependent on exact matches on either the note name, or one of its aliases. So it’s a good idea to add some likely aliases to you notes when you create them.

Like for persons I tend to include nicknames, maybe just the first name, and if relatives maybe their relation to me in the form I’d use when referring to them. Like “sis”, instead of the more formal “sister”, and so on.

This both allows me better matches in unlinked mentions, but also to use those aliases when linking to them using auto completion.

The same goes for topic notes. The note name is usual the “formal name”, but I’ve got aliases related to how I’m more likely to refer to it.

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What I do as well. A note name/filename is a description of the contents (which can be only a couple of lines and you can come back to elaborate on it any time), sometimes a single word: a lexical item, e.g. depression, communism, Machiavelli, Carl Jung, etc. I don’t need to care about the time element because it is relative anyway: a note will be updated…whenever.

Because the spur-of-the-moment naming of the note can be faulty, you can rename the file or create an alias for it in the YAML.
I use the Various Complements plugin to have the aliases trigger on my inputs and automatically inserted with Wikilinks and all. And now we’re back to where we started: links.

When I go to Graph view settings I don’t get that option. In fact I get no options. There is a plus in a circle. Clicking/tapping that suggests hot key suggestions.

The graph view options are not located in the usual settings menu. You have to open a (local or global) graph view first and can select specific settings on a per-graph-view-basis.

Ah, yes. Thanks.