Make a Question a file with no invalid ? character

[JAG]

This is pretty basic but I was pretty impressed with myself when I figured it out.

I like to have my questions as separate notes so they become small MOCs in their own right. But due to file names not allowing special characters this wass causing issues. What you can do though is add an emoji question mark as the puntuation and it will be accepted

For example: [[How do animals perceive time❓]]

Using this means that I can make a question link in the document that I am working in without going to a separate Questions page.

It also makes for very easy querying of questions. You just type in in the search box and you’ll get all of your questions with no tagging necessary.

There are even two versions of the question mark emoji, and . You could use the red for open questions and the white for ones that have been answered.

I also like having a page where all of my questions are collected so I have setup embedded queries on a [[ Questions]] file to pull in all open and closed questions. The queries would be as simple as:

Open Questions

```query 
❓ -"❓ Questions"
```

Closed Questions

```query 
❔ -"❓ Questions"
```

Looks a little bit different because I use a tagging structure.

Thanks to @tallguyjenks and the youtube videos he puts out for introducing me to a lot of the ideas.

Now I should go away and try to actually answer some of these questions

[tallguyjenks]

ooo thats clever

[davecan]

I love this idea @JAG. Also your note that these become mini MOCs resonates deeply. I was just making a note of this as a decision in my own note system and wrote this:

Questions are open loops; they represent mental itches that we feel compelled to scratch during our research. Sonke Ahren alludes to the power of this in How to Take Smart Notes when he points out that a well-groomed set of notes will generate a plethora of new questions and ideas for topics. So, we should leverage this power by making questions first-class citizens in our system.

This also has some similarities in concept (to me anyway) to the classic Lisp book The Little Schemer which teaches the programming language and many foundational computer science concepts through a series of nothing more than simple questions and simple answers. (starts in chapter 1)

https://github.com/frankitox/the-little-javascripter/blob/master/The%20Little%20Schemer%204th%20Ed.pdf

Question though: Why do you use tags to denote the question state when you already have that denoted in the filename via the two-state emoji? What do those tags represent and how do you use them?

[JAG]

Thanks for linking the Little Schemer. It is very much up my alley and I have never heard of it before.

And yes, questions also make information that is important to you more salient. They amplify the signal amongst the noise.

The tags are now vestigial . I just haven’t gone through the invasive procedure of cutting them out of my old notes yet. But I have realised that I do not need them.