Some thoughts on using Roam as an Obsidian person / Questions for Roam Refugees

[dburkes]

Having a place to capture my daily notes and build my knowledge base over time is what I’m after. For that, $15 a month is not a problem. I am paying Roam now, I will continue to pay them as long as I have to.

Having said that, I’d much rather pay Obsidian. Having control and stewardship over my own data is a powerful value proposition. I’d pay more than $15 a month for that.

What is holding me back right now is Obsidian’s insistence on distinguishing edit mode from preview mode. I’m writing notes here, not writing code. I don’t want to deal with editing modes. Give me a canvas that I can write on, and get out of the way. And I say this as a professional software developer- it’s not a lack of understanding on my part, it’s a unwillingness to take on unneeded cognitive overhead.

So I’ll wait and watch, eagerly, until I can make the jump. Obsidian devs- you’ve got a new customer willing to jump on board, as soon as you change the mental model of your product from technical, modal editing to a canvas on which your customer can capture their thoughts.

If it’s ready tomorrow, I’ll pay tomorrow.

[Klaas]

@dburkes: out of curiosity, how do you expect to write text in a markdown app without having to bother with formatting, linking, making tables, etc.? Even in a WYSIWYG set-up, where there is perhaps less of “coding” there is still some, a lot even, depending on what you do.

I am sure plain text (.txt) files is not what you have in mind. So, what alternative do you have in mind?

Note: I am not a computer geek, know nothing about coding, just a bit about markdown syntax, and even that to a minimum. I am not asking the question to bug you, I am genuinely interested.

[dburkes]

@klass great point, I should have been more clear. I think the Roam approach to having the current line be in edit mode, with the rest of the doc in preview mode, is a great middle ground.

I know it’s on the roadmap now, and that’s exciting, but I’m impatient

[Klaas]

@dburkes

having the current line be in edit mode, with the rest of the doc in preview mode

Doesn’t that mean that when you’re editing the current line you still have to type markdown code/syntax?

[dburkes]

Yes, and I’m fine with that. I’m not allergic to Markdown, but unless I want to edit it, why would I want to see it?

[KaneDodgson]

I think this is a very valid point and it is the main thing I miss from Roam.

[Klaas]

OK, clear. WYSIWYG is on the way, I saw a remark by Licat once that said before the end of the year, i.e. 2020.

[Daveb08]

@dburkes

Yes, and I’m fine with that. I’m not allergic to Markdown, but unless I want to edit it, why would I want to see it?

Oh…be still my heart! If that ‘option’ is feasible, I’m all in with it. Thanks folks for expanding on the subject. That’s what I love about this Community. Folks seem to have a better tolerance for all levels of user experience and don’t just fly off the handle at perceived slights contained in comments.

[mat_rhein]

Another App that might implement a different angle (right now even extend Obsidian feature-wise) is Mweb:

• It’s available on all Apple platforms
• You can resize pictures with simple commands
• You can insert real page breaks using the HTML equivalent ( <div style="page-break-after: always;"></div>)

You can access the document via the files app and open it in Mweb. I found this very easy handle and am currently using it as a pre-export app, even on the Mac. Check it out!

[mat_rhein]

@dburkes

I think the Roam approach to having the current line be in edit mode, with the rest of the doc in preview mode, is a great middle ground.

Markdown prettifier from the 3rd party plugins is your friend, then, imitating the Roam feature with just a few glitches.

@RikD, I started out using Onedrive for Obsidian but found that it is desperately trying to keep up with the modifications, leading to excessive load on the Mac over time. This might be different for Windows, on the Mac I made good experience with iCloud so far.

[RikD]

Strange my 100K+ articles research vault is on Onedrive. Took a while to upload (normal -> I re-niced some processes to make it faster), after that everything went fine.
Since the relocation of some files outside the vault the sync reappears less often. I don’t really see any performance degradation or overly active Onedrive…

[Calhistorian]

So I am writing this post to engage in dialogue - as is suggested by the OP. If you have seen me on Twitter, you know I am a genuine person willing to listen to critique and engage in dialogue (@Calhistorian). So I am writing this really long post, as a form of intellectual engagement. I concede with many of your points below - particularly in regards to security/privacy.

For full disclosure I am a full-tim Roam user and part-time Obsidian user. I use Obsidian for privacy specific notes and for Obsidian Publish (as I am building a hyper-text textbook for my classes). Feel free to engage if you like. Ignore if you don’t.

@KevinR

Roam refugees often cite the price and the cult as reasons they left. But what about the product?

Price is steep, but I get the ROI. My read on the “cult” item, is that only people who have a problem with the word itself are turned off. The community is AMAZING!

@KevinR

First of all, I hate that Roam is a web app.

Yep, I am in the same position.

@KevinR

But being a web app also means it’s available everywhere, on everything that I use.

This is why I use it. I teach with my iPad Pro and Pencil on a digital whiteboard.

@KevinR

The browser extensions are OK. Safari is my main browser because it does a great job of working across all of my devices.

Same. Hate chrome. Though I have made an exception. Though all the Chromium options work really well too.

@KevinR

Block referencing has been great for easily pulling together outlines for class lectures from many different sources and notes. I also like the ability to create a page out of a tag, so that it’s possible to have blocks tagged with something like “thoughts” that are then automatically available on a “page” called “thoughts.”

I too am an academic, and this is huge for me.

@KevinR

I hate the privacy policy.

It is standard and comparable to Notion, etc. E2EE would be nice, but I just don’t put “secret” stuff in there. I don’t have much though. There is an offline only version, but still only lives in browser (dangerous for stability in my view).

@KevinR

And yes, some parts of the community freak me out. Like a silicon valley Stepford community.

I am still waiting for someone to point me at this. Other than the founder who is quite abrasive.

@KevinR

For the Roam Refugees in the house, How was your move? Have you had to change your workflow? Were you using Roams power features, like block references, and if so, has that made a big difference in how you do your work? How much of a pain will it be to move after amassing a medium to large graph?

Technically I am “dual-national.” My primary is Roam, but I use Obsidian for Obsidian Publish and super secret stuff.

@KevinR

And most importantly, if Roam was free, would you have moved?

So perhaps this post wasn’t for me to dialogue with. But as I said above, the price is worth it since I am a knowledge worker.

Happy to converse about Roam or Obsidian. I wrote some thoughts as to why I remain in Roam here:

Why I use Roam as my Primary

@icebear

Local files or bust,

I was this way too, but I backup to plain text which can frankly be imported into Obsidian. Which I demonstrated here:

Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities

@rigmarole

But the biggest risk to using a web app isn’t the price, but the lock-in.

Totally agree, but no lockin really with Roam - perhaps for the less technically minded, which is basically me. But everything is in plain text - though it acts like a database on the server.

@rigmarole

I just used a script to reformat my Daily Notes from YYYY-MM-DD to YYYY-MM-DD_dddd last night,

I do miss this from my DEVONthink days.

@rigmarole

So I haven’t experienced any friction or pain by switching. Except I did have to download and relink all my Google Firebase online attachments to local files.

I only link to DEVONthink for my images and files for this very reason.

@macedotavares

arrogant CEO/cult leader

As I said. But do you know all the CEOs you use and “who” they are. And to be clear, there is no leader to the cult .

@macedotavares

such an intellectually dishonest crowd

Them fightn’ words. None offense taken.

@macedotavares

Regarding portability, my advice to you would be to stay off anything with double curly braces, because they’re all you’re going to get when you export to .md. Also, long texts are really a pain, with an hyphen at the beginning of every line.

@kdjamesrd

I still follow incantations of the RoamCult and realize that every new and shiny thingy they are adding to Roam breaks the concept of each page being a simple Markdown file. The Markdown that Roam exports is not compliant with most other Markdown editors and significant cleaning up needs to be done.

This is imporving dramatically by the day.

@macedotavares

I’ve once had a Roam cultist explain to me that it wasn’t right to keep private notes. Instead we should all be sharing everything we write in this new global brain. So it has come to this.

That ridiculous

@justindirose

I’ve had a few Roam users basically tell me that I can’t do what I’m doing in Obsidian because it’s a Roam workflow. Sorry, but PKM is not a Roam-only thing!

@RikD

Here and in other places I read some weird stuff about their community and how they behave. It doesn’t seem like the warm and respectful environment the Obsidian community is in right now.

Who are these idiots?

@LexTenebris

The non-locality of my data and inability to really control access to it is really frustrating and annoying, and potentially dangerous.

So true. Though haven’t been bothered yet by it.

@LexTenebris

that it made me $15 a month in personal profit

It has definitely done so for me, but that is just the nature of my knowledge-work.

@RikD

Certainly don’t want to start a conspiracy theory thing and sure Google is not looking over our shoulders when we create files in “the cloud” but they could if they wanted too.
Same goes for every “Drive” system in the clouds. Certainly don’t want to bash on Google alone here (and I don’t want to bash at all to be clear).

It is a shame, but that is the way it goes with cloud services. This is why i keep my student records in DEVONthink with local sync.

@dburkes

Having said that, I’d much rather pay Obsidian. Having control and stewardship over my own data is a powerful value proposition. I’d pay more than $15 a month for that.

@dburkes

So I’ll wait and watch, eagerly, until I can make the jump.

If I could get the same ROI, I would do so.

I patiently await the virtual barrage. I suppose I would love to talk about the most extreme use-cases of obsidian and how an extreme Roam user could replicate. I have 9000+ notes, extreme transclusion and data density/linkages.

[argentum]

I think when people talk about lock-in in Roam they refer to how usable those files are outside of roam. I only used roam very briefly sometime in June (…could be, pandemic time is weird?). To this day I keep finding files that I need to clean up with block-references or custom-syntax or worst case delete, because they’re unusable (I don’t know where those links lead!). They are fewer each day, but they show up here and there.

Would be great if you could help out some folks with some answers to this: How to import Roam backup into Obsidian while preserving block-level references/links?. I wasn’t around when those “high-fidelity” exports were created, but based on the threads I’ve found here they are meant to be re-imported into roam as backups, not really to be used by other apps.

Edit: Changed the link to the original question. The request to the plugin is here: Import Roam backups in JSON or EDN format, so that block-level links/references are preserved

[macedotavares]

First of all, I’m glad you didn’t take offense at what I said about the #roamcult crowd. It was an obvious generalization and I didn’t think a disclaimer was warranted.

Having said that, I get the impression that your experience with the Roam people has been very different from mine. Watching the Twitter tag and interacting with some users, most of what I got was borderline self-help BS or open animosity towards users of other apps.

You asked me if I know all the CEOs of things I use. I don’t, and I don’t go out of my way to find out if they’re cool. It’s just that Conor is so publicly arrogant that it would be hard not to notice it. And yes, that was indeed one of the reasons why I left. Having an alternative helped, of course.

But enough with the rants. The question I’d like you to ask yourself (if you haven’t already) is:

“What will I do with my notes when Roam shuts down?”

If you have it all figured out, I believe you should keep using it. Otherwise, you may be heading for heartbreak.

[Calhistorian]

Thanks for the dialogue.

@argentum

but based on the threads I’ve found here they are meant to be re-imported into roam as backups, not really to be used by other apps.

The most “high-fidelity” export is actually JSON. There are scripts floating around to reconstruct and resolve block refs that are just UIDs. I backup daily in MD, JSON, and EDN - just to be sure. I will look for the script and post.

@macedotavares

First of all, I’m glad you didn’t take offense at what I said about the #roamcult crowd. It was an obvious generalization and I didn’t think a disclaimer was warranted.

I get it. I have just given and received so much from the roamcult it is hard for me to hear such things and not wonder where these Ah* are. I know, they are in every community.

@macedotavares

most of what I got was borderline self-help BS or open animosity towards users of other apps.

Well, “self-help” is a subjective judgement right. If you don’t appreciate, don’t listen, right? Isn’t that judgement you just made similar in some ways to the judgements made by the cultists at other tools? I mean this genuinely, not stirring the pot. I get it. “Animosity” I am curious about. Not in my circle of the cult I guess. I have been using since November of 2019. But definitely in my circle there is a lot of “self-improvement” as an intellectual strategy.

Its funny too, because the only negative interaction I have had between the tools was actually an Obsidian user that harassed me for a week. The Obsidian devs were kind and pointed out the issue in a DM.

@macedotavares

I don’t, and I don’t go out of my way to find out if they’re cool. It’s just that Conor is so publicly arrogant that it would be hard not to notice it. And yes, that was indeed one of the reasons why I left.

So true. He is certainly, in general, not my cup of tea. THough I think in the past year he has been humbled by this perception. But that’s the way it works when you rub people the wrong way.

@macedotavares

If you have it all figured out, I believe you should keep using it. Otherwise, you may be heading for heartbreak.

I get it. My mind is like this. I have been around computers long enough to understand the power of longevity. I learned to type on the Apple IIe. Definitely seen software come and go. And as an archivist in Silicon Valley for a bit, I organized and catalogued innumerable “relics” of hard disks, computers, etc from Dell, Sun Microsystems, etc. My solution is simply is part what I mentioned above in this particular reply, but also part that if with reasonable effort if I need I can get what I need.

But it really comes down to the value we extract from our tools. I can get more value out of Roam, not because its “better” but because it supports my workflow better than obsidian. I was an early adopter to Obsidian back in the 3.x days - bought my license - and continue to support. Its just not my primary tool. I work in Roam and publish in Obsidian.

[argentum]

@Calhistorian

The most “high-fidelity” export is actually JSON. There are scripts floating around to reconstruct and resolve block refs that are just UIDs. I backup daily in MD, JSON, and EDN - just to be sure. I will look for the script and post.

Thanks, that would be really helpful!

In the meantime, let me ask you a question that I’m sure will help both refugees and part-timers. Could you talk a little about how you bring your Roam content into Obsidian? Are you using one of those available scripts or a custom/personal one? Or is the process more manual?

[Calhistorian]

It’s more manual. A plug-in to Roam called “roam42” creates an export file that resolves block references and any roam specific markdown, in which I save in my obsidian vault. It’s like the first level of publishing workflow. I then mold it into something presentable for Obsidian Publish site. Think my publish site as my public digital garden and Roam as my backend.

[macedotavares]

@Calhistorian

Isn’t that judgement you just made similar in some ways to the judgements made by the cultists at other tools?

Whenever I encounter a tool in such early stages of development like Obsidian and Roam, I like to join its community. With Roam, it was mostly Twitter. After a few weeks, I was tired and bitter from the things I’ve seen people do: bashing competitor apps, dismissing its users as ignorant apes, reveling in the exclusivity of their circle. All this spontaneously, without provocation. I left revolted and angry, and I’ve criticized the roamcult publicly. (So much for self-improvement). That’s not really my way, and definitely not Obsidian’s.

You’re right, there are a-h* everywhere, but I must have gotten a very skewed sample.

Anyway, without a community, there was even less for me to hang on to.

@Calhistorian

And as an archivist in Silicon Valley for a bit, I organized and catalogued innumerable “relics” of hard disks, computers, etc from Dell, Sun Microsystems, etc.

What an experience that must have been!

@Calhistorian

My solution is simply is part what I mentioned above in this particular reply, but also part that if with reasonable effort if I need I can get what I need.

You clearly know what you’re doing. No worries there.

@Calhistorian

I can get more value out of Roam, not because its “better” but because it supports my workflow better than obsidian.

That’s really all that matters, isn’t it? I, for one, miss the discretionary atomicity of outliners like Roam (or Dynalist, or WorkFlowy!) but the advantages of keeping my General-Sort-of-Mish-Mash in one place greatly outweigh the few shortcomings that Obsidian still has.

[Calhistorian]

@macedotavares

After a few weeks, I was tired and bitter from the things I’ve seen people do: bashing competitor apps, dismissing its users as ignorant apes, reveling in the exclusivity of their circle. All this spontaneously, without provocation. I left revolted and angry, and I’ve criticized the roamcult publicly. (So much for self-improvement).

I did see this in the beginning, maybe I haved the skewed sample. I agree though, community is of great value. That’s why I play in both communities. Though traveling in the community for nearly a year now, generally speaking I don’t think you could characterize it as such objectively. But we all have different experiences.

@macedotavares

You clearly know what you’re doing. No worries there.

You imply an important point though, for the non-technical (at the moment) Roam could be a lock-in trap - though it seems like that will not be for long. Obsidian’s development is far more polished than Roam and therefore the non-techincal definitely are safer in it.

@macedotavares

That’s really all that matters, isn’t it?

Yes. The density of data I am trying to cram in a sentence is quite heavy. Its not just notes for me, its my thinking and livelihood (I am a professor, administrator and digital productivity consultant). If you don’t need the density of data, I don’t know why you would use Roam.

[roberthaisfield]

@justindirose

Example: as I’ve posted videos comparing Roam and Obsidian, I’ve had a few Roam users basically tell me that I can’t do what I’m doing in Obsidian because it’s a Roam workflow. Sorry, but PKM is not a Roam-only thing!

Lol sorry, my bad (@Calhistorian I am one of those idiots). I didn’t mean offense.

Is this what you are referring to? Did other people say similar or worse things?

Robert Haisfield (RobertHaisfield)

While I could have expressed the critique more tactfully and my obsidian usage has expanded since then, I still stand by the fundamental point that the PKM workflow with daily notes and double bracketing keyword type pages is, by product design, supported well by Roam and poorly by Obsidian (unless notes get moved out of the daily notes and into better locations), largely because of pages vs. blocks and filtering. Addition of advanced search has changed things to make the workflow a little more effective in Obsidian now though.

Like, if I did the same thing in Obsidian I would end up with hundreds of linked references to each client of mine in daily notes and not be able to do anything with it.