- Have been lurking in discord in recent weeks simply to observe. And there is a typical lifecycle from new folks to experienced folks to trendy hipsters. We all stub our feet as we go on the same issues: where did I put it, what did I call it, how can I find it, what’s it about…
- It resonates with me that all properties, including tags and links serve the function to categorize stuff so we can find it, analyze it, think about it, learn, and, hopefully, write more about it for some meaningful purpose.
- Right now we assign properties to a note (yaml frontmatter) or embed an inline property to a smaller chunk of a note. Each of the properties is really establishing a relationship:
- between notes - links
- between a note or chunk and a concept defined by a named property (all properties sans links).
- And then, of course, there are folders that corral files, thereby classifying them by folder name and sometimes with associated moc or folder notes.
- Having just groomed my entire vault and assigning very basic properties, I’m not proceeding any further until I see where we’re headed with properties and if the fundamental object in Obsidian is a note or something smaller. Right now, the something smaller thing is error prone and just too full of friction and curse words. But I can live just fine with core search using the out of the box operators to find anything I need for my purpose. When I need a dopamine fix, I’ll craft a dataview script to answer some pressing analytical question.
- Bluntly, I am done with chasing complex workflows and plugin solutions; all of it is ephemeral and results in emotional roller coaster rides.
- I am at a loss in trying to offer any advice to anyone new in this space on how to get started or even begin to answer “why Obsidian?”. Be it sitting on somebodies couch with a laptop or a discord & forum post.
- The advice of “oh just start using it” or “sure, you can use folders” or “yeah just put a tag there” or “the help docs are located here”…such advise is not wise and results in confusion later on. (sadly, I still offer them up and I know I shouldn’t).
- The scene - am sitting on the couch and just gushed about how cool Obsidian is - look over at a blank stare - “can you just tell me what I should do with this note?”
- The only answer for this particular person is a dichotomous key of questions to determine their purpose for the note, an estimate of their attention span & knowledge, and some understanding of how they think. Only then can some recipe of links, tags, properties, headers, and list items can be offered.
- The help docs don’t provide guidance but do serve as reference if one has the patience to decipher the prose and experiment.
- I used to advise folks to “go check out the Knowledge Management Channel on Discord” until I started perusing it recently. There is a huge gap between entry level folks asking basic questions and the core folks that camp in those areas now. And here on discourse we devolve into very long missives not easily shredded by new minds. (I know I’m guilty, falling on sword)
- The vast majority of folks coming into this space do not think or behave like us early adopting and easily adapting scripting types. Heady discussions and philosophical pkm methodologies just feed the churn rate. We’re not doing fellow users or the industry any favors on our current path.
- Somehow these tools need to provide for different mindsets and attention spans. Otherwise the industry will not grow and only be applicable for the cognitive elite and the “in-crowd”. Even the various LLM’s are challenged, most of my friends still don’t grok a properly worded prompt, they use it like a google search and get confused with the results and ask “why ChatGPT?”
- The heros in this space are the special souls moderating the firehose of folks in the general channel. Hats off and deep admiration.
- It will be interesting to see just how Obsidian goes about the goal of making itself more approachable.
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