2020-04-26
*1. Read: Can Blogs and Wiki Be Merged? | Hapgood
Nice article from Mike Caulfield on blogs, wikis, and whether we could/should try to merge them into one thing.
Interestingly, Mike thinks they should be kept distinct. However, it does feel like his analysis of wikis is not thinking of them as personal wikis. Some of the values Mike mentions for wikis (like minimization of personal voice) maybe applied to the original wiki concept, but do not apply to personal wikis.
2. The Garden and the Stream Pop-up Session
Yesterday I attended a very fun pop-up IndieWebCamp session on streams, blogs and wikis.
Around 25 people joined online over the course of the session.
It was a wide-ranging discussion on lots of wiki-adjacent topics. One of the things I really liked was the plurality of both the reasons for having a wiki, and of the tools people use to do it. Very IndieWeb.
Some parts of it that stuck in my brain:
- the link between the stream and the garden, and when you write in one or the other
- what actually are personal wikis? What do people use them for?
- mind maps, memory palaces
- historical examples of externalising memories, like walkabouts
- how do you structure your garden for yourself, and for others
- is transclusion a good way to navigate ideas? Is the loss of narrative a problem?
- bidirectional links or backlinks
- renewed interest in this (is this thanks to Roam?), but mostly focused on internal backlinks in your own wiki
- can we use webmentions as a mechanism for bidirectional links across sites?
There was way more discussed than that. I think given the interest and the breadth of topics, it would be fun to get together semi-regularly.
You can check out the notes and the recording for a lot more: The Garden and the Stream.
3. Elsewhere
3.1. In my garden
Notes that link to this note (AKA backlinks).