5 ms·

Don't start with figuring out a method to organize your information. You will end up overengineering your org method. I think this is an important point. I lik

Don't start with figuring out a method to organize your information. You will end up overengineering your org method. I think this is an important point. I like to start with a few simple rules: - To retrieve information, I should know where to start: a Schelling point.[0] For me, this is the home page of my wiki. For wenc, it's a Google Doc. - It shouldn't take me more than three clicks to get from my starting point to the information I'm looking for. - Links/URLs will tie everything together. They are the edges in my knowledge graph. But as wenc notes, keep the graph shallow. Then I need to be rigorous, reorganizing things when they don't work intuitively and adding new nodes when something I need has not yet been recorded. As wenc puts it, "discover your own data use patterns." Wikis do work for me, provided it's organized around Schelling points. I've used and refined these principles in setting up wikis at my last 3 companies and it's worked pretty well for organizing a collective knowledge base as well. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory)

bostonvaulter2 8y ago
What software do you use for your wiki?
- johntash 8y ago
  I'm not currently using a personal wiki, but both MediaWiki and Confluence are pretty easy to set up. Confluence/Jira licenses are cheap for self-hosted personal use. MediaWiki is oss and probably not going anywhere anytime soon.
  - klenwell 8y ago
    I second Mediawiki. I prefer that for professional use: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Personally, I've been using WikkaWiki for years: https://github.com/bakoontz/WikkaWiki https://github.com/bakoontz/WikkaWiki I would prefer something that supports markdown. Neither of these really do.
- Tomte 8y ago
  Dokuwiki is what I use. Easy to setup, easy to use. And with Dokuwiki on a stick there is a zero-installation, portable local option.
- krotton 8y ago
  I use TiddlyWiki (https://tiddlywiki.com https://tiddlywiki.com). It's brilliantly simple to set up (doesn't require a database for example), has a small but nice plugin ecosystem with things like Markdown support, etc.
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago
> It shouldn't take me more than three clicks to get from my starting point to the information I'm looking for. I see this sort of criteria and really don't agree. There are many operations that take more than three clicks. Navigation a UI is a graph in itself, and we can handle way more than 3 nodes. In the same way that I can remember how to get to work, or get a book from one of my bookshelves. Anyway, small point.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Trivial inconveniences. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-trivial-inconveniences https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-tri... There was a joke in one of Stephen Hawking's book that each equation included in the text cuts the number of readers by half. In a similar fashion, you can imagine that each extra step you need to get to the information will cut the number of occasions you do so by half. If you want the system to benefit you daily, in many areas, it has to be as simple and seamless as possible.
  - wenc 8y ago
    Fascinating observation, and could be a corrolary to Nudge theory [1], which won Richard Thaler his Nobel Prize this year, which says Opt-in rather than opt-out is more effective for changing behavior. Underlying idea: friction disincentivizes. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Yeah, sounds like the same thing. I would not expect you could get a Nobel Prize for that, though. Maybe Scott Alexander should start submitting his articles wherever it is you need to submit them to get a Nobel in economics.
      - nathan_long 8y ago
        > In 2017, economist Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for "his contributions to behavioral economics and his pioneering work in establishing that people are predictably irrational in ways that defy economic theory." Proving that all the other economists are modeling things wrong is more impressive than you make it sound.

bostonvaulter2 8y ago

What software do you use for your wiki?

johntash 8y ago
I'm not currently using a personal wiki, but both MediaWiki and Confluence are pretty easy to set up. Confluence/Jira licenses are cheap for self-hosted personal use. MediaWiki is oss and probably not going anywhere anytime soon.
- klenwell 8y ago
  I second Mediawiki. I prefer that for professional use: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki Personally, I've been using WikkaWiki for years: https://github.com/bakoontz/WikkaWiki https://github.com/bakoontz/WikkaWiki I would prefer something that supports markdown. Neither of these really do.
Tomte 8y ago
Dokuwiki is what I use. Easy to setup, easy to use. And with Dokuwiki on a stick there is a zero-installation, portable local option.
krotton 8y ago
I use TiddlyWiki (https://tiddlywiki.com https://tiddlywiki.com). It's brilliantly simple to set up (doesn't require a database for example), has a small but nice plugin ecosystem with things like Markdown support, etc.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y ago

> It shouldn't take me more than three clicks to get from my starting point to the information I'm looking for. I see this sort of criteria and really don't agree. There are many operations that take more than three clicks. Navigation a UI is a graph in itself, and we can handle way more than 3 nodes. In the same way that I can remember how to get to work, or get a book from one of my bookshelves. Anyway, small point.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Trivial inconveniences. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-trivial-inconveniences https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/reitXJgJXFzKpdKyd/beware-tri... There was a joke in one of Stephen Hawking's book that each equation included in the text cuts the number of readers by half. In a similar fashion, you can imagine that each extra step you need to get to the information will cut the number of occasions you do so by half. If you want the system to benefit you daily, in many areas, it has to be as simple and seamless as possible.
- wenc 8y ago
  Fascinating observation, and could be a corrolary to Nudge theory [1], which won Richard Thaler his Nobel Prize this year, which says Opt-in rather than opt-out is more effective for changing behavior. Underlying idea: friction disincentivizes. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Yeah, sounds like the same thing. I would not expect you could get a Nobel Prize for that, though. Maybe Scott Alexander should start submitting his articles wherever it is you need to submit them to get a Nobel in economics.
    - nathan_long 8y ago
      > In 2017, economist Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for "his contributions to behavioral economics and his pioneering work in establishing that people are predictably irrational in ways that defy economic theory." Proving that all the other economists are modeling things wrong is more impressive than you make it sound.