HACKER Q&A
📣 Phileosopher

What is the value of a one-person wiki?


I have a history of commonplacing (i.e., hoarding key ideas) that predates my tech career[0].

Now that I'm working with my passion, I've been curating content and distilling it into a legible output[1].

The problem, though, is that (like before) I've now collected and broadly categorized >5,000 articles, e-books, YouTube videos, talks, and walkthroughs about the potential domains I'll be working with. I've also been sidelining thousands of the elements into another "toolbox"[2].

My big question is whether this adds value to anyone else or if I'm simply building an elaborate hobby. I'm fine if this is a pet project, but I want a straight answer from someone I don't know.

[0] https://adequate.life and https://gainedin.site

[1] https://techsplained.xyz

[2] https://github.com/Phileosopher/toolbox/

  👤 runjake Accepted Answer ✓
I use Obsidian, write atomic notes[1], and link them together via note links and tagging. It works much like a personal wiki.

I don't really put a lot of thought into it and I don't go looking for new solutions, at this point. Obsidian stores its notes as files and Markdown files in a directory, on the backend. It is git-able for eg. GitBook, GitHub Wiki, etc.

https://obsidian.md

1. Small notes on a specific little thing.

👤 nikolqy
Sounds like it’d be a personal thing, but I’m sure it would he discovered by people and maybe utilized. I thought of doing a wiki like wikipedia, but making it not propaganda. Figured it’d help people but really I think it kinda was just gonna end up being a hobby of mine. If it interests you enough to make one, why not do it? It’s not gonna disappear and it’ll always be there for you or anyone that finds it. Knowledge is knowledge and I love finding smaller sites with helpful information. Really, I think it’ll be both for you. It’ll add value to whoever finds it, and it’ll be a hobby for you. But don’t do something like that if you aren’t motivated enough to would be my best advice.
👤 nicbou
I’ve been publicly documenting solutions to problems I faced since at least 10 years. I know it’s valuable because I find a lot of value in similar posts from other people. About 10,000 people per month find my content through Google.

The value is that it will save a lot of people a lot of time, especially if you were the first to document the solution.

I disabled comments on my websites, but those helpful posts got lots of positive replies from people whose butt it saved.

👤 warrenm
Sounds like you might want to look into the various mindmapping or zettelkasten tools out there (such as Obsidian (https://obsidian.md) or Mindmaps.app (https://www.mindmaps.app))
👤 taubek
Sharing is caring. If you have done the research and you, have taken time to create this collection you are saving time for someone that will come across it.

Do you use any tools for web site analytics? Do you have visitors?

👤 kusuriya
its always a bit helpful to have this sort of second brain especially public, its like being able to pick a strangers brain when you have a problem they might know about, it also helps you remember without remembering.

Ive done something like this semi private for a while and have recently migrated to doing it with a program called logseq. Maybes this will give me the courage to publish it some.

👤 grana2codes
I bookmarked it, looks interesting to comb through