OBSIDIAN COMMUNITY REVIEW
1/ I have been promising for some time to write a review of the @obsdmd community. While a "community" is not a product, when it comes to "Tools for thought", community should be viewed as an important feature, not an afterthought or byproduct.
1/ I have been promising for some time to write a review of the @obsdmd community. While a "community" is not a product, when it comes to "Tools for thought", community should be viewed as an important feature, not an afterthought or byproduct.
2/ Let me preface this review with a note: For the last year I have been focused on the #roam community & very happy with that. This is not intended as a comparison of these communities, but rather a "new user" experience into the Obsidian community & my first impressions.
3/ What is "Tools" in "TOOLS for Thought"? Tools are the collection of tools we use in leveraging our thoughts in written form. Tools are software, but more importantly include workflows, methods, techniques, practices & algorithms. "Tools" is plural, made up of all these things.
4/ Community is essential to our individual growth with "Tools for Thought", as these tools tend to be more complex in structure, layout and features. We are in effect building personal databases of knowledge and many of us need help to succeed & maximize their benefits.
5/ Communities are more important for "knowledge management travelers", because its a multi-year journey with exciting destinations, but filled with unknown terrains. Tapping into experience & wisdom of other travelers makes our journey easier & more effective. (also more fun!)
6/ Communities are a place for:
- asking questions & getting quick help
- to learn from the experience & wisdom of others
- to share your experience & wisdom
- an opportunity to bond with like minded knowledge travelers
- Report bugs & submit feature requests
- asking questions & getting quick help
- to learn from the experience & wisdom of others
- to share your experience & wisdom
- an opportunity to bond with like minded knowledge travelers
- Report bugs & submit feature requests
7/ The Obsidian community is "best of" in all these areas. While some would say there is no community strategy, I disagree. It is well structured, helpful and friendly. It appeals to a wide variety of users types and diversity of needs. Let us review the community offerings.
8/ Synchronous communications: Real time chat. Obsidian has a Discord server at discord.gg/QqyRancA. All welcome to join. You can speak real time with other users & the owners and developers of the product. You can discuss features, & general knowledge management practices.
9/ Asynchronous communications: non-real time discussions via Discourse at: forum.obsidian.md. Here you will find product announcements, place to submit bug & feature requests, support for plugins & developers and a lot more.
10/ The forums serves as the communities "collective living memory" for helping one another. It is a treasure trove of problem-solving solutions, along with enchanting discussions on PKM (examples: knowledge structuring, data visualization, writing/publishing & more)
11/ YouTube: the community also posts many How-to videos and guided tours of peoples workflow and vaults (knowledge databases). You can watch these videos for days and days and learn a lot of practical and useful things. Some nice examples:
PKM? @NickMilo
PKM? @NickMilo
12/ Zettlekasten & Zotero: by @tallguyjenks
13/ Kanban: by @SantiYounger
14/ Twitter: while Obsidian community does use Twitter, it is less so. Not sure why, but it seems they lean toward more engaging & practical communication tools. Twitter can be exciting, thrilling, but sometimes degrades into chaos. Ironically I am posting this review on Twitter
15/ I have to call attention to the owners/developers of Obsidian. You can find them on Discord as "Licat" & "Silver". I only have good things to say about them. I have engaged them numerous times: always a pleasant experience. No egos or ambiguity. Just straight respectful talk
16/ They are friendly and engaged in supporting and listening to their users. They assert a positive influence on the community, being careful not to let it to fall into negative, destructive talk. You won't ever be embarrassed to send your family & friends to this community
17/ Licat & Silver have a clear vision, and also firm & strong opinions, but will engage with you in constructive brainstorming, which helps them guide the product in harmony with needs of their users, but hold to their vision. They don't shy away from admitting their mistakes.
18/ In summary, life is not about technology, but about our relationships with others. People are the most important.
If you are looking for a community that helps you learn, grow & wants to learn from you, treat you with dignity & respect, then the Obsidian community is for you
If you are looking for a community that helps you learn, grow & wants to learn from you, treat you with dignity & respect, then the Obsidian community is for you
19/ When you invest into a Tool for "Tools for Thought", a good, friendly and helpful community should be a "feature" you consider as required.
Life is too short to be on this knowledge trek alone.
Life is too short to be on this knowledge trek alone.
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