Hey #PKM people, as it seems fashionable here to humblebrag by posting screenshots of graphs: What exactly are the benefits of a graph view? Aren't bi-directional links just simpler and thus more effective?
@gisiger There‘s a vague utility in assessing "cluster health" and I have used the local graph with depth 2-3 to assess deep relations between notes.
That said, graph interfaces like this are too informal to really scale in application. Toolings like #Anytype and #Capacities make graph views a little more meaningful by adding document types into the mix, but even then, it‘s a tenacious utility at best.
@ctietze@gisiger Yeah, this drills down to one potential UX case for a graph tool - „fuzzy mechanisms“ for things like possible note relations, explicit highlighting of „under-associated“ notes (though this begets the question - what exactly is your quality standard here? Don’t give the users control over this or a very, very reasoned implementation and it will backfire and become less usable).
that said, I am 50/50 that this all should be a different UI -
@ctietze@gisiger - for reasons of accessibility. Sure a graph parses neatly to those with intact vision, but that’s not everyone who may want to (or if we go by the pkm community, should) use such software.
So in the end, graph view really is more pretties than utilities.
@spinningthoughts@gisiger I fully agree with you. I'm trying to be my own devil's advocate here and see if I'm maybe throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but so far it doesn't seem like it 😬
@gisiger IMO, it's purely for aesthetical reasons as I don't find it really that useful on a day to day basis. I suspect a game of who's got the biggest in that trend. As of usecase, I look at it once in a while to detect mislinking and orphans. And as a tool for convincing people to try obsidian ;)
@ledaj@gisiger I have yet to use the graph in org-roam-ui for anything beyond entertainment and a general birds eye view of clusters of related things. I share because it might encourage someone to try emacs org-mode. I do think that it could be a fun and useful way for someone else to access my notes.
@nickanderson@ledaj@gisiger In my opinion, org-roam-ui is currently the only practical graph that has various filters. It allows you to visually see the structure and connections of your knowledge, understand the boundaries of your knowledge, and identify areas that require further exploration. Additionally, https://github.com/ikoamu/publish-org-roam-ui this project also enables you to view graphs online and even use it as a blog because it supports LaTeX preview. #emacs#orgmode
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