I’ve been using org-roam for a while and I’m mostly using it as personal wiki.
That is, I don’t follow the Zettelkasten method strictly, and I often edit notes, I have a few project files with TODOs etc. So my use of org-roam is rather “org with better linking”. I’m pretty happy with the setup but I wonder if org-roam is the best tool for this, e.g., due to comments such as
However, as discussed in Ahrens (2017), we should guard ourselves from associating slip-boxes and wikis: the latter imply exhaustiveness whereas the former imply organicity (hence ‘roaming’ rather than ‘map out everything’). I heartily recommend you to explore the book if you’re interested. [FEATURE] Link to org-mode Headlines · Issue #548 · org-roam/org-roam · GitHub
I think the main points where I break with Zettelkasten is that a file is not necessarily a single piece of information and can change a lot over time. I don’t see how this would imply exhaustiveness instead of organicity.
The issue with the traditional wiki is the fact that it is getting
harder to find a place to put the new ideas. A piece of fact could
be located at many places. When you write a new idea in traditional
wiki, this creates extra stress.
The strict structure of one’s knowledge is the reason why people like
but it is also a weakness. It forces its user to have a certain
assumption with the new facts.
Zettelkästen is famous for its flexibility. When you create a new
piece of information, this method does not require you to be strict
about the structure of notes. It only forces you to create a
connection to your previous knowledge pool with a hope to tell the
future you why you write this new piece of information.
If you rely on the tag system with `org-roam`, soon or latter you
will need a query system to help your navigation. In fact, this is
something the Roam Research users complain about. Many users leave
Roam Research to join Obsidian because of this. Both advertising as
roam-like tool, Obsidian is more like to be a traditional wiki.
I used to be a `Org-brain` user before the `Org-roam` was born. At the
beginning, I did not to put more effort into the `Org-brain` because
of the `Org-brain`. In my view, `Org-brain` is more like a
transitional wiki. It has advantages like: (1) pure elisp (2) headline
support.
The thing is that `Org-brain` is born before Zettelkästen becomes
popular, so it does not design to embark the core ideas of the content
of How to take smart notes.
I have some structure notes before the born of Org-roam. I often
search for some ideas in Org-brain even though I now mostly in
Org-roam. I somehow found a way to combine the search result from
Org-brain and Org-roam.
One thing about this combination is that I can take advantage of the
headline support from Org-brain. This is not possible for current
Org-roam. I cannot use Org-roam-find-file to see the headline
information in any Org-roam buffer.
This is certainly the primary functionality, it just happens to be particularly important to the Zettelkasten method. You can use it as a wiki if you’d like.
I’m sorry but I don’t agree much with this view. Wikis are based in hypertext, and this is the same as org-roam. Nothing implies that you must find the “right” place for something in a wiki. Actually, in this regard I find Zk a particular instance of (specially organically growing) hypertext, and wikis support this development as much as others, more structured ones.
Going back to the OP question, yes, you can use org-roam as a (great) wiki. I use it that way too.
I’ve been toying with these conflicting views also. I think there’s a lot of instances that I’m just writing down facts that I need to remember and be able to recall if I forget them (For me the function of a gene, the function of this protein, what this protocol is) and link between them, in a wiki like fashion. This may not be needed for someone who’s been in their field awhile. These have been going in concepts/ and has been working great for personal wiki of things I need to remember.
I’ve been thinking about making zettles/, a place for my ideas. For now my random thoughts have just been going in my daily journal and linking to the concepts but I think as I start to create more of my own thoughts and ideas, I’d like to make them more permeant, but I tihnk it’s important to be able to link to the concepts so I can find things.
I think the comment that org-roam is “org with better linking” kind of describes it best for me. In my personal experience I take notes with multiple styles simultaneously; short work-related jot-downs and longer conceptual explorations into topics I’m interested in. Org-roam supports both use-cases really well. I think the core is that there isn’t an hierarchy and I think that’s what makes it work for me so great. I can just make connections when I feel they’re there and regular work-related notes are much close to how traditional org-mode is used for note-taking.
Indeed, this is not implied. Some people may feel the obligation to find the right place but I don’t. If I’m in doubt, this just means that there is currently no right place but then I can just add a new file and link to it.
