Roam Patrol!

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Nov 24, 2020 at 01:23 AM

I am in the same situation. I have decided not to use Roam because of cost and the fact that my data is not locally stored. Nonetheless, I have watched a number of videos on YouTube, and find that Obsidian is the software I am leaning toward, which means I soon will be digging out my Windows laptop. The argument made on YouTube by a couple of people is that if one is interested merely in simply collecting information, Roam is probably the better program. However, if one is collecting information so as to be able to eventually use it to write something - to create something new - then Obsidian is the preferred option. I also am drawn to Obsidian because it is developed by the people who created Dynalist, which I use, and their competence and responsiveness to users is well established.

Also, there is a cluster of ideas of profound interest to me (about which I am desperate to learn more, and perhaps, write) - zemiology (study of harms), transitional justice, genocide studies, Indigenous studies, reconciliation (in the aftermath of the Shoa, more recent genocides, colonialism and Indigenous people), post colonial studies, etc. Human harms and the resulting need for reconciliation are perhaps the common themes which run through all of this. Here in Canada, as an Indigenous (Anishinabe) person I am aware that there is much talk about reconciliation, and land acknowledgements are quite common, yet I am left wringing my hands at the end of the day because we seem to not to know what reconciliation is, but that somehow having newcomers and descendants of settlers acknowledging land loss to the colonial powers, is a sign of reconciliation.

Knowing the limitations of my own ability to organize materials/ideas in a manner which leads to applied thought and writing, Obsidian looks increasingly attractive. I am aware it is not a panacea, but on the other hand it may be what I need to read widely and to write, almost from the outset. Suddenly, links and backlinks, and graphing, and markdown take on relevant meaning.

Forgive me for going on at such length about my ideas. Suggestions, responses are welcome.

Daly

Dr Andus wrote:
MenAgerie wrote:
>>I am using Obsidian like this too. There is a growing catalogue of
>>plugins. One enables the in-line display of backlinks, almost as
>>smoothly as Roam. I have a calendar doc pinned to the side where I have
>>pre-prepared links to future and past dates. Together with an AHK I
>>blagged from the ConnectedText forum for creating future date-links I
>>have a system that does me fine (for now).
> >Sounds good! The only reason I haven’t tried Obsidian because I’m a
>Chromebook user (and I haven’t got into using Linux on it) and need a
>truly cross-platform solution.
> >But otherwise Obsidian looks and sounds fabulous and I wish I had a need
>for it. Sadly I’m using ConnectedText less and less these days too, for
>the same reason (constantly switching between my Windows PC and various
>Chromebooks).