Zettelkasten Forum


Permanent Notes vs Evergreen Notes by Bob Doto

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  • edited March 2022

    I agree with Bob Doto. These seem like distinctions without a difference. The term "evergreen note" is too wholesome for my taste anyway.

    Post edited by ZettelDistraction on

    GitHub. Erdős #2. CC BY-SA 4.0. Problems worthy of attack / prove their worth by hitting back. -- Piet Hein. Armchair theorists unite, you have nothing to lose but your meetings! --Phil Edwards

  • I have read through Andy Matuschak's notes and "method" and thought they were essentially the same as a ZK. I don't see much difference between the two. Being a relative newcomer to ZK and to this forum (I've been on-line here for about 2 years), I haven't seen much evidence of inflexibility. I see a lot of people trying to understand what a ZK is and how to create one. Initially, they might be a bit inflexible, but mostly because they want to know "how to do ZK"; eventually, most of them seem to find their own way and adapt their ZK practises to their way of thinking and working.

  • It's so weird that this apparently even needs to be said. As Andy himself put it: this is surreal.

    Reminds me of Life of Brian and the "Judean People's Front" vs "People's Front of Judea" conflict.

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • I might be guilty of being a bit reckless in that case.

    I think that Andy Matuschaks Evergreen Notes as they are presented in his Digital Garden are not "pure" in the sense how they are actually written since I don't think it is possible to write notes in public without any alteration from how you write when you know that those notes won't go public. So, what he is actually doing (the way he is placing links) deviates from the principle "Written for yourself by default, disregarding audience", in my opinion. I posted something like this on Reddit.

    But to say that "zettels" are different from evergreen notes is like saying the babtist and the mennonites don't believe in the same god.

    I personally like evergreen notes as a term better as zettel since they are more

    @ZettelDistraction said:
    wholesome.

    I am a Zettler

  • edited April 2022

    Seems a bit like he's fighting a straw man in the article – is it really a big thing that people distinguish permanent notes and evergreen notes? And if yes, where does that come from?? Andy Matuschak clearly didn't do that – he distinguished evergreen notes from "transient" notes, which seem very similar to "fleeting notes" in Sönke Ahrens' terminology. So transient notes are pretty much the opposite of permanent notes...

  • It would be interesting if it was a "philosophy", a state of mind while maintaining a Zettelkasten : "keep your Zettelkasten evergreen". It would remain users to make regular review of their notes to get a lively and usefull Zettelkasten, and not a greveyard.

    It would be interesting if it was a term to adapt the principle of Zettelkasten for web. The adjonction would not be in favor of Zettelkasten :

    @Sascha said:
    I might be guilty of being a bit reckless in that case.

    I think that Andy Matuschaks Evergreen Notes as they are presented in his Digital Garden are not "pure" in the sense how they are actually written since I don't think it is possible to write notes in public without any alteration from how you write when you know that those notes won't go public. So, what he is actually doing (the way he is placing links) deviates from the principle "Written for yourself by default, disregarding audience", in my opinion. I posted something like this on Reddit.

    But this approach would be a neat gain for internet in general. In opposition to dead blogs with timestamped articles, a lively corpus of "evergreen" articles would be more interesting. In oppostion to very "machine" and "algorithm" calibrated articles, we would read and write personal and usefull articles. Just like the website maintained for the Archive software around Zettelkasten subjects. :)

    Using a different taxonomy has the benefit to separate the "zettelkasten" approach and the "digital garden website style" approach. The website, from my point of view, is a publication, not a way to take notes. However, it seems that the author choosed the note approach.

    So, from my point of view, this is not an interesting concept for Zettelkasten specifically but it might be interesting for the web format at the condition of keeping in mind that web is a publication plateform. And it is a totaly different subject.

  • But this approach would be a neat gain for internet in general. In opposition to dead blogs with timestamped articles, a lively corpus of "evergreen" articles would be more interesting. In oppostion to very "machine" and "algorithm" calibrated articles, we would read and write personal and usefull articles. Just like the website maintained for the Archive software around Zettelkasten subjects.

    I whole-heartedly agree. This the reason why I started my own digital garden.

    I think the digital garden approach is the future of the internet, at least a better future.

    I am a Zettler

  • @Sascha said:

    I whole-heartedly agree. This the reason why I started my own digital garden.

    I think the digital garden approach is the future of the internet, at least a better future.

    I've been looking at a digital garden as well - for what purposes do you use it?

  • @GeoEng51 said:

    @Sascha said:

    I whole-heartedly agree. This the reason why I started my own digital garden.

    I think the digital garden approach is the future of the internet, at least a better future.

    I've been looking at a digital garden as well - for what purposes do you use it?

    For any stuff I am interested in and want other people to know. I don't have any agenda with my digital garden. I make it a reflection of my spontanous decisions to publish. :)

    I am a Zettler

  • edited April 2022

    This sounds like a lovely renaissance of personal wikis, a trend from 20 years ago that didn't do well partly because it was too hard to set these up back then. If y'all pick up digital gardening as a hobby, do share your sites!

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • @ctietze said:
    This sounds like a lovely renaissance of personal wikis, a trend from 20 years ago that didn't do well partly because it was too hard to set these up back then. If y'all pick up digital gardening as a hobby, do share your sites!

    Oh, reminds me the time when my father learnt me to do a site with html before uploading it via ftp and all. Memories ! In this time, we had to make the menu "by hand" and everything.

    I am building one, in french : lonanaedhia.fr

    I talk about my work (novels and illustration), writing technics, illustrations, a few of Zettelkasten, and verything I will want in the futur. I see it like a place to explore creativity and ideas.

  • French or no, everyone check out the beautiful illustrations: https://lonanaedhia.fr/category/illustrations/

    Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/

  • @ctietze said:
    French or no, everyone check out the beautiful illustrations: https://lonanaedhia.fr/category/illustrations/

    Wow, thank you so much ! I am glad to see you enjoyed them !
    That makes me think I use softwares for visual inspiration too, I will look for a subject to talk about them.

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