Zettelkasten/Glossary
From charlesreid1
Contents
List of Terms
- Category: MediaWiki concept that maps directly to the Zettelkasten concept of tags. Articles can have multiple Categories applied to it, and Category pages will list all pages with that Category applied
- List of all categories: Special:Categories
- Daily page pattern: our pattern for creating a new MediaWiki page for each date, that's titled YYYYMMDD, for example [[20160101]]
- Monthly template pattern: our pattern for creating a template named (for example) {{January2016}} that goes at the bottom of each daily page. It lists all daily pages for the given month, making navigation between days much easier.
- Tags: Zettelkasten concept of a short simple label that can be applied to a note, and used to link it to other notes with the same label. Tags serve as "threads" that connect various notes together. They're used for discovering links between material.
- Todo pages: our pattern for tracking tasks and todo items; create a new MediaWiki page for each category of todos, for example [[Todo/Side Project AAA-0001]]
- Topic pages: A topic page is something like Python, which has a corresponding Category page. The strategy in this case is to keep the Category page minimal, and make the Python page into a curated table of contents pointing to subpages like Python/Profiling.
Categories vs Tags
MediaWiki categories are used the way Zettelkasten tags are used. Many Zettelkasten guides will distinguish between categories and tags, but in MediaWiki the two are basically equivalent (close enough). Notes can have multiple categories, category pages automatically create a list of all notes with those categories, and it's all built into MediaWiki.
Category Pages vs Topic Pages
If making a page about a topic like Python, do you create a Python page, and add the information there? or do you create a Category:Python page with the information, which will also include an automatically assembled list of all pages with that category applied?
Answer: 99% of the time, put information into the topic page (Python) and NOT the category page (Category:Python).
Category pages should be limited to short sentences (like Main Page: [[Python]], and should themselves be tagged with any parent categories (example: Category:Numpy might be tagged with Category:Python and Category:Math).