Forward links

“Forward links” are just regular links you use to link to other files. When a related topic comes up, link it in prose so a connection is established between the two files. This is a pretty standard practice whose power is amplified with backlink functionality.

Backlinks

Backlinks are links in other files that “link back” to the current file. These extend regular forward links by making them bidirectional in a sense; we can now easily jump back to a forward link from the file it references. To maximize backlink effectiveness, think about the context in which you want the current note/paragraph/idea to show up, and link to that context. Here the “context” is another note, and its backlinks will reveal the reference to the original note/paragraph/idea. This enables a powerful method of discovery for exploring locations across notes under varying topics that anecdotally relate to the current file, potentially providing hard-to-find insights/connections between ideas.

Note that backlinks are used to link content that belongs under a different topic to the topic of another note. If the content being written is heavily related to the file being linked or would make sense as content in the link’s target file, that content should physically be moved to the link target file. The system’s goal with backlinks is not to use them to construct a file’s contents from outside the file itself, but instead to link to related content that ultimately belongs under a different topic. An example counter to this principle would be writing literature notes in a daily note and linking them back to the literature file itself; just write that content in the corresponding literature note, as its canonical and belongs there natively.

In short, links are rich navigational tools that allow bidirectional travel between ideas. Create links when you want the link’s target to lead you to the current idea. Forward links can sometimes be trivial; you’ve already arrived at the context, and a physical link is more for convenience than discovery. That said, when forward links are used outside prose to link to related ideasBut backlinks are not trivial, for without them you cannot find external locations related to the current context.

Question: triviality of forward links, should they ever be used to link “related notes”? Or should we completely rely on backlinks, expecting that if the files were truly related, those external files would’ve linked to the current file naturally (and thus show up in the current file’s backlinks without needing the explicit forward link)?

Answer: think this could lead to inactivity; why create a link if I think the other file will have that link, and vice versa? Then no link would be created. BUT the argument I think is more along the lines of whether that link occurs naturally, or we have to think it up and decide it’s related anecdotally. In that case, do we really want that link, or might we consider it weak if that’s the only relation (i.e. there’s not a better, more relevant in-prose position to put it) wbox