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He's going to roam from Roam
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Posted by Alan Sandercock
Feb 16, 2022 at 05:48 PM
Or as the title of the piece says “The Fall of Roam”. It’s an interesting article from a person who went full in with links, backlinks, etc, and then after a year or so of using Roam for his notetaking suddenly decided that all this connectivity was not what it was cracked up to be. Check out the article, but beware that it finishes abruptly with a subscription required to read the rest of the article, although for $1 a trial can be had.
https://every.to/superorganizers/the-fall-of-roam
Posted by MadaboutDana
Feb 17, 2022 at 10:19 AM
Heh, I experimented with Roam a little while ago, but never built up any enthusiasm:
a) the UX isn’t great, especially by modern standards
b) the plethora of plugins/extensions etc. is overwhelming!
c) the roadmap/mission isn’t terribly clear (kitchen sink? or forensic research tool?)
d) there are better (i.e. friendlier), albeit more lightweight options out there (e.g. Effie, still very much in its infancy)
e) for various ease-of-management reasons, I’ve had to back out of my various somewhat idiosyncratic task management solutions and have now committed everything to TickTick, which is an exemplary study of how to chuck in the entire kitchen (including sink) while at the same time retaining a laser-like focus on task management. Fine, so the People’s Republic may now have a large file on What Bill Is Up To somewhere. Do I care? Not really. Plus, it’s totally multi-cross-pan-platform; you can use it on everything!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Cyganet
Feb 17, 2022 at 10:32 AM
It’s a good warning for those of us who are considering jumping in, what it feels like after a while of using it.
I’ve never been attracted to Roam, but have just started using Logseq, which has a decent mobile app already, along with the benefit of keeping my own data. So I’m just starting to explore the value of the [[bracketed links]] versus my usual method of folders of notes with tags. The killer feature for me is the linked and unlinked mentions, that helps to connect things easily.
I’m planning to use Logseq selectively to develop some ideas, since Idifferent kinds of information go in hierarchies versus networks. It’s also mentioned here (bit of a long read): https://fortelabs.co/blog/a-complete-guide-to-tagging-for-personal-knowledge-management/
Thanks for sharing!
Posted by ShiJianhui
Feb 17, 2022 at 10:46 AM
There is a similar topic going on macpoweruser, and this comment is the one I strongly agree with:
https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/the-fall-of-roam/27724/12
Posted by Dr Andus
Feb 17, 2022 at 04:29 PM
ShiJianhui wrote:
There is a similar topic going on macpoweruser, and this comment is the
>one I strongly agree with:
>https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/the-fall-of-roam/27724/12
I haven’t subscribed to be able to read the original article, but if this is the substance of the critque, then I’d agree that the problem is not with Roam (the tool).
I loathe to be the one coming here to defend Roam, especially as they banned me from their Reddit thread for daring to point out its shortcomings and suggesting improvements, so I’m no fan of the company or the CEO, but…
I have to admit that Roam has revolutionised the way I’m managing my todos and my daily life and my weekly, monthly and annual cycles.
It allowed me to move onto a whole another level of organisation.
It’s key strength for me has been that I was able to invent and build a system for myself - the same reason why I loved ConnectedText so much.
By all accounts Logseq is very similar, but automatic online sync / cloud availability for me is essential, and so far I haven’t seen anything that could replace Roam for me, however much I’d like to ditch it.