digital garden

30 Oct 2021 02:15 - 16 Dec 2022 12:22
Open in Logseq
    • I kind of like this term, which encompasses whatever it is I am building here and other similar efforts. At least the "garden" part feels apt; I feel like it is this little semi-private space I enjoy spending time fussing with, and occasionally invite others into. "Digital" is one of those awkward techy terms (like "cyber" or "electronic") that definitely points to something but doesn't capture its essence, and feels like it will be obsolete in a few years.
    • Part of digital gardening is building your own tools. Not that you have to. There are plenty of specialized hypertext sites built on MediaWiki or other standard tooling. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but given my interests the tooling is at least as important as the content, and the gardens I find interesting are those that play with the format. For better or worse, in that kind of garden, both the words and the structure and design are all part of a single project of self-expression.
    • References

      • A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden
        • A very thorough overview and the source of most of the other links below.
        • Ooh, the "six patterns of digital gardening" is very good.
          • Topography over Timelines
          • Continuous Growth
          • Imperfection & Learning in Public
          • Playful, Personal, and Experimental
          • Intercropping & Content Diversity
          • Independent Ownership
      • Hypertext Gardens, Mark Bernstein
        • originator of the term?
        • Bernstein has been creating commercial hypertext-related software for decades, giving him a rather good view of some of the practical problems. eg:
        • Gardens and Paths: Unplanned hypertext sprawl is wilderness: complex and interesting, but uninviting. Interesting things await us in the thickets, but we may be reluctant to plough through the brush, subject to thorns and mosquitoes