Federating knowledge: exploring ways to bridge wikis and notes

EDIT: Canceled for the time being, I am sick 😷😭

Join the workshop at #39C3! Day 1, 17:00 @ Free Knowledge Habitat Workshop Area.

Most people and organisations have their very own way of acquiring, organising, archiving, sharing, and collaborating on knowledge repositories. A broad spectrum of opinions and approaches resulted in a diverse and rich ecosystem of knowledge management solutions. Nevertheless, this also implies scattered and disconnected knowledge sources. What would it mean to build bridges among wikis and federate knowledge?

This workshop is going to be heavily centred on a twofold discussion, exploring the challenge of federated knowledge starting from two questions.

• What does it mean to federate knowledge repositories?
• Instead of pursuing a silver-bullet solution to embrace all use-cases, what would it mean to foster and enable interoperability for different software?

These questions stem from years of questioning and wondering how to integrate my personal note-taking and collective, participatory knowledge management at work, in organisations, institutions, and informal collectives. Recently, I began actively researching this topic as I started playing with the MediaWiki API to cross-synchronise my local Markdown notes and the XPUB wiki, the public learning wiki of the Experimental Publishing master. I am puzzled by taking advantage of the potential of a specific software (in this case, MediaWiki) while fearing of being locked-in.

Some further, more specific, insights and questions:

• Local-first approaches and software (e.g. Reflection)
• Interesting experiments based on existing protocols, such as Ibis
• What do we take of semi-open and obscure yet very cool initiatives like Anytype
• The power and the limits of plain-text: how to enable collaboration on simple Markdown files and build on top of it, as Obsidian does

Cc: @modal @p2panda @obsidian @wikimediaDE @dweb

#knowledge #FreeKnowledge #wiki #MediaWiki #API #Obsidian #Anytype #Ibis #IbisWiki #Reflection #CCC #Federation #federatedKnowledge #docs #PKM #knowledgeManagement #personalKnowledgeManagement #collectiveKnowledgeManagement #DWeb #decentralization #ActivityPub

Federating knowledge: exploring ways to bridge wikis and notes

EDIT: Canceled for the time being, I am sick 😷😭

Join the workshop at #39C3! Day 1, 17:00 @ Free Knowledge Habitat Workshop Area.

Most people and organisations have their very own way of acquiring, organising, archiving, sharing, and collaborating on knowledge repositories. A broad spectrum of opinions and approaches resulted in a diverse and rich ecosystem of knowledge management solutions. Nevertheless, this also implies scattered and disconnected knowledge sources. What would it mean to build bridges among wikis and federate knowledge?

This workshop is going to be heavily centred on a twofold discussion, exploring the challenge of federated knowledge starting from two questions.

• What does it mean to federate knowledge repositories?
• Instead of pursuing a silver-bullet solution to embrace all use-cases, what would it mean to foster and enable interoperability for different software?

These questions stem from years of questioning and wondering how to integrate my personal note-taking and collective, participatory knowledge management at work, in organisations, institutions, and informal collectives. Recently, I began actively researching this topic as I started playing with the MediaWiki API to cross-synchronise my local Markdown notes and the XPUB wiki, the public learning wiki of the Experimental Publishing master. I am puzzled by taking advantage of the potential of a specific software (in this case, MediaWiki) while fearing of being locked-in.

Some further, more specific, insights and questions:

• Local-first approaches and software (e.g. Reflection)
• Interesting experiments based on existing protocols, such as Ibis
• What do we take of semi-open and obscure yet very cool initiatives like Anytype
• The power and the limits of plain-text: how to enable collaboration on simple Markdown files and build on top of it, as Obsidian does

Cc: @modal @p2panda @obsidian @wikimediaDE @dweb

#knowledge #FreeKnowledge #wiki #MediaWiki #API #Obsidian #Anytype #Ibis #IbisWiki #Reflection #CCC #Federation #federatedKnowledge #docs #PKM #knowledgeManagement #personalKnowledgeManagement #collectiveKnowledgeManagement #DWeb #decentralization #ActivityPub

Last Wednesday, my fellow XPUB1 classmates and me wrapped up the trimester with a collective folding, binding, and paginating party to make A_Mazing Machine[s]: Wordscapes to Liberate Language, the printed publication of our Special Issue 28!

My first few months at @xpub have been incredible. I am so proud of my classmates, the work we did together, and what we learned. I am also very grateful to our tutors, who have been super kind and inspiring!

All information, plus a PDF of the printed version, made with WeasyPrint is available on this Eleventy website we created to share all the things that we explored. It mirrors our incredible, legendary wiki. It was very interesting and insightful, so I published my notes about Using MediaWiki as a CMS for Eleventy.

#WeasyPrint #WebToPrint #Web2print #SI28 #SpecialIssue28 #SpecialIssue #XPUB #ExperimentalPublishing #publishing #WritingMachines #Eleventy #builtWithEleventy #11ty #MediaWiki #wiki

I wrote about taking linked notes with @vimwiki and how to integrate this with the wikis that @forgejo (e.g. via @Codeberg) can provide to git repositories.

https://tzovar.as/linked-notes-with-vimwiki/

#vim #wiki

Last Wednesday, my fellow XPUB1 classmates and me wrapped up the trimester with a collective folding, binding, and paginating party to make A_Mazing Machine[s]: Wordscapes to Liberate Language, the printed publication of our Special Issue 28!

My first few months at @xpub have been incredible. I am so proud of my classmates, the work we did together, and what we learned. I am also very grateful to our tutors, who have been super kind and inspiring!

All information, plus a PDF of the printed version, made with WeasyPrint is available on this Eleventy website we created to share all the things that we explored. It mirrors our incredible, legendary wiki. It was very interesting and insightful, so I published my notes about Using MediaWiki as a CMS for Eleventy.

#WeasyPrint #WebToPrint #Web2print #SI28 #SpecialIssue28 #SpecialIssue #XPUB #ExperimentalPublishing #publishing #WritingMachines #Eleventy #builtWithEleventy #11ty #MediaWiki #wiki

A Living Wiki

https://www.thehierophant.world/blog/a-living-wiki/

#thehierophant #worldbuilding #wiki #writing

I wrote about taking linked notes with @vimwiki and how to integrate this with the wikis that @forgejo (e.g. via @Codeberg) can provide to git repositories.

https://tzovar.as/linked-notes-with-vimwiki/

#vim #wiki

A Living Wiki

https://www.thehierophant.world/blog/a-living-wiki/

#thehierophant #worldbuilding #wiki #writing

Just made my first edits on National Library of Norway's local history wiki.

Let's see if they last longer than my first edits on Wikipedia.

https://lokalhistoriewiki.no

#Wiki #MediaWiki #LocalKnowledge #LocalHistory #History #Norsk #Norwegian #Oslo

Hi ! we are a #wiki / #library / #catalogue for arts and studies , here to spread the word about recent and historical publications and projects in #experimentalart #permacomputing #lowtech #climateaction #decoloniality #technofeminisms #capitalocene #criticaltheory #shadowlibraries #communityservers #communityradio #everydaytechnology #libreculture #floss #diwo #care #artistpublishing #soundart #experimentalfilm #arthistory #weird etc.. Thank you @lurk for hosting us on #mastodon and everyone in the #fediverse for believing in it and making it such a welcoming space #introduction

Yesterday at the @digiSberlin conference, the Brücke-Museum Berlin presented its digitization project on Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s collection of objects from colonial contexts. All objects have been published on #wikiCommons, allowing everyone to contribute and reuse. Usage in wiki projects is still limited. If any #wiki contributors with expertise in the cultural history of Oceania, Africa, or Latin America would like to take a look, your input would be very welcome. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Karl_Schmidt-Rottluff%27s_Collection_of_Objects_from_Colonial_Contexts_in_the_Br%C3%BCcke-Museum_Berlin&filefrom=Palm+Wine+Vessel%2C+Cameroon%2C+Br%C3%BCcke-Museum+Berlin%2C+64984%2C+view+b.jpg#mw-category-media

Our Black Friday deals tracker is live! Let us know about any privacy-friendly deals you find this month and we'll get them added to the list: https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/black-friday-2025/32546

#BlackFriday #BlackFridayDeals #Privacy #PrivacyBlackFriday #PrivacyGuides #Wiki

Our Black Friday deals tracker is live! Let us know about any privacy-friendly deals you find this month and we'll get them added to the list: https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/black-friday-2025/32546

#BlackFriday #BlackFridayDeals #Privacy #PrivacyBlackFriday #PrivacyGuides #Wiki

For those of you who read lots of papers or non-fiction that you need to reference again, how do you manage all of that data and relate it to other things?

I’ve been using #zotero and #obsidian to make a sort of knowledge management #wiki, but organizing the data from highlights takes considerable brain power. I’m sure this is just the way it’s gotta work, but I’d love any tips! I’d especially like tips on when to start refactoring or how to best organize things.

For those of you who read lots of papers or non-fiction that you need to reference again, how do you manage all of that data and relate it to other things?

I’ve been using #zotero and #obsidian to make a sort of knowledge management #wiki, but organizing the data from highlights takes considerable brain power. I’m sure this is just the way it’s gotta work, but I’d love any tips! I’d especially like tips on when to start refactoring or how to best organize things.

I built an actually faster Notion alternative in #rust and #solidjs

Eight months ago I left my job at Stripe to build a knowledge base. Today I'm writing about it.

https://imedadel.com/outcrop/

#wiki #eu #ireland

Do any personal #wiki folks have suggestions for organizing complex subjects and ideas without things getting lost? I have a lot of topics that feed into and off of one another. I use #obsidian if that makes a difference.

I built an actually faster Notion alternative in #rust and #solidjs

Eight months ago I left my job at Stripe to build a knowledge base. Today I'm writing about it.

https://imedadel.com/outcrop/

#wiki #eu #ireland