Zettelkasten and Evergreen MOC
Definition
Bi-directional links provides a path back to the page where you inserted the original link
A bi-directional link is a link goes both ways. You link point A → point B and it automatically makes it possible to find point A ← point B
This is one of the key uses of Obsidian. Logseq and especially Roam Research have this perfected upto the block level.
For backlinks (or bi-directional links) to be useful, they show the different contexts in which the link is being used. This opens new lines of reasoning, or at least lines of reading.
image source A Short History of Bi-Directional Links
Bi-directionals make it possible to explore notes, instead of looking them up in bucket-like categories. categories make terrible keywords
A sometimes uttered down-side is that it might link together unrelated ideas, and thus polluting a carefully crafted line of reasoning. For me this feels more like preconceived notions being challenged: If items should really not be linked then maybe the keywords are not narrow enough.
With the advent of AI and chatGPT people have been tempted to automate linking. “Manually interlinking content takes an awful lot of human curation and effort. Effort we should probably slog off onto our systems” (A Short History of Bi-Directional Links). This might not be a very good idea. The linking together of ideas should be a part of the process of studying. The searching and finding is what makes a zettelkasten worth maintaining.
(Primary) Sources
A contextual backlink displays not only a reference from another location, but the specific context around that reference – Backlinks can be used to implicitly define nodes in knowledge management systems | Contextual backlinks
A bi-directional link has social awareness - it knows about other pages or ‘nodes’ that point to it, and can make them visible to people. This means we get a two-way conversation flowing between our web locations. Vannevar Bush outlined this hypothetical gadget in an essay in The Atlantic called As we may think. He wanted a system capable of “associative indexing… whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another… [so that] numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail.” An excellent expose on backlinks: A Short History of Bi-Directional Links – Maggie Appleton
The genius of bi-directional linking is that when I first started to use it, the neurotic hamster in my head decided to turn down the volume knob on the ‘Where should I put this?’ question. –The Fall of Roam - Superorganizers - Every