Chris Aldrich

@nicolas_gatien @ArtemKRSV @lanewatson @ChrisAldrich @ScottScheper @NickMilo @AllossoDan @iameddyhood @ArchLeucoryx

Nicolas, I broadly agree with you that many of these factors of reading and writing for understanding and retention are at play and the research in memory and spaced repetition underlines a lot of this. However in practice, one needs to be revisiting and actively using their notes for some particular project to remember them better. The card search may help to create both visual and physical paths that assist in memory too.

Reliance solely on a physical zettelkasten however may not be enough without active use over time, particularly for the majority of users. It's unlikely that all or even many may undertake this long term practice. Saying that this is either the "best", "optimum", or "only" way would be disingenuous to the diversity of learners and thinkers.

Those who want to add additional strength to these effects might also use mnemonic methods from indigenous cultures that rely on primary orality. These could include color, images, doodles (drolleries anyone?), sketchnotes, or other associative methods, many of which could be easily built into an (antinet) zettelkasten or other note taking platforms. Lynne Kelly's work in this area can be highly illuminating. For pure practical application and diversity of potential methods, I recommend her book "Memory Craft" (https://amzn.to/3zdqqGp), but she's got much more academic and in depth work that is highly illustrative.

With this background on orality and memory in mind we might all broadly view wood and stone circles (Stonehenge), menhir, standing stones, songlines, and other mnemonic devices in the archaeological and sociological records as zettelkasten which one keeps entirely in their memory rather than writing them down. We might also consider, based on this and the historical record concerning Druids and their association with trees that the trees served a zettelkasten-like function for those ancient societies. This continues to extend to lots of other cultural and societal practices throughout history. Knowledge from Duane Hamacher et al's book *[The First Astronomers](https://amzn.to/3IIHAPp )* and Karlie Noone and Krystal De Napoli's *[Astronomy: Sky Country](https://amzn.to/3o8DNBc)* will underline these theories and practices in modern indigenous settings.

@davidlaietta For WordPress related activity in the area of #IndieWeb, among many others you should generally know are @dshanske (aka GWG), @pfefferle, and @schnarfed (aka snarfed).

In addition to a lot of IndieWeb specific pieces @pfefferle has also done some work on ActivityStreams (https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitystream-extension/) while @schnarfed has some great work with https://fed.brid.gy/ and https://indieweb.org/bridge#ActivityPub

I've written a lot of intro related pieces which may help you get started: http://boffosocko.com/research/indieweb/. In particular, the second two in the "Introductory Articles" section may be the most useful higher level overviews for you. The wiki has a large number of pages devoted to a WordPress worldview starting here: https://indieweb.org/WordPress.

Along with a plethora of others (who I've always found very warm and welcoming) we're all often hanging out in the IndieWeb chat rooms (there's a specific #WordPress related one as well): https://indieweb.org/discuss. If you want to hop on a conference call, I'm happy to walk you through some of the basics and point you in the direction of areas you're most interested in checking out.

If you're free at the end of June, the IndieWeb Summit is a great place to start as well: https://2018.indieweb.org/. Many of us are planning on attending. If you can't make it in person, we should be livestreaming a lot of it for remote attendees as well.