Why I'm still attracted to E2, and what I've learned from it. TLDR; softlinks!
"The least used and most vital part of the Everything "neural net" system is the soft-link. This makes me sad.
—dem bones in The Perfect Node
I discovered E2 as the result of a conversation I had with my then girlfriend on the topic of oculolinctus. I subsequently wrote my first thing here, licking eyeballs. Of course, it was deleted with some excellent feedback, and I set about learning about how E2 worked. I read FAQs and help documents, learned how to link to other bits of writing here, and in the process I fell in love with the site as a whole.
Within each article I found links to other writeups that the author felt would be informative or explicative. But the real treasure for me was the soft links. These are the footprints left by people leading both to and from each writeup, and for me it was like following the mapped-out thoughts of dozens or hundreds of other users, and that's where the magic happens for me. Some of the links are commentary, others clever, yet others informative. I discovered that wherever they led, it was worthwhile. In time I started leaving my own footprints by searching for other connections.
To explain why I fell in love, I must take you back to when I was about seven. My parents bought me an encyclopædia set, a even-volume set called The Book of Knowledge. For years afterward I would often be found on my belly on the floor, with one or more volumes open. I would jump from one article to another whenever I stumbled on a new topic, opening a path to another whole realm of my continuing education. I might jump from an article on gold to one on California, to something of American history or one of hundreds of other topics. In time I learned that the connections between things were my real fascination, and this is why links are so important to me. E2 is not about one, or hundreds, or thousands of writeups, it's about the connections between them. A well-written things is not enough for me, I want to see your thought process. I want to se how you got to writ this, I want insight into your mind, your process, your research, your interests.
I will often spend an hour crafting connections between nodes, partly for my enlihtenment and pleasure, but also to excite readers into following me through the fascinating web that is the E2 database. The writing for me is only a part of the process, and I encourage you to build likewise on the connections.
E2 is more than facts, stories and poetry, more even than philosophy and opinion, it's about the links. The job isn't done until it's linked. If you think no-one notices or cares, think again. I'm known to skip voting if a piece isn't linked.
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