Saturday  8 June 2024

Bookmark manager: the Siren call of web browsing
================================================

Is using a bookmark manager an anti-pattern?

In just a few years I collected over 700 bookmarks in my bookmark
manager. Now I wonder why.

Linkding
--------
In 2020 I installed the Linkding [1] bookmark manager in my home
network. Today, it holds 729 bookmarks.

Linkding is a great open source bookmark manager. I like most aspects
of it, the only downside is that it works with JavaScript. Therefor I
can only use it in Firefox.

Bookmarks are inserted with a title, the URL, a short description and
some tags. The search facilities in Linkding are good and fast. Find
bookmarks by (part of) the URL, title, description or by tag.

A bookmark is quickly created.
------------------------------
The Siren song of the bookmark manager is always calling.

Every day brings a fresh dose of interesting web pages. For example,
Sacha Chua's weekly Emacs news always packs several interesting pages.
New items in the RSS feed reader are another source, just like IRC
conversations.

To tired to read the full content of a page, let alone absorb the
knowledge, or no time to apply the contents, there are numerous
reasons for the lure of creating a bookmark.

When a web page appears promising at first glance, for example,
because it contains useful information regarding something I
anticipate to use in the future, such as a promising Emacs workflow,
an interesting FreeBSD item, or an interesting coding advice, it gets
saved in my Linkding instance.

Huge pile of TL:DR
------------------
It is crazy to expect I will ever revisit each and every of those 729
links.

A sizable portion has lost their initial interest. Over time, one may
lose interest in some fields while becoming interested in others.
Skills grow, making those bookmarks on how to learn Emacs or an
introduction tutorial on Quicklisp less valuable. The TrackPoint on my
Thinkpad works fine, I don't need tuning tips for it anymore.

Another portion are links that will pop up when performing a web
search to a specific subject.

Once regarded as a terrific treasure trove full of interesting stuff,
the bookmark collection now appears to be a huge pile of TL:DR.

Is using a bookmark manager an anti-pattern?
--------------------------------------------
Is it truly useful to place a bookmark in the bookmark manager, or is
it just a way to excuse yourself from doing a deep dive into the web
page's content?

Making a bookmark is pointless if we never expect to revisit it.
Perhaps it is best to be honest and admit that --although the web page
looks promising and engaging-- we will still not read it later on.

Considering all of this, I believe that using a bookmark manager is
indeed an anti-pattern.

Next steps
----------
The path is clear: I must shutdown my Linkding instance.
And this scares me a lot.

Of course this is all deja vu. Sometime ago I came to the conclusion
that maintaining a to-read list with hundreds of books is useless and
that I should delete the list. This also scared me a lot. But I took
the plunge and deleted it. The sun still rises.

I just downloaded a fresh install image of Debian Bookworm for the
Raspberry Pi 3A plus board, which currently hosts my Linkding
instance, and I will put a fresh install on the board. Without
Linkding.

I am sure this is for my own good.

However, I make no promises regarding the backup of the SQLite
database with those bookmarks :)

[1]: https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding


Last edited: $Date: 2024/06/08 19:06:16 $