The Find orphaned files and broken links plugin created for me a list of 1,335 unresolved links. These are notes that I have linked to but have not yet created. I wonder if there are important notes missing that I can’t find amongst the noise.
My approach when writing is to [[ ]] any term I think might become a note in the future. The alternative is to check for unlinked mentions when I create a note. I worry that will interrupt the flow of writing too much.
Scanning through the list I can see a lot of names of people I know and people I will never know. I do want to link an contextualise people I know and have mentioned. For those I don’t, the Gladiator II is a good example for it currently has a links to Ridley Scott and Denzel Washington. I can’t see me making many future references to either and if I need a collector page in the future, then Obsidian’s unlinked mentions function will find them all. The Text Format plugin has a function to remove WikiLinks from a selection which will speed the process of removal. Much faster to highlight and hotkey the plugin call than to move the mouse to either end of the text and delete the square brackets.
Include in names, placenames like Melbourne or Germany.
Outside of people I know, creating the links mentioned above violates Don’t duplicate public knowledge.
There are links created in articles I have synced in using wallabag by virtue of the text or links to authors. It’s the same as with the names above. I’m considering deleting many of those articles anyway so will finalise that before cleaning up any links.
Since the list of unresolved links takes the form “link - list of references” I can find multiple referenced items quickly and address them first. Most links are 1:1 references only.
Date entries, e.g., [[2026-02-09] are frequent. I’ve been thinking about this for a while in the context of linked pages that don’t exist. A link is only meaningful if there is something to link to. The date link in a note already has the appropriate context and creating a new context only decreases the signal to noise ratio. It’s “complete and consistent” but not of any practical value. I’m better off only having links to dates where there is a commentary, i.e., my journal entries. Not one date in the Changelog exists alongside a matching journal entry. Removing the dates is cleaner.
After all that I suspect I’ll be left the notes that will contain generated knowledge. Although it means I might take longer to get to them. There are short term benefits for my Future self by removing the noise, and long term benefits by understanding the problems created above and avoiding them. While Obsidian is my current tool of choice that may not always be the case and a clean move between systems is always better.
This process has given me candidates for expanding my Quantum OS Linking Rules. They are:
- Link to people I know, and on first reference create a note for them.
- Do not link commonly known names unless they are links to authors were I want to collate information, e.g., Stephen King
- Do not link to dates unless there is a matching Journal entry
What it really comes down to is, “Think about why I am creating a link and create it only if my Future self will benefit.”