[HN Gopher] Show HN: Trove - Curate and publish a knowledge base...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: Trove - Curate and publish a knowledge base on any topic
        
       Author : wdencker
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2021-03-25 17:00 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (trove.to)
 (TXT) w3m dump (trove.to)
        
       | dvt wrote:
       | This is a very cool idea, and I was actually working on something
       | similar a few years ago (a "GitHub" for design documents, mainly
       | aimed at Product Managers). My enthusiasm fizzled because of
       | extreme competition in that sector, but I really like what you
       | guys built.
        
         | wdencker wrote:
         | Thanks for your comment! Very cool. As an ex-PM the use case
         | makes a lot of sense to me--Figma makes things a lot easier but
         | still so much of the Design-Product back and forth happens over
         | email, DM, and Google Docs. I do wonder if there is still
         | something missing.
        
       | julianfkelly wrote:
       | I enjoyed putting thought into curating Troves that weren't just
       | visual references. Would love to see more expression tools for
       | collections beyond just adding annotation.
        
         | wdencker wrote:
         | Great to hear! I would love to hear what you think these new
         | expression tools might be. Just spitballing here, perhaps you
         | could record audio on a block instead of writing? Or are you
         | thinking even more outside the box than that?
        
       | wdencker wrote:
       | Creator here, happy to answer any questions.
       | 
       | Trove is a project I've been working on for about 3 months now.
       | The initial idea was borne out of a frustration my cofounder and
       | I had while researching startup ideas. We would often come across
       | excellent resources that related to one of the ideas we were
       | investigating, but we found there was no great way to organize
       | these resources, annotate them with our own thoughts, and share
       | our annotations with one another. Text messages were unwieldy for
       | long-form thoughts, Google Docs & Notion didn't provide enough
       | structure, and emails quickly became buried. In a world of
       | abundant information, simply being able to sift through and
       | organize it all is now the biggest challenge.
       | 
       | What we believe is missing is a "GitHub for knowledge" -- a place
       | where we can not only store our own knowledge, but also build
       | from others' ideas [1]. Trove has a long way to go as a product
       | (right now, it's a relatively simple React/Next.js app with a
       | Django REST backend) -- we would love to hear any feedback or
       | ideas you might have!
       | 
       | [1] https://trove.to/trove/trove/why-we-built-this
        
         | swyx wrote:
         | i'm someone who keeps a ton of github knowledge bases:
         | 
         | - https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy/
         | 
         | - https://github.com/sw-yx/launch-cheatsheet/
         | 
         | - https://react-typescript-cheatsheet.netlify.app/
         | 
         | i should be your ideal user.
         | 
         | i was very excited at the idea, but tried out the product and
         | its clearly not there yet. but keep going.
         | 
         | specifics:
         | 
         | - i was looking for search scoped to my trove
         | 
         | - collaborative editing, if it exists, is not obvious
         | 
         | this is what i was looking for and i stopped once i didnt see
         | them exist.
         | 
         | good luck!
        
           | wdencker wrote:
           | Thanks for trying it out, and for this candid feedback!
           | You're right, the product is still a ways off from becoming a
           | true "GitHub for knowledge" -- things like "forking" a trove,
           | live collaborative editing, and more powerful search are some
           | of the missing elements.
           | 
           | We'll keep working!
        
           | janjones wrote:
           | I recently created a web application for curating one big
           | shared public knowledge base.[1] Its contribution system is
           | conceptually based on GitHub's pull requests and
           | StackOverflow reputation.
           | 
           | It's focused on _tips for learning resources_ , so it seems
           | ideal for your cheat sheets. Currently, creating lists of
           | SDKs, tools, etc. is not very well supported, but we are
           | working on it. And I already use it for these things, see for
           | example my list of Flutter libraries.[2]
           | 
           | I guess it's also kind-of similar to Trove, but it is more
           | focused on creating one curated catalog of knowledge rather
           | than personal recommendation lists (although that is also
           | possible now via personal study profiles, e.g., [3]).
           | 
           | [1] https://knowledgepicker.com
           | 
           | [2] https://knowledgepicker.com/t/177/flutter
           | 
           | [3] https://knowledgepicker.com/u/jjones
        
           | bckr wrote:
           | That launch cheatsheet link is going in my "Entrepreneurship
           | Journal" Google Doc ;D
        
         | Ontol wrote:
         | In march 2020 I started http://ontol.org/ - my version of
         | "Github for wisdom". Wisdom - is from DIKW pyramid "Data-
         | Information-Knowledge-Wisdom"
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIKW_pyramid)
         | 
         | Glad to see what I am not alone! World need uoer hearts, hands
         | and minds!
         | 
         | Now Ontol in close beta stage and I testing hypothesis in tiny
         | russian auditory. But after this discussion, I will speed up by
         | 300% ))) Thanks!
        
         | dzdt wrote:
         | It looks like it lets you organize and comment on URL's? Is it
         | of any use if you have content that isn't already on the web
         | and isn't neatly tagged by URL? E.g. your own photos.
        
           | wdencker wrote:
           | Not yet, though this is a direction we've been thinking
           | about. We know a fully-fledged "knowledge base" may not only
           | consist of annotated URLs -- it may also contain the author's
           | own thoughts / content (whether that be text, audio, images,
           | or video).
           | 
           | Ultimately, we think there's a need for a multimedia
           | publishing platform that's more lightweight than something
           | like Substack or Medium--everyone has great knowledge to
           | share, but few want to start their own newsletter.
        
         | basch wrote:
         | Are you familiar with https://kit.co/ (a service Patreon
         | acquired and later dealt)?
         | 
         | There's also https://satchel.com/ in the B2B SaSS space.
         | 
         | Does anyone think there is a market for a
         | wikipedia/wirecutter/consumerreports-like building tool, for
         | communities to build recommendations by consensus?
        
           | wdencker wrote:
           | I am familiar with both -- as far as I can tell they're both
           | great products in their own right, very focused on their
           | particular niche (Kit for products, Satchel for B2B SaaS).
           | 
           | You can use Trove to create similar things; for instance I
           | have a trove on my recommended WFH setup [1].
           | 
           | Long term, we believe a general-purpose tool may have the
           | most potential. The ability to search for any recommendation,
           | and get back a result that's been vetted (i.e. "starred") by
           | my network would be game changing, IMO. Obviously, we've got
           | a long way to go before we can reach that level of utility.
           | 
           | [1] https://trove.to/wes/trove/the-ultimate-wfh-setup
        
             | basch wrote:
             | I would be interested in what is sort of the inverse of
             | Medium's latest action. I very much disagree with Ev
             | William's statement of "the idea of an imprimatur that
             | establishes credibility or trust. Trust is more important
             | than ever and well-established editorial brands still have
             | meaning. But today, credibility and affinity are primarily
             | built by people -- individual voices -- rather than
             | brands."
             | 
             | What would make your product most valuable to me as both a
             | consumer and a contributor would be a way to establish an
             | aggregate reviews in a specific way, such as by editorial
             | board or brand. A group of reviewers working together. Sort
             | of like a subreddit. Not only being able to sort reviews by
             | author or people I follow, but compare the rankings of the
             | consumer reports team to the wirecutter team (examples of
             | competing review brands.) I want to look at a masthead and
             | trust their overall review quality standards, to find the
             | reviewers I can trust.
             | 
             | A CMS to host reviews is cool. A way to collaborate and
             | build complex team consensus is even better.
        
       | ramoz wrote:
       | A lot of internal knowledge I work with can't be moved to SaaS.
       | 
       | Does anyone know of any open source solutions for similar KB user
       | experience (quality as the first order primitive). COTs are
       | fine... but me and everyone else are already on Sharepoint and
       | that's not going away -- so any solution needs to integrate; at
       | least on the surface... understandably there are
       | indexes/embeddings that need to exist for KB retrieval.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | zanderchase wrote:
       | Awesome product! I really connect with the social & knowledge
       | sharing aspect of the platform that enables a more meaningful way
       | of navigating the web. Are there any plans for expansion into
       | user generated content to expand on the knowledge hub vision?
        
         | wdencker wrote:
         | Thanks for trying it out!
         | 
         | In some sense, we believe we are already a platform oriented
         | around user-generated content--the act of curating and
         | annotating something is itself a medium of expression. But yes,
         | ultimately we would like to allow users to create blocks that
         | are not just URLs (e.g. free-form text, images, audio, and
         | video).
         | 
         | For now, our focus is on nailing the use case of sharing and
         | curating great resources, since we believe they are the
         | critical component of any great knowledge base.
        
       | rglover wrote:
       | This is great. A feature request: screenshots. I've been on the
       | hunt for a way to collect UI snippets and ideas and this is near
       | perfect.
       | 
       | Dig the UI, name, and logo, too. Nice work :)
        
         | wdencker wrote:
         | Thanks for trying it out! The ability to upload your own
         | screenshots / images is on our roadmap. For now, you can still
         | include images hosted elsewhere on the web through standard
         | Markdown syntax.
         | 
         | For example, one trove that does this:
         | https://trove.to/wes/trove/interesting-wikipedia-articles
        
       | betatester123 wrote:
       | Really cool idea-- have you considered adding a chrome extension?
       | It'd be nice to save resources as I browse the web.
        
         | wdencker wrote:
         | Thanks for your comment! In fact, we're working on a Chrome
         | extension now. Beyond just allowing users to save things as
         | they browse, we think there's some other interesting
         | applications--for instance, if I came across a page that
         | someone I follow had in their troves, I could then see their
         | notes / annotations directly in the browser.
         | 
         | Open to suggestions if you have more thoughts on this!
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-03-25 23:01 UTC)