The main distinguishing feature of OurBigBook from other scientific publishing methods is mind-melding via topics.
It is perfectly possible to use OurBigBook without ever targeting mind meld, and we want to make that use case as awesome as we can.
There are many methods for people to publish their scientific knowledge online, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but we believe that mind-melding is essential for a project to be able to truly take off.
OurBigBook seeks to pick the best of each of those methods, while also adding the mild-melding aspect on top, which we believe to be so transformative.
Types typically non-mind-melding systems include:
- note taking software
- personal knowledge base software
- putting PDFs on a university FTP servers (a classic!)
- blogs
OurBigBook is essentially a note taking software with mind-melding added on top of it.
Some noteworthy non-mind-meld software include:
- Forester: this software comes the closest in initial design philosophy to OurBigBook, with a native plaintext format and scientific focus
- Trillium Notes: amazing local WYSIWYG note taking app with a bug table of contents. Also has a web version even!