Since everything is open source and I can't run ads or add any sponsored content, the only way to support it is through Patreon. I think it is a pretty cool idea and solves a big problem of not knowing how how best to start learning a topic or what learning some topic X is.
> Since everything is open source and I can't run ads or add any sponsored content, the only way to support it is through Patreon. I think it is a pretty cool idea and solves a big problem of not knowing how how best to start learning a topic or what learning some topic X is.
How so? There is nothing in the open source model that prohibits this. Is it because it because you feel that the type of people who are interested in open source will get angry if you have ads?
Yeah, I think ads can't really work well in our search + most users run adblocks already. We are still experimenting with ways we can monetise this project however in a way that doesn't reduce the value and quality of the product.
Can you make the CTA-Button (call-to-action) more visible?
I haven't edited links, but would you consider making editing/moderation similar/better than wikipedia?
What about import/export, that would be a killer feature and allow you to keep your site closed-source, but make FOSS clients that asynchronously add/receive benefit.
I always wanted to create a search engine that allowed a person to linearly progress his learning and visualise everything in a way that makes sense. Representing information in this way is incredibly beneficial as it allows to cover any knowledge dependencies a person might have.
This way there should be no time wasted in finding the resources that are needed and allows the person to just learn.
Everything is open source and all maps can be improved by the community in case there is a better way to learn the topic or there exists some useful resource to aid learning of the topic.
I hope you like it. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.
We might add it so links open in a new tab. However I do like how it is now (it is the same as Google). The search engine is just there to get to the resource you need as fast as possible. If you want to open the link in the new tab, you can command + click. :)
I am really happy you are liking this search already. The most exciting things are yet to come.
The search engine for this mind map is in works and will essentially do what you have described. User types a query and it will jump to the correct place in the mind map.
If you want to help create it, please do. There is a slack group for the project.
If you do consider adding and improving this mind map, it would be amazing. Thank you for that. I want it to be a collaborative process where anyone can come in and propose a change.
Author here. I was greatly inspired by this website. It was my goal to actually combine metacademy's idea of solving the dependency problems of knowledge and do it in a similar way but visually.
But how do you choose which resources (books, articles, courses..) to include? Is it performed algorithmically or by hand? I was working on the similar project (dependency trees for concepts) and the biggest roadblock I faced was the addition of new resources, since it is laborious, doesn't scale well and is pretty subjective.
Currently the entirety of the mind map was hand picked and curated by me. I did use the internet a lot though as there are quite many threads online that have recommendations on what the 'best ways of learning X' is.
I also try to ask help from other people, ideally experts in their fields on how to best structure the content. Mathematics one is quite challenging just because everything is really so connected as far as ideas go.
I hope as this projects gets popular, more people will be willing to help and improve it. It is a collaborative process after all.
I've had pretty good success crowdsourcing recommendations for https://www.findlectures.com by asking offering a weekly email of talks, and prompting people for recommended speakers / conferences on sign-up.
I have a separate form on the site to get suggestions, but the email signup one has better quality because it weed out people who want to spam the site with their own content.
Hey Gary, I love what you have done with find lectures. I use it quite often actually to find material. I am thinking of perhaps making a newsletter for this project saying 'what is new' in the mind map. What do you think?
By the way, while researching about Metacademy I have stumbled upon their developer group[0] where they were discussing challenges they were facing, thought you may find it useful. Good luck!
[0] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/metacademy-dev
I do agree with you that mind maps have their flaws and limitations. But I found most curated list and most content in general to be quite rigid in structure. These mind maps should let the users explore and be guided through arrows.
And the big problem that I find is that google and other search engines are a black box. You have to know what you want to ask for to get an answer. The poses a big problem because many don't know what to ask.
Wikipedia is great too but I found it to lack in the visualisation aspect. Everything is connected but many people don't know exactly how and where and with what it is connected. These kinds of visualisations are very popular on the internet (https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap is one example) because they do bring clarity as to what it is the person doesn't know. However this repository although great, it just shows an image.
With these mind maps I can replicate the same but make it interactive. Now users can not only see what they don't know, but if they do want to learn it, they don't have to waste time online finding resources, they just click on a link and see what the best way of learning the topic is. If any questions arise when they are learning the content, then the search engine of their choice will answer these questions.
I also try to solve the problem of dependencies of knowledge. For example if user wants to learn 'machine learning'. I show that machine learning requires knowledge of statistics and linear algebra (http://i.imgur.com/A75JMNt.png) and then give links to the mind maps of both of these topics so user can learn them. There should be no wandering around and wasting time finding resources and being lost.
I find the most valuable point is the last: whereas, sure, you can go on wikipedia and find dependencies of an area of knowledge, that three of prerequisites makes more sense to be presented as a flow converging on a point, rather than having to dig deeper until you find a node you already understand.
A suggestion for your product: build these dependency graphs automatically, and let users mark subjects as already satisfied. That way you can omit digging into dependencies that are satisfied. If you really want to be righteous, recursively mark the dependencies of the satisfied dependency as also satisfied. That way a user can pick a topic and find everything that still remains to learn to get to that point.
And you can have the best of both worlds. Generating a linear progression of things to learn becomes a simple matter of printing the dependency tree in postorder.
You can also think of this project as an index of links similar to what Google has. Only instead, the index is human curated and it is an open canvas that all can explore.
Have you explored taking links from Wikipedia and adding them into your visualization? It might be interesting considering most articles have resources at the bottom.
I do link to wikipedia articles on nearly all nodes. I just expand it with more learning resources after. I think wikipedia is always a great starting point for learning about any subject. Or you meant something else?
Oh I see. I think something like this has been done before and the results are usually messy. Although I do want to use algorithms and curate things in a more 'smart' way that I do now. A bonus point of doing it by hand is that I take in the time to understand the topic for myself and actually understand why that node goes there and not in some other place.
https://learn-anything.xyz/
Since everything is open source and I can't run ads or add any sponsored content, the only way to support it is through Patreon. I think it is a pretty cool idea and solves a big problem of not knowing how how best to start learning a topic or what learning some topic X is.
I hope people will find it useful.