CLOSED: [2023-03-20 Mon 20:50] :PROPERTIES: :CREATED: [2023-03-20 Mon 20:09] :ID: 2023-03-20-generic-file-hierarchy :END: :LOGBOOK: - State "DONE" from "TODO" [2023-03-20 Mon 20:50] :END: First, let's define what I'm writing about. With a "generic folder hierarchy convention" I do refer to a directory or folder hierarchy most likely within your personal home directory on your computer that aims at a large set of people and not just your situations. Disclaimer: I'm not writing here about shared folder hierarchies among multiple people like in a typical business scenario. Here, [[id:2021-01-03-company-file-management][a good design of a folder hierarchy is key]] if multiple persons need to work together. But that's a different topic. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Documents][One of the most widely used examples]] in personal folder templates is "My Documents" by Microsoft: - HOME - Documents - Pictures - Music - Videos While it's a default for all Windows machines, it's still a very bad idea to follow that pattern [[id:2014-05-09-managing-digital-photographs][as I've already described in this article]]. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/datacurator/][Many times, I've seen people trying to come up with a "new" standard of filing stuff in a strict hierarchy]]. I don't think that this is necessary and I don't think that there is a good solution at all and this is why. *** It's Too Much Effort If there is no clear benefit to get from a generic file hierarchy convention, any additional effort can not be justified. Creating a new convention that fits all people's requirements is big effort. *** Almost Nobody Cares I doubt that this is something most people are waiting for. Most people don't care at all. And those people who do care will have good arguments against this generic hierarchy because they have their own idea how that should look like. *** It's Not Static I've carefully created requirement analysis spreadsheets, prioritized my requirements accordingly, derived multiple well-thought hierarchy variations, tested it and every single time, I failed. Even worse: I've did that very same procedure multiple times. And I failed every time although each time, I thought that I've learned much since the last approach and this time, I'll get it right. So this seems to be a task that has a high chance of failing for somebody who takes his time, thinks quite carefully, has a perfect overview on the requirements at hand, reads a lot of papers about this stuff, discusses with peers about those issues, and still this seems to be an impossible task to accomplish - at least for mid- to long-term perspective. One of the reasons why all of my hierarchies failed was that even though I came up with a perfectly valid nested hierarchy, my world changed. My focus shifted. A minor sub-hierarchy of my hierarchy got much more important over time. Large parts that were designed to great details got less important over time. It's not a task that is static. So why should anybody be able to solve the issue for everybody using one single, static hierarchy standard? *** There's No One Size Fits All All hierarchy conventions I've seen are really bad in the context of being applied to an arbitrary general situation. Really all of them. Worst of all: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification][Dewey Decimal Classification]]. Big time. Your mental model differs from any other individual and even your future self has a different one. [[id:2018-07-22-folder-hierarchy][Here is my folder hierarchy and I know that you won't agree on every aspect]]. There is no "one size fits all" here and I doubt that there is need for that. Because of [[id:2017-04-18-classification][logical disjunct categories aren't working]], *any* hierarchy is bound to fail independent how it's designed. You give me a hierarchy, I give you examples where it fails because it's ambiguous for some reason. *** It's All Good, Man! So what to do? After all, [[id:2018-08-25-deskop-metaphor][our "modern" computers do require filing in a hierarchy of folders]] as long as [[id:2020-09-29-cloud-data-conditions][you don't gave up your privacy (and more) and moved to some fancy cloud file management]]. Don't laugh to hard: [[id:2021-09-24-unlearning-PIM-concepts][young users no longer know how to file and navigate]]. You need to come up with a simple, almost minimal hierarchy that matches your current mental model of your brain. Key is to find a hierarchy that works for you (alone), which is flexible to extend or change. Then you include multiple technologies for managing files such as desktop search, [[id:2014-05-09-managing-digital-photographs][TagTrees]], links (a workaround for connecting two different paths), curating a [[id:2018-01-26-orgmode][great knowledge management]] that [[id:2022-02-10-lfile][easily links files independent of their storage location]], ... methods like that are fun since they help overcome some boundaries and also do provide ways of getting more independent of your file system hierarchy. [[id:tags-pim][With a little bit of workarounds and technological helpers]], you may survive our stone-age of computing and with a bit of a luck, [[id:2017-02-10-evolution-of-systems][we may someday see totally different types of computers]] - but not from megacorps dominating our market nowadays. A very similar article of mine with different angles: [[id:2020-01-25-avoid-complex-folder-hierarchies][Don't Do Complex Folder Hierarchies - They Don't Work and This Is Why and What to Do Instead]].