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Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

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Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

#1

Post by kadhirvelm »

With code coming in faster and faster, we've been losing track of context, what's out of date, the source of truth, etc. Also with individuals spending less and less time on any one problem, finding an expert to answer questions has become challenging. People don't have that single domain of expertise like we used to. There's too much surface area to cover.

Are we the only ones dealing with this? How's everyone else handling it?

Re: Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

#5

Post by toomuchtodo »

kadhirvelm wrote: post #4
toomuchtodo wrote: post #2

Confluence, Notion, Wikis, etc.

Do you all rely on people writing things down as they go? or do you have some automated system?

People. Time is carved out for both documentation and its review, like a PR review. Otherwise, how would you trust what is being documented? A human must remain in the loop if accuracy is a component of success criteria for organization documentation. I say this familiar with Karpathy's LLM Wiki pattern.

Re: Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

#7

Post by Tadace »

We still make sure to maintain a healthy directory and "backlinks". And as soon as new updates are in, we have someone on the team dedicated to clarifying changes and updating the Wiki - Confluence pages, Notion, which are adequately linked to tickets and shared drives where necessary.

This way, new and updated context is not lost on the next user.

Re: Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

#8

Post by andyjohnson0 »

> How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

In my experience:

1. Well meaning people try to build wikis/confluences/whatever that turn into backwaters of slowly rotting stuff

2. Beyond a certain extent that they can hold in their heads, most other people give up.

3. Some people hoard knowledge and use it for personal advantage.

I dont know what the solution is. Maybe an ai that reads every chat and email and commit - and builds some kind of browsable, queryable, executable knowledge trove.

Re: Ask HN: How do people keep track of organizational knowledge?

#9

Post by kadhirvelm »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #8

> How do people keep track of organizational knowledge? In my experience: 1. Well meaning people try to build wikis/confluences/whatever that turn into backwaters of slowly rotting stuff 2. Beyond a certain extent that they can hold in their heads, most other people give up. 3. Some people hoard knowledge and use it for personal advantage. I dont know what the solution is. Maybe an ai that reads every chat and email…

Do you think having an AI do that is 1) possible and 2) people will like that? Seems really invasive, no?
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