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Use cases

Following are some use cases for Digraph that are being tackled or that might eventually be addressed:

1. Keeping track of personal bookmarks
2. Receiving notifications about new links that have been added to a narrow topic of interest
3. Keeping track of research for a newspaper article
4. Fact-checking statements that have been made in the media
5. Keeping track of research for an academic paper
6. Finding reading material for a new topic of personal interest
7. Keeping track of research for a legal proceeding

Use case: Keeping track of personal bookmarks

Under development

I'm someone who reads a lot of long-form journalism. I also visit sites like Hacker News and Reddit periodically throughout the day while I'm waiting for on something at work, but I don't have time to do more than skim the articles at that point. I value recommendations of others more than simply searching for and finding things in Google, and I appreciate how easy it is to lose track of a recommendation. So I'd like to be able to save these links so that I can come back to them later on, perhaps in the evening, or over the weekend, or maybe months later, and finally read the article or blog post that I didn't have time to read at the time that I came across it.

Because I occasionally engage in technical discussions on the Internet, I'd also like to be able to get back to things I've read in the past so that I can review them for specific details that I might not be remembering correctly. Looking through the browser bookmark history can take a long time, and even if I find something, it can be easy to lose again and may be like finding a needle in a haystack. Ideally it wouldn't be that hard to get back to things I've read in the past, and having a sense of what the topic was about and remembering one or two identifying details would be enough to quickly get back to whatever it was that I had read.

It might not be obvious right now whether a link will be of interest for some reason later on, so I don't want to have to put too much effort into evaluating whether I want to add it to the system. I'd like to be able to just plunk it in without having to think about things. But I also don't want it to clutter things up later on when I'm looking through links in the same general area.

Use case: Receiving notifications about a narrow topic of interest

I'm a regular reader of Reddit and Hacker News, which I follow in order to keep tabs on technical subjects of interest. But I'm not interested in everything that is submitted. It would be nice to be able to receive notifications when links are submitted to relatively narrow topics of interest — remote work, postgres, Golang, social media moderation, etc.

Use case: Keeping track of research for a newspaper article

I'm (hypothetically) carrying out research for an article that will be published in a publication like the New Yorker, Vox, the Guardian or the New York Times. There's a million details that I'm going to need to keep track of, much of them online, and I'd like a way to arrange that information in the specific context of the article that is being written. Sometimes links that would not be of general interest, e.g., links to spam sites and content mills, might be relevant to what I'm writing, so even though they won't show up in general searches, I'll still be able to get back to everything I gathered and organized for the article. The article is something that will eventually be published and so is a project of limited duration.

I'll need to be able to provide support for each statement in the article, so I'll want a way to arrange all of the details I've gathered according to individual statements and claims that will be made in the article:

• Statement: so and so was present in May when the decision was made
  • Source 1 [supports]
  • Source 2 [neutral/context]
  • Source 3 [contradicts]
  • Source 4 [contradicts]

Use case: Fact-checking statements that have been made in the media

I'm (hypothetically) analyzing each statement made by a public figure and determining whether there is support for the statement, or whether there is information that contradicts the statement. I will be presenting the conclusions online. I will gather much more than I'll want to present, but I'll want to keep everything around for later reference if needed. (This use case is similar to the newspaper article one.)

Use case: Keeping track of research for an academic paper

I'm (hypothetically) carrying out research for an article that will be published in an academic journal. In addition to all of the above, I'll need to be able to generate a bibliography with sources formatted for a specific journal reference style. Research for each such article that I carry out is a project of limited duration.

Use case: Finding reading material for a new topic of personal interest

I'm a layman interested in learning about a niche topic I've just heard about. I can consult the Wikipedia article, but I'd also like to browse through a list of relevant newspaper and journal articles that are relevant to the topic. I'd like the list of sources to consult to be more curated than a web search and less curated than the sources that can be referenced in the Wikipedia article, and I'd like to be able to adjust the filters that apply to what is shown to be more or less permissive, depending on how much time and energy I have.

Use case: Keeping track of research for a legal proceeding

I'm a (hypothetical) lawyer, and I'd like to collect together research on a legal proceeding, such as a defense for an individual or organization that has been sued. I'm going to need to organize and cross reference numerous legal authorities in addition to other sources and possibly put together a chronology of events.