My recent posts have ~3,000 views, even technical, academic posts. My old posts have around 100-200 views.
One reason is that there are many more old posts. People have limited appetite for Huemer each week. They get my most recent post in their inbox, so they read that first. If they want more, they might go to the list of past posts, starting from the first ones listed (which are the most recent). Since there are hundreds of old posts, it's unlikely that they'll get very far down the list before getting tired of my blabbing.
When I start to read a blog or listen to a podcast or play a video game series or watch a TV show, I usually start at the beginning. I guess it‘s partly my OCD and completionism lol.
Novelty bias might make readers want to be among the first to enjoy those crisp, clean sheets. Old articles are used articles. And time constraints make it hard enough to keep up with new material. I feel uneasy about even reading my own old pieces. It's all irrational but there it is.
If I want to read an old article I tend to use the search function, either because I know what I'm looking for or want to see if you (or another author) have written on some topic. I'll also read them if there's a clear sequence to some writings (debate drama, exchanges with other writers), where I go back to a reasonable starting point. If you had an archive page that was just a list of all your articles sorted by broad topic, that would be a big improvement on the current Archive page. Religiously tag articles with said broad topics.
In short, you can't get worse than the stock archive page. It's useful for checking a out a new substack quickly with Top, but the other two options are pretty useless. Take it for what it's worth; I'm a guy who thinks Drudge Report has great web design.
Many personal sites and blogs create a "Start here" page, to capture historical popular, timeless, "best", etc posts — importantly, as chosen by the author. I find these incredibly helpful, because the amount of content from prolific writers can be overwhelming.
Imagine discovering Ribbonfarm today. Their "For New Readers" page is the only reasonable way to start to approach the ideas.
Substack should have the same, either built into the product, or by convention (like your utilitarianism compilation). "Top" is skewed by newsletters getting more popular over time, so always has a recency bias unless the readership is steady.
I try to self-reference/self-cite a lot.
My recent posts have ~3,000 views, even technical, academic posts. My old posts have around 100-200 views.
One reason is that there are many more old posts. People have limited appetite for Huemer each week. They get my most recent post in their inbox, so they read that first. If they want more, they might go to the list of past posts, starting from the first ones listed (which are the most recent). Since there are hundreds of old posts, it's unlikely that they'll get very far down the list before getting tired of my blabbing.
When I start to read a blog or listen to a podcast or play a video game series or watch a TV show, I usually start at the beginning. I guess it‘s partly my OCD and completionism lol.
Novelty bias might make readers want to be among the first to enjoy those crisp, clean sheets. Old articles are used articles. And time constraints make it hard enough to keep up with new material. I feel uneasy about even reading my own old pieces. It's all irrational but there it is.
If I want to read an old article I tend to use the search function, either because I know what I'm looking for or want to see if you (or another author) have written on some topic. I'll also read them if there's a clear sequence to some writings (debate drama, exchanges with other writers), where I go back to a reasonable starting point. If you had an archive page that was just a list of all your articles sorted by broad topic, that would be a big improvement on the current Archive page. Religiously tag articles with said broad topics.
In short, you can't get worse than the stock archive page. It's useful for checking a out a new substack quickly with Top, but the other two options are pretty useless. Take it for what it's worth; I'm a guy who thinks Drudge Report has great web design.
Many personal sites and blogs create a "Start here" page, to capture historical popular, timeless, "best", etc posts — importantly, as chosen by the author. I find these incredibly helpful, because the amount of content from prolific writers can be overwhelming.
Imagine discovering Ribbonfarm today. Their "For New Readers" page is the only reasonable way to start to approach the ideas.
Substack should have the same, either built into the product, or by convention (like your utilitarianism compilation). "Top" is skewed by newsletters getting more popular over time, so always has a recency bias unless the readership is steady.