Maybe we could test that. Does LessWrong keep non-anonymous access logs? If so, we may be able to (approximately?) reconstruct access patterns over the weeks/months/years by unique user. We could know:
What are the first reads of newcomers?
What are typical orders of reading?
Does reading stops, when, and where?
For instance, if we find that people that start by the quantum mechanic sequence tend to leave more often than the others, then it is probably a good idea to segregate it in a separate volume. It would at least signal that the author knows this is advanced or controversial.
Google has a term for pages that people come in on: “landing pages”. Basically, it can tell whether someone got to the page from clicking an external link / advertisement or by using a search engine—or whether they clicked a link from within the same site.
“Timeless Physics” is in the 50 most popular landing pages and so is “An intuitive explanation of quantum mechanics” (though it is not a sequence). I am not seeing any pattern to the topics that people prefer in these landing pages. I can tell you this though, all the top 50 landing pages have terrible bounce rates (meaning people leave the site without clicking further), usually 80% or 90%.
“What are typical orders of reading?”
Analytics has something like this, but it’s not specific to the sequences, so it basically shows people coming in on the main page, checking out discussions or maybe an article, going to the user sections or discussions or maybe a different article, and so on. It’s not really useful for figuring this out.
“Does reading stops, when, and where?”
Everywhere. Most of the pages I’ve seen on there have an 80% or 90% bounce rate. The question here is what pages do they NOT quit reading on?
restricts the analytics view to landing pages with < 60% bounce rate and orders them by total visits
Well, look at that. “The Quantum Physics Sequence” is the first sequence page in the list. The next piece of writing is “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” which has a somewhat lower bounce rate but not nearly as many visits.
Maybe we could test that. Does LessWrong keep non-anonymous access logs? If so, we may be able to (approximately?) reconstruct access patterns over the weeks/months/years by unique user. We could know:
What are the first reads of newcomers?
What are typical orders of reading?
Does reading stops, when, and where?
For instance, if we find that people that start by the quantum mechanic sequence tend to leave more often than the others, then it is probably a good idea to segregate it in a separate volume. It would at least signal that the author knows this is advanced or controversial.
From Google analytics:
Google has a term for pages that people come in on: “landing pages”. Basically, it can tell whether someone got to the page from clicking an external link / advertisement or by using a search engine—or whether they clicked a link from within the same site.
“Timeless Physics” is in the 50 most popular landing pages and so is “An intuitive explanation of quantum mechanics” (though it is not a sequence). I am not seeing any pattern to the topics that people prefer in these landing pages. I can tell you this though, all the top 50 landing pages have terrible bounce rates (meaning people leave the site without clicking further), usually 80% or 90%.
“What are typical orders of reading?”
Analytics has something like this, but it’s not specific to the sequences, so it basically shows people coming in on the main page, checking out discussions or maybe an article, going to the user sections or discussions or maybe a different article, and so on. It’s not really useful for figuring this out.
“Does reading stops, when, and where?”
Everywhere. Most of the pages I’ve seen on there have an 80% or 90% bounce rate. The question here is what pages do they NOT quit reading on?
restricts the analytics view to landing pages with < 60% bounce rate and orders them by total visits
Well, look at that. “The Quantum Physics Sequence” is the first sequence page in the list. The next piece of writing is “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” which has a somewhat lower bounce rate but not nearly as many visits.