If, as you say, the main audience for papers written by SIAI is through SIAI’s website and not through the journals themselves, why spend the time and expense and hassle to write them up in journal form? Why not just publish them directly on the site, in (probably) a much more readable format?
I imagine that some academics would be more willing to read a paper from the website if it is also published in a journal, especially if they are writing their own journal articles in which they would prefer to cite a journal article to a paper published on a website.
they would prefer to cite a journal article to a paper published on a website.
This. Once our ideas enter the academic memespace, they may continue to live independently there. The difficult part is crossing the boundary, but it only has to be done once.
I imagine that some academics would be more willing to read a paper from the website if it is also published in a journal, especially if they are writing their own journal articles in which they would prefer to cite a journal article to a paper published on a website.
This. Once our ideas enter the academic memespace, they may continue to live independently there. The difficult part is crossing the boundary, but it only has to be done once.