My own biggest annoyance, after discovering this site last summer and delving into the Sequences, is that it was often very difficult to figure out which post came next.
Finding dependencies was easy — even when there isn’t an explicit “Follows:” tag at the start, Eliezer’s generosity of hyperlinks meant that I could quickly assemble a screenful of tabs — but whenever I finished a particularly exciting post, especially one I’d reached on the third hyperlink down, I didn’t know how to find its follow-up. Early on, I didn’t even know how to guess which Sequence it was part of.
By now I know about the “all posts by year” lists, but as a newbie I couldn’t find them. And if I had found them, I wouldn’t have known which posts were relevant from their titles alone. I’d have used a naïve all-Eliezer-all-the-time heuristic, and assembled the same list that you’re intelligently avoiding.
And … honestly … even if there were a single, coherent, easy to find, chronological list of all Sequence posts … the act of going there, looking up the blog I just finished, and visiting the one beneath it is just the sort of trivial inconvenience that discourages new readers. It’s easy, but it’s not obvious. We can make it easier.
So as long as we’re re-running the Sequences from a template — could there please be a “next” button?
It looks like the Article Navigation only works on the main page, though, and not in the discussion section. The links all take me to posts on the main page, and the sequence_reruns buttons are grayed out since the only posts with that tag are in the discussion section.
Well, perhaps this answers Yvain’s question on the thread above: if we link to the original post, instead of quoting it, then its “next” buttons will work….
My own biggest annoyance, after discovering this site last summer and delving into the Sequences, is that it was often very difficult to figure out which post came next.
Finding dependencies was easy — even when there isn’t an explicit “Follows:” tag at the start, Eliezer’s generosity of hyperlinks meant that I could quickly assemble a screenful of tabs — but whenever I finished a particularly exciting post, especially one I’d reached on the third hyperlink down, I didn’t know how to find its follow-up. Early on, I didn’t even know how to guess which Sequence it was part of.
By now I know about the “all posts by year” lists, but as a newbie I couldn’t find them. And if I had found them, I wouldn’t have known which posts were relevant from their titles alone. I’d have used a naïve all-Eliezer-all-the-time heuristic, and assembled the same list that you’re intelligently avoiding.
And … honestly … even if there were a single, coherent, easy to find, chronological list of all Sequence posts … the act of going there, looking up the blog I just finished, and visiting the one beneath it is just the sort of trivial inconvenience that discourages new readers. It’s easy, but it’s not obvious. We can make it easier.
So as long as we’re re-running the Sequences from a template — could there please be a “next” button?
There is a next button… but you have to click Article Navigation to find it. It’ll take you to the next post in each tag.
Hmm, that should probably be made more prominent and easier to find.
Well, how embarrassing. Ten months of lurking and I still hadn’t noticed that for myself. Thank you!
It was introduced quietly and it’s not very well telegraphed.
Thanks! I hadn’t known about that.
It looks like the Article Navigation only works on the main page, though, and not in the discussion section. The links all take me to posts on the main page, and the sequence_reruns buttons are grayed out since the only posts with that tag are in the discussion section.
Oh dear. I’m sorry, I should probably have tried it on the rerun tag before commenting.
Well, perhaps this answers Yvain’s question on the thread above: if we link to the original post, instead of quoting it, then its “next” buttons will work….
Blagh, you just revolutionized my sequences reading experience. Amazing! I’ve had the exact same problem. Many thanks!