4 ms·

Loved the post. I just signed up for the newsletter so that I'll get more of these pushed to my inbox in the future. Patrick: do you think it's a good idea to

Loved the post. I just signed up for the newsletter so that I'll get more of these pushed to my inbox in the future. Patrick: do you think it's a good idea to add a date of publication to your articles? Most people wouldn't care, but I found myself trying to find it to see how current the content was.

patio11 13y ago
No, in fact I think this would be a terrible idea, because if I put 6/21/2007 people would perceived it to be sharply less valuable without changing a single word of the article or a fact about reality as it exists in 2013. Dating it is just asking people to discount my advice after a 48 hour window from publication.
- dennisgorelik 13y ago
  No. Date of writing article adds brief, but important piece of information about that article. Date is very helpful in digesting article (by putting it in context). If you make it harder to digest your articles - you directly subtract it from your karma.
wikwocket 13y ago
I agree with you that as a reader, often a publication date would be useful information. However, from the point of view of the publisher, it's often better to publish 'evergreen' content, that is always maximally valuable to visitors, and to the publisher (advertising, personal branding, authority-building, etc). So if you're trying to do anything like that, it may be best to leave off dates. And as Patrick says, the advice in this post would have been useful 5 years ago, and will probably be useful 10-20 years hence. If you're going for evergreen content, you can write in such a way too. I believe Isaac Asimov mentioned this one time. I think he had mentioned an athlete's name in a story, and said that he regretted it, because in a few years no one would remember the athlete, but otherwise his story would still be relevant.

4 ms·

Loved the post. I just signed up for the newsletter so that I'll get more of these pushed to my inbox in the future. Patrick: do you think it's a good idea to

by ValentineC 13y ago

patio11 13y ago
No, in fact I think this would be a terrible idea, because if I put 6/21/2007 people would perceived it to be sharply less valuable without changing a single word of the article or a fact about reality as it exists in 2013. Dating it is just asking people to discount my advice after a 48 hour window from publication.
- dennisgorelik 13y ago
  No. Date of writing article adds brief, but important piece of information about that article. Date is very helpful in digesting article (by putting it in context). If you make it harder to digest your articles - you directly subtract it from your karma.
wikwocket 13y ago
I agree with you that as a reader, often a publication date would be useful information. However, from the point of view of the publisher, it's often better to publish 'evergreen' content, that is always maximally valuable to visitors, and to the publisher (advertising, personal branding, authority-building, etc). So if you're trying to do anything like that, it may be best to leave off dates. And as Patrick says, the advice in this post would have been useful 5 years ago, and will probably be useful 10-20 years hence. If you're going for evergreen content, you can write in such a way too. I believe Isaac Asimov mentioned this one time. I think he had mentioned an athlete's name in a story, and said that he regretted it, because in a few years no one would remember the athlete, but otherwise his story would still be relevant.