The LWN public topics list [LWN.net]

Part of running LWN is keeping a list of potentially interesting topics that may merit the effort to turn into articles. As an experiment, we are now exposing that list to our subscribers at the Project Leader and Supporter levels. The hope is that this list will provide useful insights into what is on our radar and which might be coming to LWN in the near future.

With this feature, we hope to give our most committed subscribers a look behind the curtain and the ability to provide input on the topics they are most interested in reading about. There, is, thus, a simple voting mechanism built into this list. No topic will be chosen (or rejected) solely on the basis of votes; there are a lot of considerations that go into topic selection, and that will not change. But more information about where our readers' interests lie will, hopefully, be helpful.

For all readers: we are always happy to welcome topic suggestions sent to lwn@lwn.net.

to post comments

Add it to the menu?

Posted Jun 16, 2026 21:25 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

Uhh.... Perhaps you should add the topic voting list to the left sidebar menu?

Add it to the menu?

Posted Jun 16, 2026 21:34 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Already suggested internally, it will happen soon, along with a few other fixes.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 10:13 UTC (Wed) by bjackman (subscriber, #109548) [Link] (6 responses)

The page currently says "this feature requires an LWN subscription at the Project Leader level."

I am not actually sure what level my subscription is (I have it via an employer group subscription) so maybe it's WAI that I don't have access, but the error message seems to be wrong.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 10:36 UTC (Wed) by ojeda (subscriber, #143370) [Link] (5 responses)

Yeah, we also had the same question from a couple Rust for Linux folks that have group subscriptions via their employer -- apparently https://lwn.net/subscribe/ doesn't show the effective level.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 13:14 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (4 responses)

Almost all group subscriptions are at the "professional hacker" level. We do offer group subscriptions at the "project leader" level, but almost none of those actually exist — perhaps because we never quite got around to actually trying to sell them.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 15:31 UTC (Wed) by hailfinger (subscriber, #76962) [Link] (3 responses)

I am enjoying a group subscription at "project leader" level, so it certainly is possible. IIRC you can send an email to Jon to get the level (and the invoice) adjusted for the whole group, but the public documentation (pricing, how to order) is very sparse.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 15:39 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

The best place to send subscription-related questions is subs@lwn.net — somebody is always paying attention to that address.

And yes, we have promoted the project-leader option poorly, definitely something to fix.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 16:12 UTC (Wed) by hailfinger (subscriber, #76962) [Link] (1 responses)

With the new topic list feature available at project-leader level and above, it might also be easier to justify an upgrade of the subscription in a corporate environment.

Level requirements

Posted Jun 17, 2026 17:32 UTC (Wed) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link]

That's one of the tensions that we have put a lot of thought into navigating. On the one hand, we want people to be able to read our articles and learn from them. On the other hand, we need money to continue to operate.

When we come up with new ideas for features and projects, we go through a lot of discussion trying to figure out where they sit in that balance, including whether they might justify bigger purchases from corporate and group subscribers.

Other Sites Do Upvotes Already

Posted Jun 17, 2026 10:54 UTC (Wed) by ryanduve (subscriber, #127786) [Link] (2 responses)

One of my favorite things about LWN compared to the crustacean site (the successor to the orange/red sites) is the quality that goes into topic selection. Crowd-sourced upvoting raises articles to prominence elsewhere: I come to LWN to read about things I wouldn't have thought interesting from the headline/topic.

Did the editors consider how an upvote system will affect that topic-selection aspect of LWN and whether it will regress to that of aggregators?

Other Sites Do Upvotes Already

Posted Jun 17, 2026 12:35 UTC (Wed) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link]

We've spent a lot of time discussing this internally. It's not going to replace our usual topic-selection process, so much as enhance it (we hope, anyway).

Any topic that appears on the list is something we're already considering, but we have only so many editors and hours in the week to cover all the topics we would like to cover. Letting subscribers vote on (some of) the topics means that we might prioritize one over another when we're deciding "do I write about A or B?" but it shouldn't cause a regression in the quality of topics. It also might help us decide, say, to look for a guest author for a topic.

There are some topics we're likely to write about regardless, and some of those may not even surface to the topic list at all. There are always going to be topics we cover regardless because we feel they're too important, too interesting, or just because we feel compelled to write about them.

Other Sites Do Upvotes Already

Posted Jun 17, 2026 13:27 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

To reiterate what Joe said: we have no intention of giving up our control over topic selection. Those choices will still be made by humans, who still have to go and write the articles. The voting will be, we hope, a valuable source of information on what our readers are interested in, but it will not replace our own judgment.

Writing for the future

Posted Jun 19, 2026 10:45 UTC (Fri) by chris_se (subscriber, #99706) [Link] (1 responses)

What I'm a bit torn about here is that I'm not necessarily interested in some of the topics _right now_, but they might be very useful in the future.

To give an example, I'm not especially interested in e.g. the "allocation tokens" article at this point in time (this currently has the lowest upvotes), and I might not even read it if you choose to write it and it comes out. But back when I was doing some driver development, various articles on LWN were _invaluable_ to help me understand different parts of the kernel. I was already subscribed to LWN when they were initially published, but I most likely didn't read them back when they came out, but when I actually needed to have some information regarding specific subsystems or APIs, I don't know how long it would have taken me to understand those without those articles being available online.

For this reason I'm glad you said that you still want to keep the ultimate decision on what you want to publish in your own hands. Because otherwise we might lose part of what makes LWN a fantastic resource.

For my part, even though I'm allowed to, I'll mostly refrain from voting on topics unless I see one I vehemently want to see happen.

Writing for the future

Posted Jun 19, 2026 13:18 UTC (Fri) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link]

The problem that this feature is intended to solve, from our point of view, is that we have relatively little insight into which article topics do actually motivate people to subscribe. Unlike other publications, we don't track what people are reading before they decide to subscribe, so we don't have that signal. We _do_ look at whether older articles are being referenced far past their publication date, though, since that's a sign that they're valuable in the long term. Also the volume of subscriber links created.

By letting people look at our topic list, we're hoping to get another signal to integrate into our existing editorial decision making — one particularly suited to saving marginal topics that wouldn't otherwise be covered from the dustbin of history.

> For my part, even though I'm allowed to, I'll mostly refrain from voting on topics unless I see one I vehemently want to see happen.

So, that is exactly what we are hoping for. If we see that one of the topics that we weren't prioritizing has gotten a number of votes, that's a strong hint that we should cover it.