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v0.16.0 — See who's reading
See how many people are reading, and which sources earn their keep.
The bottom of every topic page now shows its readers: "Viewers: 4" and "Followers: 27". A viewer is anyone who opened
the topic, signed in or not, and every topic counts its owner. The numbers update about once a minute while the page is
open, and a number flashes when it changes.
Every podcast episode page counts its listeners the same way. A listener played the podcast episode here, or downloaded
it in a podcast app.
The counts start from the readers CarlNotes already knew: each topic's owner and followers, everyone who opened its
findings, and everyone signed in who played a podcast episode.
Each brew now shows which sources paid off. Open a brew's recap from the Brew diary, and under Carl's notes, Source
notes charts what each source read and what Carl kept from it. A source that reads plenty and keeps nothing is the
first one to drop. Hover or tap a source for its details: what it read and kept, and how long it took. The topic's owner
also sees what each source cost and why one failed.
A brew's read count now also includes the earlier findings Carl reads again, such as after you edit the prompt. They
show as Earlier brew findings, the last row of Source notes.
If you can edit the topic, the trash icon in a source's open row removes that source after you confirm. Web search turns
off only in the topic editor, and a topic keeps at least one source.
Trending now means most read. On a topic page and on the homepage, Trending orders findings by how many signed-in
people opened them, and the newest wins a tie. Your bookmarks stay on top. On the homepage, Trending also orders the
topics in each section by viewers, then followers, then their newest finding. Featured topics keep their order.
Trending used to rank findings by a score taken from Reddit upvotes and from likes on X and Bluesky. That score measured
those sites, not CarlNotes, and nobody could say why one finding beat another. It's gone, and Carl no longer records it
when he brews.
The counts keep no record of who you are. Carl adds a signed-in person's account id, or a signed-out visitor's one-way
keyed hash of their IP address and browser, to an approximate counter. The counter can't be turned back into an
address, and nothing is stored on your device. Each person counts once, all time, however often they come back. The
privacy page says so under Viewer and listener counts.
One fix. A finding rated down no longer changes the date a topic gives search engines, since no page shows that
finding.