I don’t read your footnotes

The other day, someone said something like the following to me.

I read your ’blog, but I don’t read the footnotes.

I have three responses to that statement.

1. They are endnotes, not footnotes [1,3].

2. I find that choice strange, since the endnote section, or the interaction between the primary text and the endnotes, is probably the best part of my writing.

3. You do know that I provide easy-to-follow links, don’t you [4,5]?

Of course, it is up to my readers how you read. But please use the correct name for the endnotes [6].

[1] If you print the site, they appear at the end of each musing, not at the bottom of each page [2]. That makes them endnotes not footnotes.

[2] They appear on the last page of a multipage musing. The appear in the middle of a page when I write short musings like this one and print multiple short musings on one page.

[3] Counter-argument: It’s a Web page. They appear in the footer of the Web page. They are therefore footnotes.

[4] Yes, I know that some readers read the whole text and then the footnotes. I still don’t quite understand how that works.

[5] I even spent some of my precious coding time making those links auto-generate.

[6] You may also call them end notes if you prefer.

Drafted 2017-07-22. Released 2017-07-23.

Version 1.1 of 2017-07-22.