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.