None of those series are a good jumping on point for new readers.
*****

You are right, Matthew, they wouldn't be, because they happened, in some cases, years ago. They aren't the current book or current story. I totally agree they you want people to want to know more, and eventually they will.  And it seems we agree that you can give them a small bit to get them started and "jump on", which I think we the original point back there.  Then, I think you can just feed them what they need to know as they need to know it. But there would be no reason to have to explain Sins Past, The Other, the Spider-Totem or even the Green Goblin's death & rebirth and so on in order for a new reader to jump onto One More Day.  Heck, you really don't need to explain One More Day to a new reader who decided to jump onto Brand New Day.

It seems like the ony people who need full explanations are those of us who have been reading comics for years, maybe read Spidey at one time or another, dropped out, and then are readon on the forums about something going on and demand an update on everything that has happened in the last twenty years.

Addendum: One of the most often leveled complaints about my run on
WONDER WOMAN was "too much exposition!" Readers wrote in to complain
that "we already know all this! Get on with the story!"

This pointed up two things -- how small and insular the WW readership was,
and how "clubbish" comics have really become. And many of the club
members who are already there really don't want anything to help new
members find their way.

I appreciated the exposition for WW because I had never bought a WW book before your run.  The same went for most DC books before you started working there.  It was nice not to be lost, or have to go buy a bunch of previous back issues.

Pleased to see this thread back on-topic.

I'm still on the fence about these changes, and wonder what the ultimate result will be.

However, the devil lurking in my subconscious is laughing right now. For a few years, people who wanted a married Spider-Man have said, "If you want to read about a young, single Spider-Man, just buy Ultimate Spider-Man or Marvel Adventures Spider-Man!", as if those are good substitutes for the real thing.

Well, now that the marriage has been undone, that little devil of mine is temped to shout, "If you want to read about a married Spider-Man, go buy a newspaper!".

I wonder if that would help to make an argument for trades reprinting the newspaper strip? I'd like to see those...

The "jumping-on point" argument is probably why Marvel publishes their titles with that glossy black opening page, recapping previous events in the storyline. It's an extremely poor alternative to good storytelling, but it does demonstrate some awareness on their part of the problem. Sadly, having "fixed" it now, I don't think they're going to do anything more about it.