/lit/ - Literature

>>23130718
>>23131245
>the literary fervor that peaked here around COVID time has petered out
Pic related. We're well below the pre-2020 traffic at this point, and it's been steadily declining since 2021. Traffic doesn't necessarily quality posting, of course. A slower board means less instant gratification, which might push the barrier up for post quality, but a declining population probably isn't a good sign in itself (since it means some incentive brought people here and it's being going away; having had more people here would have meant more instant gratification discourse, pushing away good posters, meaning an exodus of low quality posters is less likely to leave behind a higher quality stratum or something appealing to new, good users).

The more up-to-date stats from 4stats.io show an approximate plateau from the first third of 2023.

>>22820529
>>22820594
>>22820663
I think a comparison with /mu/ is best since they're conceptually similar and have numbers on the same scale. They both show similar peaks between 2020 and 2021 with declines following (and there are more similarities than that: jaggies in the middle of 2021, early 2022).

>>22820619
Yup, it was exactly that. I saw the spike while checking the numbers a while ago and went into the archives to check it out. Plus it's obvious from the dates anyway.

>>22824015
This. I think there's an inevitable exodus for a lot of people once they reach a certain level of knowledge about a subject. Once you're above the general level of a creative board, it's no longer as stimulating to stick around. It's going to be subject-dependent, but that seemed to be a pattern on /fa/ especially: once you know how you want to dress, you no longer need to ask anyone about it. Unless you have very high-level and/or niche subjects being discussed, there's no reason to stick around. (Those subjects do appear, but if they aren't common enough then you'll have intellectual bleeding.)

>>22825983
The current culture of &amp+Unreal+etc. is obviously exceptionally shitty, but (genuine) collaborative projects, writing critique, and mutual readership are a good reason for high-effort/high-knowledge anons to stick around. There was a thread up briefly last night complaining that /lit/ pales compared to what /mu/ pulls off: actual albums. I think the OP was a little short-sighted and ignored the old /lit/ collabs, but I think there's still a key distinction in quality between /lit/ and /mu/ projects, so I'll quote myself:
>/mu/ projects have the advantage of requiring some bare minimum skill (playing an instrument) to contribute, as opposed to /lit/ projects which are open to every barely literate poster.
>It's also easy to listen to an album, even a shitty one as background music, and it's maybe 35 minutes of your life, compared to having to sit down and dedicate yourself to reading somebody else's slop.
>Still not terrific excuses, but at least there's some really good stuff on rare occasions.

The thread was a dud, but it's here anyway:
warosu.org/lit/thread/22823066

>>22788079
>>22788084
Yeah, you can't capture quality of discussion with one of these charts.