/lit/ - Literature

Could always pull out an ad. We could also host a book club once every week or two. Some long reads such as something like les mes spread out over the course of the year with shorter or lighter books for a few weeks after each one . Such as “on the shortness of life” or “on the happy life” by Seneca. This Is so people dont get burned out on nothing but heavy or long reads. With no break in between.

who cares. spend more itme reading or talking to actual friends

>>14946

>How do we make this board more active?

We don't. Even if we make more people aware of the board by means of shilling or winning the attention hungry games, it's not gonna make more people actually read the books. Most people don't read and when you consider that even /mu/ is dead, a board that you think would be much more mainstream, what chance does /lit/ have.

I am open to suggestions, and will post my thoughts on this matter later. For now: stickied.

>>14954

this

>most people don't read

>most people lie about their reading or their tastes on the internet

>most people don't use b8chan

we are suppliers in a market with no demand and no potential customer base

>>14958

This board seems pretty average for a non-pol oriented on this site.

Not much anyone can do. 8chan is barely popular compared to 4 and it also tends to splinter interest groups by having laser accurate boards like for instance History and Philosophy. Reading is also too much of a time sink that anyone invested in it would probably read more rather than post here.

Or we can start book review threads, even if it just gets a couple of replies, it'd at least be helping someone to discover a new book or not waste their time with it.

>>14967

>book review threads

we already have the sticky "last book you read" though

I think that we should firstly reduce the amount of threads so discussion will be concentrated on a small amount of threads as opposed to it being dispersed.

A reminder that just like the aforementioned /mu/, /lit/ actually was rather active at one point. Analyze what we had then that we don't have now.

>>14967

>8chan is barely popular compared to 4

that's the appeal

Alacrity daemon fscking things up "bump"

>>14950

>We could also host a book club once every week or two.

I second this idea. A lot of people lurkers would likely hop onto this and could finally get into all the books they've been wanting to read but could never figure out which to read first.

Migrate.

Nothing against BO or this board but Jim's pig farm holds no other path before it other than death, Endchan and Lynx boards were aborted prematurely, and new non Lynx one's are dead as well with no valuable discussion or promise of investment from the admins and site owners.

Basically nothing until death.

>>14984

>Migrate

nigger, there's nothing after 8ch. Nothing.

>>14946

Best way is to consistently post, even if its only you, it'll grow

>>14950

I like this too

>>14969

>let's delete threads and herd users like cattle into pre-designated pens

I invite you to kill yourself at your earliest convenience.

You could stop thinking you are above other website users lol

>>14988

was your first chan cuckchan?

>>15024

>cuckchan

>not reddit

>>15023

kys

>>15024

>implying your wasn't

>>15024

Behold! The legendary SA -> 77chan express migrator!

>>15034

kek

>>14956

Well, how about it?

>>15052

Everyone interested had their say. It's time.

>>14967

>>14968

Yes, a big point to the "What have your read?" threads. No one was looking for a right and proper NYT book review (or beat-down). Just a few comments on what people were actually reading made my day.

On that note, I'm planning to un-sticky the oldest thread: >>8441 so save a copy if you wish. The modern cyclic thread will remain stickied.

>>14950

>>14979

>>14967

>Reading is also too much of a time sink that anyone invested in it would probably read more rather than post here.

I'm willing to sticky such a book club thread.

Fair warning, I am not good book club membership material. Being most jealous of my reading time, plus an eclectic list of works vying for my attention, makes me an automatic washout. I also have a strong distaste for present day topical, a problem with real world book chat clubs. I doubt anyone will submit anything interesting enough to pull me away from my present readings: The Washington Pay-off and a biography of Cleopatra.

>>14960

We seem to do OK all things considered. Our board was busier in the past, I admit.

Thoughts.

A long while back I watched someone launch an alternative /tg/ board. They added some rules, and then some more. The board changed hands with a grandiose mod who added yet more rules. I tried to point out what was needed were users, not rules. "Oh hell no! We take our cues from 4Chan! Can't have quests, etc." Last time I checked, some of my years-old comments were still visible from page one, the very stuff of dead boards.

From the beginning, when I first cooked up a scheme to team up with another person and "take over" 8Chan's /lit/ board, I leaned hard on one issue. English literary majors are a tiny minority of any image-board's user base. I wanted this place to be free of elitism. That was the only moditorial decision I can point to as having a demonstratively positive effect on keeping us viable. Aught else seems to have been vanity, window dressing, or dull administrative routine.

As I understand it, the model of success for an image-board goes something like this: visual artists create, and people jump in. No, that doesn't cover everything. Without content creators of some sort, what else do we have? /pdfs/ is one example of a functionally useful board without content creators. I've praised them for "getting it" by striving to be less exclusive, to be less stereotypical /pol/. At least, they are trying, although most of their content remains ammunition for fighting cultural wars. Good stuff, if that's what gets you jumping.

We live in an age of variety through specialization. Between Discord groups, fan-fiction sites, and semi-professional writing forums not much is left for an old-style bulletin board. How do we compete with that? Trying to scrape users away from other boards is pointless. As far as I can tell, our traffic is made mainly of people who stop by as an amusing alternative to their regular activities across 8Chan. Everyone who wants to be here is here.

There is only one site I know of capturing the idea people seem to hold as an image-board literary scene hybrid. The fluffybooru is a bizarre bio-punk themed site were the writers and artists coexist, and regularly play off each other. An image-board ought to be enough to support something like similar. Luring in content creators is, though, not a trivial exercise.

>>15056

>Everyone who wants to be here is here

er, no. When I wanted to find the board about literature I didn't even know where to look, it took me some time to stumble upon /lit/.

>>15074

reddit refugee?

>>15127

no, from your mom's room

>>15056

I think you're wrong about /lit/. The board is a ghost town for two reasons.

One, people have a bad taste in their mouths from books they were forced into reading in high school. I read a couple books in high school that I liked, but was also forced to read boring books that even the teacher called socialist propaganda. The jungle by Sinclare is the best example. The books I liked only gave me moderate enjoyment, so with the horrible books I was forced to read I was turned away. Never in my life did a teacher recommend me Robert Howard, HPL, or Tolkien. They instead recommend me the hunger games. I think what would solve /lit/s first issue is having a good recommendation thread. Books take a lot of time compared to other media, and a couple of poor recommendation and turn people from books. I think 8chan anons could give good recommendations to each other.

Two, Nobody knows /lit/ exist at this point. Even if an anon from 8chan reads a book he isn't going to come here to talk about it or get a recommendation on it. I almost forgot the board was a thing. It's never name dropped on any other boards at this point. I helped keep /polk/ alive for some time, and name dropping it on other boards important. Even though the board was listed 3rd for a week almost a month latter everyone forgot about the board. I think /lit/ should have forty unique ips a day instead of ten it has now. People will come to /lit/ only if they know about it. Right now no one is name dropping the board and it's off the top 50, so it's dying a low death. Posters slowly stop going on image boards and /lit/ gets no new posters. Then the board looses so many posters that the poster who use to go to the board stop, since all activity has dried up. /lit/ can be saved from this, but action needs to happen now.

Some other things that can be done to help the board.

Knock it down to ten pages. It's nice to be able to look at old threads, but what happens is someone is looking at them and then decides to post in it. The old dead thread, which all the posters have seen and already had enough of, is bounced to the front page. It kicks a new thread off the front page. Wen posters see month old threads on the front page that they have already seen many times they stop going to the board. They have already posted all they wanted in it months ago. The one guys post is never that interesting. When this happens multiple times it strangles the board. If you want to make /lit/ a better board delete the last fifteen pages. Ten is plently for a board like this. /polk/ would get clogged up dead nonsense all the time, due backups being uploaded or something, and every time I convince the BO to nuke that old shit the board did better.

Make a recommendation thread if their isn't one. I haven't read enough to be much help on it.

>>15139

She's literally a refugee who uses reddit.

>>15793

>One, people have a bad taste in their mouths from books they were forced into reading in high school. I read a couple books in high school that I liked, but was also forced to read boring books that even the teacher called socialist propaganda. The jungle by Sinclare is the best example. The books I liked only gave me moderate enjoyment, so with the horrible books I was forced to read I was turned away. Never in my life did a teacher recommend me Robert Howard, HPL, or Tolkien. They instead recommend me the hunger games. I think what would solve /lit/s first issue is having a good recommendation thread. Books take a lot of time compared to other media, and a couple of poor recommendation and turn people from books. I think 8chan anons could give good recommendations to each other.

I second this. When I think about American/English literature I think of very bland shit that tries really hard to be preachy about a theme and ends up worse than it was already because of it. I checked here because I read a nice Japanese LN though that often falls under >>>/animu/ because of the illustrations.

>>15793

>I think you're wrong about /lit/.

Perhaps.

Imagine students were forced to analyze Tretris to death as their only route to becoming gamers. I suppose most of us would flee into the warm embrace of structural equation modeling, loudly proclaiming our joy of escape from such tedium (STEM advocates, take note!).

Oral story telling gave way to poetry written, and poetry to novels of fiction as the choice form of mass entertainment. The poets complained, but who ever listens to poets? Theater strove to remain a contender, nipping at the pulp writer's heel. Then came the next parvenu spectacle, novels competing for attention with film. For more than seventy years novelists have suffered with a shrinking pool of readers.

I hail from a generation who grew up both pre-internet, and pre-personal computer. The last time I discussed books with a colleague at work, he spoke fondly of his shelf full of Star Wars works. Yet, the conversation quickly shifted to deeper online pursuits. League of Whatever, Whenever, guild nights a go-go, etc. He was raised to become a devoted reader, but has not touched a book in ten years. Same story for others. Multiple times over.

/lit/ is not in competition with misguided educators.

Recommendation lists are not wrong, per se, but I don't see their value as motivational. Image boards are awash in comprehensive picture mosaic guides, be they literary elitist, or /pol/ist, or plain pulp. If anything, for my own authoritative guides, I rely most on published writer commentaries, interviews, and essays to lead me to my next read.

Most distantly, I finished a compilation of novels by William Dean Howells. More recently, I read The Pistol. Presently, a biography of James Jones. Next, I will tackle From Here to Eternity.

No image-board recommendations are there to lead me along that path.

Finally, I am not devouring books as much as I used to. What modern distraction competes for my reading attention? Writing. A tale of tail, shall we say? A narrative strange, "full of rape and adverbs." My efforts have been enlightening, the process more than sufficiently entertaining and, as yet, there is still a market for written erotica. Perhaps.

I am no longer able to guess with any confidence what our /lit/ board needs to thrive. Nor for the greater /lit/ chanscape to survive. From here, I sail off into the sunset with an authorial misquote as the summing up of my wisdom: I am dedicated to bad writing.

>>15816

I'm iffy on recommendation lists too. They're on /v/ because there used to be no shortage of

>what should I play /v/?

type of threads. Those types of people are motivated to play to begin with, and wanted to find something.

In the worst case, there'll be a board culture of drones who unquestionably concur on the quality of a game, or habitually namedrop a game without being able to say why they like it beyond some shallow reason. But it's not something that occurs on 8chan, so I'm not very concerned.

>writing

I think the idea of writing being an efficient and effective way to get across a story, world, and characters can appeal to anons (without being a game programmer and making a game, or without being an illustrator and drawing manga/comics). There's already a writefag thread though.

If there's a concern about having an idea or story reuploaded and stolen by some fag on discord/tumblr/medium/archiveofourown, there's probably some method like PGP or RSA or whatever to sign a file.

>>15796

I would recommend that you try some early 1900s novella or short stories. They wouldn't take long to read, and I've noticed that western media being very preachy is a newer thing.

>>15816

It's obvious that you have been reading for pleasure for a really long time, and it makes perfect sense for you to not see the benefit of recommendation. You know enough authors and works to know what you want to read next. If you didn't know them and what you like to read you would you would be lost.

It doesn't matter if shows ,and video games have come to replace ready, since we have the Internet. When I was in high school I did meet young people who still read for pleasure, but they were not primary reading western works. They were reading light novels. I think a decent amount of people on 8chan read light novels, reading is reading, so I see no reason why they wouldn't like Conan. I'm not talking about manga.

Theirs no reason to give up on the thought of reading as a pass time for people. The average person might not read, but that should only make reading better. As a medium it is solid, and it will always be the second easiest medium to break into as a story teller. The first being a verbal story teller.

>>15817

I find it funny that almost everyone on this site hates every form of new western entrainment, but no one ever even thinks to write a short story. I wrote one awhile ago, so I can say this without being hypocritical. In a month, after I read more, I plan on actually working on my writing skills, so that I'm not just a consumer.

>>15818

>I wrote one awhile ago, so I can say this without being hypocritical. In a month, after I read more, I plan on actually working on my writing skills, so that I'm not just a consumer.

Are you the faggot with the 30K+ word fanfiction of some 90s hentai?

>>15819

It was about a guy who woke up with a head injury, so no thats not me.

Is anyone else sick of looking at threads opened with a wojak edit picture?

>>15909

>They weren't all that interesting to begin with but what can one do? Them's western imgageboard culture, such as it is.

No, it's halfchan garbage.