Re: traffic, dang said (2022):
I took it as a good reminder that the hard part is the human part: that high-overhead features and UI fripperies are nice but not necessary (or sufficient) to keep a community healthy and vibrant over the decades.
(And on the subject of the human side, if you didn’t catch Anna Wiener’s 2019 profile, it’s here:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th... )
A lot of people out here designing their blogs like its 1989.
The most interesting number is the 1300 submissions because that hasn't grown since 2011 - it just fluctuates. Everything else has been growing more or less linearly for a long time, which is how we like it.
I find that surprising, as 2011-2022 covers an exponential rise in SEO spam and "growth hackers" attempting to drive traffic and links.
Or was 1,300 the number of non-flagged submissions?