I just found that there's an attempt to revive Literature. As a follower and temp mod of the last attempt, I'm curious as to how this go around will be treated differently. The old one started off decently, but eventually slid into obscurity and fell silent. There are current sites that overlap, such as SciFi and Anime and Manga. How will Literature stand out from these?
Please see this thread discussing how the old site died.
Judging from what I've read about the failure of the previous Literature site - e.g. Why did Literature fail? - it seems that many of the problems there were due to either an unclear understanding of site scope, or an overabundance of questions which were on-topic and really shouldn't have been (e.g. recommendation questions). This time, let's be more proactive both about deciding on a clear scope and about shutting out questions that will be bad for the site. I plan to start several different scope-related meta threads as soon as private beta starts.
The previous incarnation of Literature was, what, 4, 5, years ago? In that time, sites such as Science Fiction and Fantasy, Movies & TV, and Anime & Manga have grown to maturity. We can now see what a successful site based on analysis of fictional works (rather than programming, mathematics, etc.) actually looks like. Many of the followers and committers of the Literature proposal are already active on those sites. I'm a mod at SFF; you're a former mod at M&TV; let's bring our experience to the table and help to make Literature great!
As Hamlet mentions in his answer, Stack Exchange has changed its policies on closing beta sites since the previous incarnation of Literature. This time round, even if things don't go as well as I hope and the site isn't terribly active to begin with, we should be able to get the space and time we need to find our feet, fix our scope, and expand.
Paraphrasing from my answer to the question How can we make this literature proposal succeed when other literature proposals have failed:
My goals for the new literature site is for it to focus more on literary analysis questions (i.e. questions about actual literature) and less on book recommendation questions. I think questions about literary analysis can work: the Mythology Stack Exchange has asked and answered several literary analysis questions successfully. For example:
From what I understand, the problem with the old literature site was that the questions asked weren't actually focused questions about specific works of literature, but questions about book recommendations. I think that's something that should be easy to avoid in the beta.
I don't want to imply that the only questions that should be allowed on the upcoming Literature Stack Exchange are literary analysis questions: I think there is also room for questions about basic plot points, questions about the biography of authors, etc. But I think that questions such as book recommendation questions (i.e. shopping list questions) should be firmly off topic.
It's worth remembering that the old literature site was closed when Stack Exchange policies about beta sites were drastically different than they are today. Even if we followed the same policies as the last literature site, I think it's unlikely that it would be closed today.
