Intrepid goat VoatSearch (a/k/a SearchVoat) posts voat comment and content stats regularly.
I was curious if there was any significant content drop-off in the days since voat came back online and I can tell you voat is steadily declining at a consistent rate.
I wanted a good baseline so I looked at the stats of the five weeks' worth of posts before the blackout. Each week enjoyed an average of 1,700 posts a day (some up to and above 2,000 posts).
Week ending on...
All was not well.
On April 27 PuttItOut commented like a right prick to /u/chmod here and here and subsequently lost the faith of many users who were already nervous about the state of voat. Many users said their goodbyes on voat and stopped posting.
Here we see undeniable evidence of the decline with the week ending April 29
/u/Owlchemy I saw a comment of yours here on Phuks where you wondered how many users have left. Judging by the content I'd say many. And I doubt they'll be returning.
I'm still trying to figure it out. Is it nefarious, dark forces behind it, is Putt the only one trying some (to his thinking) strange plan to accomplish ???, or is he suffering from a narcissistic "Nobody can do this but me" grandiose? I applaud what he and Atko started and accomplished, truly a beacon in the ugly, censored, liberal cesspool of a good portion of the internet and society. But it obviously has gotten out of hand and more than just one person can maintain. Now I feel like he's showing disdain and contempt not just to the corrosive users, but to the very users who freely give content, which is the crux and livelihood of the site. It's true that while you have place where you can say it, do you need to say it? I don't mean conflicting views on politics and society, I'm thinking more about the juvenilistic, sophomoric posts of some users who just post garbage to feel edgy and the schoolyard antics of groups throwing crap at each other to assert their alphaness. I would miss the good parts of actual discussion and views on current events but the pendulum has started to swing too far.
I'm still confused and decidedly have no answers. It will all work out one way or another. For now, I'll just watch.