It won't help with Google seeing it as duplicate content, which won't help with our SEO. Also, it isn't really an archive of this site. It was not created here, but elsewhere. Its an archive of that other site, and says so on every item. And its not an up to date archive of that other site. So what is its function, really? It's never going to outrank the other place in search results, so its not going to generate traffic here.

Really, what it represents is a body of work for the people who created it. Which is bully for us, but beyond that, I don't see the value. I have my archive of my post on the other place and will rework some of them into blogpost maybe someday. To thrive, this place needs to be a better place to ask new questions. And we know that the same basic questions get asked over and over again anyway, so its not like we will be desperately short of coverage for long, if we can spark interest again.

A new place, without all the stale old answers of a decade past might actually be a more attractive proposition than a branch of the old thing. Everyone love the next great app, right? If we can find a way to make it new.

@MarkBaker, are you suggesting we delete the imports (if we haven't improved them; I know some have been edited)? Not opposed, just asking for clarification.

I think so. It's a mausoleum here. And the old imported content is getting few votes (I just checked mine). But its the SEO issue with copied content that concerns me most. https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/duplicate-content-problems/ "Do NOT expect to rank high in Google with content found on other, more trusted sites."

Subject to correction, I believe that people come here two ways. 1. They come here directly to ask a new question, without searching for an old one. 2. They Google a question and are directed here by the search results. But the search results are not likely to point to the content copied here from the other place, per the above. So what good is the old content doing us? Finally, we are providing thousands of back links to the other place, which, if anything, helps them and harms us.

Plus, what Olin Lathrop said about the message the copied content sends when people do find it. I'll admit I came here because I felt like I got my content back. But as writers we have to learn to see it from the public's POV. Why trust this place when it is so obviously a copy of the other place. We are leading people to the other place, not away from it.

@MarkBaker I agree with that assessment, but had previously perceived you to oppose deleting imported content. Thanks for clearing that up. Speaking for myself, I do have a few imported posts that I went on to improve, and I want to give them a new life here, but since I've claimed them they no longer provide back-pointers or are exact copies. So I think we could do this in stages -- delete imported unclaimed unimproved stuff in any case, and separately decide about the rest.

Not so much opposed as acknowledging that the import play a part in attracting some of the old contributors over here, including me. But they are here now, if we haven't lost them all again. And the arguments against keeping the imported content seem compelling to me. A staged approach makes sense. Personally I won't be updating any of my content here. If I rework anything it will be for my blog.

Some thought should probably go into the content of the 404 page for the questions section, though, in case we do get any search hits on the content that is removed.