Do we want to consider removing (most) mass-imported questions
This is based on a question in Writing about revitalising the community and is pretty much a blatant copy-paste of Monica's answer there.
Essentially, it's been suggested that we remove all mass-imported content, so we want to look at the feasibility of doing so here and to see if that's what people actually want.
Straight copies of content from Somewhere Else are almost certainly hurting and, in volume, can give a negative impression - we look like a copy of another site, and the new content here gets lost in that. On the other hand, some people have improved imported content, and we wouldn't want to throw that out.
I propose that we delete imported content that hasn't been touched here. Specifically:
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Posts that were imported, not claimed, and not edited: delete. For a question, these properties need to apply to the answers too.
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Posts that were imported, claimed, and not edited: compile a list, give authors time to improve if they want, and otherwise delete. (We can ask authors to go ahead and delete things they don't think are valuable enough to keep here.)
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Posts that were imported, claimed, not edited, but have at least 5 upvotes (I don't know if we have any of these): the votes indicate that the community found value in them, so compile a list for public review.
This review should leave us with a higher concentration of local, valuable content, and many fewer backlinks. After the dust settles, we can evaluate what remains in a second pass. And remember, anybody is welcome to re-ask and self-answer questions here -- just make sure you don't cut corners in the question. Alternatively, we could add articles in some form to our community if people prefer that approach -- resources, wiki, blog, or something else. These are all ideas that are being explored on some other Codidact communities.
The first step in this process is to calculate the numbers of posts which this would effect, then if people are happy to proceed, we would do as suggested above.
Update (thanks to @ArtOfCode): Of 48,961 total answers, 47,330 are imported, unclaimed, unedited and have no upvotes. If we want to go through with this, these would be the first to be deleted.
Hi, I'm new here. Well, new here specifically. I joined SE almost 9 years ago. I would rather hang out here than SE …
3y ago
Since voting on this discussion is currently unclear, I'm separating out each proposal from the question for voting, eac …
2y ago
The search engines see imported posts as duplicate content, and penalize us accordingly. Scientific-speculation.codidac …
4y ago
Since voting on this discussion is currently unclear, I'm separating out each proposal from the question for voting, eac …
2y ago
Since voting on this discussion is currently unclear, I'm separating out each proposal from the question for voting, eac …
2y ago
5 answers
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Since voting on this discussion is currently unclear, I'm separating out each proposal from the question for voting, each in its own answer:
Proposal 2
Posts that were imported, claimed, and not edited: compile a list, give authors time to improve if they want, and otherwise delete. (We can ask authors to go ahead and delete things they don't think are valuable enough to keep here.)
0 comment threads
Hi, I'm new here. Well, new here specifically. I joined SE almost 9 years ago.
I would rather hang out here than SE because the QPixel license is AGPLv3 and it seems we are in the process of formalizing self governance in a pretty robust way.
Back to this specific post...
As a user, I can't import just my questions from other sites, eh?
Although, if a question of mine has been bulk imported, then I can claim it? (If it hasn't been deleted.)
As of today, what is the plan or intent regarding importing content? I am getting the impression that it was done, but turned out to be a bad idea.
...That said, my content is my content, and I'd happily bring it here and curate it.
Technically, I don't need an import function for that. I've only asked so many questions, and only posted so many answers. I could recreate the good ones here easily (well, easily enough).
Would that be good for us?
Since voting on this discussion is currently unclear, I'm separating out each proposal from the question for voting, each in its own answer:
Proposal 1
Posts that were imported, not claimed, and not edited: delete. For a question, these properties need to apply to the answers too.
0 comment threads
The search engines see imported posts as duplicate content, and penalize us accordingly. Scientific-speculation.codidact.com is essentially black-listed, and some of that even seems to be spilling over to elsewhere in codidact.com.
It's time to get rid of this stuff. Let's not get caught in the sunk cost fallacy.
Here is how I suggest we go about it:
- Blow away all imported answers.
- Blow away all imported questions with no answers. (Imported answers were already removed in step 1).
- The remaining imported content are questions but with answers created here. These are likely very few in number. Move these questions to a new temporary "Imported" category.
- Give the users here some time (Two weeks? A month?) to look over the Imported category. If a user wants to "keep" any imported questions, they have to re-ask it natively here in their own words. Do not copy the question, but re-write it from the concept. Try to make it better than the original. The result must be written so that no attribution to elsewhere is required.
- After a suitable time, blow away the Imported category.
0 comment threads
Since voting on this discussion is currently unclear, I'm separating out each proposal from the question for voting, each in its own answer:
Proposal 3
Posts that were imported, claimed, not edited, but have at least 5 upvotes (I don't know if we have any of these): the votes indicate that the community found value in them, so compile a list for public review.
0 comment threads
2 comment threads