Today, another imported question popped up. I didn't notice it was imported right away, and ended up wasting time on it. OK, that's on me. It is properly marked as imported. It's my fault for not noticing it among the clutter.

However, importing content, especially content that requires attribution, is damaging the site. Let's stop doing that.

Early on, it seemed like importing content was a way to get a site going. I can see how that might have sounded reasonable at the time. However, now we have the advantage of hindsight, and it's becoming more clear that imported content hurts sites.

Of the 10 current non-meta sites, the three that heavily imported content (Writing, Outdoors, Scientific Speculation) are in the bottom 4 of site activity. All three are nearly dead. Folks over at Writing are actually considering deleting some imported content.

Imported content sends the wrong message to users who happen to land here for whatever reason:

1. We are trying to cover up that there is nothing going on here.
2. You're in the wrong place. All the real content is Over There.
3. Answering a question here is a waste of time since the asker won't see it. This is not where they asked, and not where they will be looking for answers.
4. In case you don't know about Over There already, it's definitely a place you should check out. That's the actual source of what you see here anyway.

There is also an issue with search engines. Apparently (what I've heard, I'm no expert on this) search engines identify duplicate content, and downgrade sites that host copies. This means lots of duplicate content actively prevents people from bumping into this site when doing searches.

I'm not saying at this point that we should delete existing imported content, but it would be good to at least flush it off the front page. However, we should certainly refrain from importing any new content. We're at the bottom of a hole. Let's at least stop digging!

If you wrote something elsewhere you'd like to bring over here, do it sparingly and take the opportunity to make it better than Over There.

If you wrote a nice answer, rephrase the question in your own words. Since you know the answer, you should be able to ask more clearly and directly than the original poster. You also have the advantage of knowing what is relevant and what isn't. Now post that as your own question here.

Then start with your answer, and go over it again. I've done this a few times, and have always found something to say better, present more clearly, fix a typo, etc.

If you do this, then there is no need for any attribution since it's all your own content. That avoids warning banners and links inviting people to competing sites.

posted over 3 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Olin Lathrop‭

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