Importers aren't being maintained

[Presskopp]

There's some discussion about the Tools Menu, like in #46458, #46745 or #47012 etc.

I say the Tools > Import screen is deprecated. We find here some old, not maintained and sometimes even unusable Tools. This needs a cleanup.

Blogger (Blogger Importer) Version: 0.9:
Last Updated: 2 years ago / Active Installations: 100,000+

Blogroll (OPML Importer) Version: 0.2:
Last Updated: 10 months ago / Active Installations: 20,000+

Categories and Tags Converter (Categories to Tags Converter) Version: 0.5:
Last Updated: 5 years ago / Active Installations: 80,000+

LiveJournal (LiveJournal Importer) Version: 0.5:
Last Updated: 5 years ago / Active Installations: 10,000+

Movable Type and TypePad (Movable Type and TypePad Importer) Version: 0.4:
Last Updated: 3 years ago / Active Installations: 60,000+

RSS (RSS Importer) Version: 0.2:
Last Updated: 10 months ago / Active Installations: 50,000+

Tumblr (Tumblr Importer) Version: 0.8:
Last Updated: 1 year ago / Active Installations: 20,000+

WordPress (WordPress Importer) Version: 0.6.4:
Last Updated: 5 days ago / Active Installations: 4+ Million

[johnbillion]

What's the intention of this ticket?

[Presskopp]

@johnbillion

I just think it's not good as it is now because it leads to some tools which doesn't work.

I don't know the solution. Either to drop the unmaintained tools from there or start maintaining them or build the whole Adminbar new.. !?

[ambrosiawt]

I would be happy to look at each individual importer and assess the actual status (working/non-working). I know the WordPress importer is still considered the goto route for moving site content from WP to WP for a lot of people. The usefulness of the other importers may or may not be indicated by the number of active installs but I suspect some of them could still be considered valuable. But I would tend to agree that an importer that has not been updated in 5 years potentially might fail when used simply because of all of the changes in WordPress in that time.

Let me know.

[Presskopp]

I posted the numbers only for reference.

Let's take LiveJournal Importer as an example. Clicking on it, you will see the repelling message
This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress...

Looking at the support forum it gets worse:
Unanswered support questions, last two 1(almost 2) and more than 5 years old!!

Not a good advertising!

[ambrosiawt]

Indeed, I don't disagree with your concern here, I'm just suggesting a structered approach to assess and determine the best path forward. That could lead to a recommendation to drop some of the import plugins, but it could also identify opportunities for improvements to some. Clearly if there are support questions going without any response, that should be addressed by removing the importer or finding a new owner.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: ​#meta5550

[dd32]

See also: #22976 & #56685

Combined with ​#meta5550 and some commitment from others to perform some importer maintenance, we might be able to close this ticket.