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When a beta SE gets closed, a data dump can be downloaded for a few days right after, then it's not possible to have access to the dump. It's annoying for several reasons:

  • People who took part in the beta SE might want their data back and might miss the time window where they could download the dump;
  • People who didn't take part in it could still be interested to read some Q&A on the site's topic;
  • New beta SEs that have some overlapping interest with the closed SE could benefit from having access to the Q&A (understanding why it closed, what pitfalls they should avoid, and potentially copy the most interesting Q&A instead of starting from scratch);
  • As a general principle, it's not great to remove user content.

I propose to add a link on each closed SE website's Area 51 page (e.g. Big Data ; Artificial Intelligence) to retrieve the dump.

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This is already done. Closed proposals on Area51 are given a download link to the datadump.

At the top of the Artificial Intelligence Area51 page you see this banner:

The AI site didn't have enough activity during the beta, and has been closed. You can download the data dump of all questions here.

You can see this on other long-closed proposals too.

Big Data is the exception here; I don't know why it doesn't have a data dump, perhaps it just had not generated enough data in it's mere 13 days of existence. Perhaps the missing banner is an oversight.

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  • Thanks, I guess I got unlucky to run across Big Data first (and ironic that it didn't generate enough data).
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 18:25
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    What a strange coincedende that Big Data didn't generate enough data...
    – rene Mod
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 18:25

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