I get this is probably some new proprietary forum program, so migrating the old forum might not be as easy as you’d think, but come on, that forum has been around since VX Ace dropped! Regardless of what users do to archive it, unless you’re in that circle most newcomers won’t be able to see the past 14 years of stuff.
The only way the archive can be worth something is for that to be indexable by popular searchers, so the accumulated knowledge is readily available for everyone (although the quality of searchers is in decline, see Google’s thing).
That or it needs to be in the frontline for everyone, always reminding people about it’s existence somehow. To become second nature to be looked upon.
I think in most cases however, it’ll be a bit weird. Not as natural as searching your question, falling on an old thread where someone had a similar issue to you, and knowing that in that same website you just found you’ll find not only similar answers but also people that are active and able to help you.
In that regard, the damage is done and it’s kind of irreversible. 
2 Likes