I don’t ever expect that people who consider getting an [rmfo-blog] are new to Weblogging [although some are, and that's cool that this is their first experience]. So, I often get questions about importing content from old Weblogs into an [rmfo-blog]. Best as I can, here are answers for that:
Q: I use Blog*spot. Can I import my old entries and comments?
A: Entries, absolutely. Comments is another story; while Google/Blogger has recently started to provide commenting native to the Blogger system [and, by extension, on Blog*spot blogs], this hasn’t always been the case. If you’ve been using a third-party comments provider [YACCS, RateYourMusic, etc.], no … your comments can’t be imported without doing it by hand. [That's a pain, and I don't expect anyone to be interested in that.] I have read that comments provided directly from Blogger, however, can be imported [although I haven't done that].
Additionally, Justin of justinsomnia.org has a highly detailed synopsis of how to move from Blogger to WordPress. I’m happy to assist people making these transitions.
Q: I use LiveJournal. Can I import my old entries and comments?
A: Entries, yes. Comments, … not really. There are a couple very experimental methods of doing that, but I haven’t seen them be very successful.
Q: I use Xanga. Can I import my old entries and comments?
A: Entries, yes, although it’s a pain. There’s no way at present to get Xanga to give you a dump of your data, so you have to import them either by hand [which is a pain] or by using an RSS importer … which means that you have to delete entries from Xanga in batches, which scares lots of people [and understandably so].
Q: I don’t want to lose my LiveJournal / Xanga users … any way to keep them in touch?
A: Plugins exist to cross-post to both LiveJournal and Xanga; I’ll help you set those up.
Q: I’ve never used WordPress. Do I have to install it?
A: Nope. I do the installation for you, and I also maintain it by keeping up with the latest releases. Why do I take this on? Chances are that I know more about WordPress than you do, and I’d rather do it than have to fix someone else’s screwups. [Trust me, I've made plenty of WordPress screwups myself!] By the time I get around to upgrading [rmfo-blogs.com], I’ve worked up a sure-and-certain upgrade path, and it’s better to just let me go at it.