Is there something we can do against "Ask this on xyz.SE" comments?

Question

TL;DR: Can we do something against comments of the "ask on $othersite" kind?

Every once in a while – probably at least a couple of times a week – we get questions on Super User that were cross-posted from Stack Overflow. The main reason why this happens is:

• New user posts off-topic question on Stack Overflow
• Another user tells them that their question "belongs on superuser" (sic), or that they "should ask on ask ubuntu", et cetera
• The OP doesn't know that migration votes are already trickling in, and cross-posts their question

Now, what we on Super User have to do is:

• Be suspicious for every single question that could have been cross-posted from another site *
• Check out the user's Stack Overflow profile, and find the original question
• Add a comment warning others not to migrate the post since it's already been cross-posted
• Flag the question so it gets deleted on Stack Overflow
• Reply to the user(s) who told the OP to ask elsewhere that this is not encouraged
• Hope that they (and others) read it

Want an example? See here: Lat -long to x-y

• Not a programming question - better suited to Super User – _{brettdj Jun 27 at 7:44}
• Do not migrate this to Super User. The user has already cross posted. – _{slhck Jun 27 at 11:35}
• @brettdj In the future, please don't post these kinds of comments. Tell users how a question can be migrated, or just let it be and vote to close. There's really no point in telling them to ask elsewhere. This will only lead to cross-posting and confusion. Thanks. – _{slhck Jun 27 at 11:36}
• I am sorry, I am new to this world and hence all the confusion. I usually try reading everything up to avoid all this, but this somehow failed this time! – _{Maddy Jun 27 at 12:33}

It should be noted that this involved a user with 11k reputation, who probably should know better than sending users around and obviously causing confusion.

Here's another example, and here's another one which involves a user with 338,811 reputation. No kidding, 338k. Here's one that went the other way round. Wait… want more?. Here's another 11k one.

---

If you are somewhat active on Stack Overflow or other sites where crossposted questions land, then you will know that these are not single incidents — it happens all the time, and it seems some Stack Overflow users, even the high reputation ones, do not know how much moderation overhead they cause with such a simple (and unnecessary) comment.

The main problems I have with these situations are:

• High reputation users don't seem to know how the sites work or how much trouble they cause
• The users who posted the question end up being sorry for their mistake – but how could they have known? They were told to, right?

So, what can we do against that?

_{* Although we can be thankful that some users explcitly say "A moderator on Stack Overflow told me to ask here" – yes, this really happened. More than once.}

Answer 1

Perhaps something similar could be done to inform the user that an action is pending, in the same way that we do for VTC duplicates.

For VTC duplicates, we auto add a comment saying that the question is a possible duplicate, and so the OP and visitors can see for themselves whether the dupe is valid.

Close votes, including migration votes are (I believe) invisible to low rep users (those most likely to trigger migrations) and so there is no indication that a migration vote is underway.

My suggestion is that an auto comment is added when there is a VTC migration, "Voted to migrate to superuser.com - read more" and the "read more" is a link to a relevant FAQ entry that explains the migration process.

This will allow the OP to know

1. That a migration vote is underway to a potentially better site
2. Not to do anything such as cross posting

And perhaps an increased effort by everyone else to not post "Better suited to $site" type comments, and everyone else to flag such comments for deletion.

Answer 2

I see two conditions adding to the problem:

• We have to "close" a question if we want it to be migrated. I detest to press "close" for a good question that would be a better fit for some other SE site.

• Low-rep users don't get to see what's going on. I think it's ok they don't see close votes in the making, but they should definitely see "migrate" votes. But wait - those are "close" votes on SO. Catch 22.

Basically, we need to separate the close votes ("Question is no good!") from migrate votes ("There is a better place for this good / ok question").

Answer 3

I like @Paul's idea, but here's an idea that could be implemented possibly along side it or depending on the context. When at least one close vote has been cast on a question, then any comment containing the name or url of any other SE site could cause a notification box to show up below the comment entry field containing copy roughly equivalent to the comments you've been posting to individual users. Something like:

Thinking about telling the question asker that this belongs on [site-mentioned]? Don't do that! Instead, vote to close it. If you feel like leaving a comment, please also tell the OP that their question can be automatically moved there if the community decides to, and that they should not re-post it.

Answer 4

Building on @NicholBolas and @slhck's comments, would it be possible to just build a duplication-detection engine? That would solve this problem and many others. The key would be making it run in real-time or a fairly tight schedule (every hour or so), which means that more sophisticated algorithms would be out.

But given the amount of copy/paste that happens with a cross-post, even something like a chksum of the middle portion of the content (assuming they add a salutation and signature or something) should do it.

Answer 5

Can we do something against comments of the "ask on $othersite" kind?

Alternatively, we could ask if this is a problem worth solving.

You mention the amount of "moderation" that needs to happen. Well, what happens if this isn't done?

The OP asks the question on the other site. Then the original question gets migrated. One will be closed as a duplicate of the other.

Is this a serious problem? It seems to me that the amount of "moderation" required to stop the migration isn't worth it for something that could just be marked as a duplicate. And that's assuming it does get migrated.